Porkbun has been on a nice growth spurt over the last couple years, they have become one of the more popular registrars. Back in July I took a look at Trustpilot and who are the companies with the highest ratings in the registrar space. Porkbun came in first place.
Today I am posting an interview with Ray King the founder of Porkbun. Ray has been in the domain industry a long time and has had a lot of success. Most people get back with a couple lines, Ray was kind enough to take a lot of time and give very detailed answers.
I hope you enjoy.
Q1) You have done a lot of different things in the domain industry from SnapNames to Top Level Design to Porkbun. What is it that attracts you to the domain industry?
The domain industry – as you and your readers appreciate for their own reasons – is really unique and special. Domain names touch everything we do today, but it obviously wasn’t always the case and in the early days it had this strange potential but only a few people really understood where it was headed and what it could be.
For my part, I’ve always enjoyed how it brings together art, technology and entrepreneurship, which are big parts of my life. I come from a family of artists and so I definitely sought that creative spark even as I found myself working with computers and technology.
When you sit down and start thinking of names, of branding a business or idea, you are creating something new. It’s a creative process. I had a lot of fun doing that with my first domain registrations and there is a creative through line from Snapnames to Top Level Design registry to Porkbun.com as a domain registrar.
SnapNames was born from my own desire to get a specific domain name I wanted, and then realizing as I helped my friends do the same that this had business potential. Top Level Design registry applied for 10 creative new top-level domains and operated 4, including .design, .wiki, .ink and .gay. New domains are all about creative freedom of naming and opening up more unique, more fun, more elegant branding options.
That brings us to our current company, Porkbun.com, which we and our customers believe is the world’s best domain name registrar. We take our work very seriously but we don’t take ourselves too seriously and we have so much fun with the Porkbun brand.
The logo and the illustrations and the site hopefully put a smile on our customers’ faces, new and old. We do something that many other companies do but in a way that is entirely our own and unique and we are growing because our awesome customers recognize and value that.
Q2) The registrar space is highly competitive, when I do polls price usually comes out on top as the main reason a domainer chooses a registrar. If you can’t be the cheapest why do you think someone should still use Porkbun?
Pricing is important, especially for domainers. When we began we were often able to offer the lowest pricing quite consistently, but since that time even more registrars have launched looking to do the same thing.
They were and are willing to take a loss on every domain registered, which is not something we do. But we believe in transparency, we believe in clear pricing, and we believe in long term value.
Companies that are growing at a loss are going to raise prices, they are going to push you to services you don’t need, they are going to hide those renewal prices or raise prices because they are using the first year price as a loss leader.
If you look for a specific domain on our site, we display our competitors’ pricing alongside our own. We think transparency matters even if we aren’t the cheapest. That also means that you’ll see we offer more free features like free SSL and free Whois Privacy than any other domain registrar.
Domainers also value making buying and selling domains quick and easy. We’ve integrated with Afternic and SedoMLS for fast transfer services that lets them list and sell domains on major marketplaces that reach a global audience.
We’ve also got our Porkbun marketplace and auctions powered by Dynadot to give them extra reach and sell their domains faster. Most importantly, we pick up the phone. You can reach us 365 days a year and speak with an expert via chat, email, or phone.
There isn’t a registrar that competes with us on price that will pick up the phone, and that’s because it’s expensive! GoDaddy marks up domains ~100% to cover those costs. Because of our unique growth journey we’ve been able to build the registrar that we’ve always dreamed of and we continue to add more support coverage, respond to more feature requests, and continue to learn from any constructive criticism. We listen to customers and they see that.
On top of our marketplace and auction options, we’ve rolled out bulk management tools that make it easy to handle large portfolios. Domainers can take care of renewals, manage DNS settings, and name server changes all in one spot. When it comes down to it, Porkbun is the place to be for more than just the price.
Q3) It seems like Porkbun really focuses on great customer service, you have one of the highest Trustpilot rankings in the industry. How hard is it to maintain a superior level of customer service?
It is really hard – but that’s the work and that’s what we’re committed to doing and we only want to get better.
I will also say that it is actually hard when you do the work and you don’t just buy fake reviews and ratings.
I hope all consumers and customers are smart enough to kick the wheels and compare reviews because there’s a reason some of those other ones look fake – it’s because they are. Even though that really bothers me, I try to stay focused on us and what we can do. I think it comes down to making Porkbun the registrar we want to use ourselves.
We always want to put the customer first, so it’s really ingrained in our company ethos to provide the best service we possibly can.
Sure there can be challenges, but making sure our customers know we’re there for them 365 days a year is our commitment to them and that’s the easiest promise of them all. I say that we are 365 because I can stand behind it and know it’s accurate.
We have actually activated support 24/7 but since we don’t own it yet in a consistent way we’re not going to market it. We will soon be confident enough in our 24/7 service that we will be proudly shouting it from the rooftops.
Our approach to customer service is trying to blow customers’ minds – yes, customer service can be this personal and efficient. That’s why if you call us, you’re going to speak to a real person. When you email us, it’s a real person looking into it and helping find a solution. We’re thankful to have so many genuine five-star reviews on Trustpilot from real customers who want to share their positive experience.
It’s also about who we have on our team. When we add a new member to our Support team, we make sure we’re getting the right fit; someone who is excited about being part of Porkbun and willing to give each customer the best experience possible.
Q4) What do you think has changed for the better since you entered the industry?
I think the ease of the process. I’m allowed to remind folks that there was a time when domains were registered via fax. And we’re talking about domains but what about people actually getting a website launched?
I think there are still hurdles when folks decide to launch a website but we’ve come so far and I’m hesitant to sound like a buzz-word technologist but just imagine what AI is going to do – and is already doing – to help people and businesses get online.
Because technology drives me and I want to be on the bleeding edge I want to chase that AI website dream so badly – we looked at it really closely and even dipped our toes in but in the end I see that people still want a solid domain registrar.
Like I said before, let’s build the domain registrar we want to use. Our customers and growth have validated this as a good path. There’s still more to do just to own that core competency, it might sound boring to stay focused on the basics but it’s never boring with us – I mean our logo is a pig butt come on, we can do the boring stuff and still make it fun and awesome.
Q5) On the flipside what has changed in your opinion for the worse?
Domains are fundamental to much of our world today, including criminal activity, and I think we’ve all received enough phishing emails and texts to realize it’s only growing and becoming more sophisticated. Of course this is the exact flipside of that AI excitement I just shared – how much more sophisticated will these jerks get in the next few years?
I want to wake up every morning and build something fun and positive with my team and it pains me when bad actors interrupt that. I’m very proud of our team that stays dedicated to keeping them out and kicking them off Porkbun so the rest of the company can stay focused on the sunny side of our work.
Q6) How do you think the next round of new gtlds will be received by the domain investor community?
Domainers are looking to be smart about their investment to maximize profitability, they need to buy low, often at volume, and sell high. Of course new TLD registries did a really smart thing, which was right for them, they introduced premium pricing so that great names weren’t registered on day 1 to sit in a portfolio and sold for a profit but instead went to someone that had a good idea and was willing to pay for it.
As a registry I really believe in premium pricing – but as a registry I also never raised prices on registered names and did some of these unfathomable pricing shenanigans that we’ve seen.
I think some registries are getting lost in the financial potential of premium names. To me, premium names weren’t just about making a fair price for a good name but getting the name to someone that was interested in the potential and had a great idea to build something.
At the end of the day we priced our names to sell because we wanted people building names on great sites, we wanted other end users to see cool sites on great names.
I think there will be value for domainers in some TLDs and not in others, just as we saw in the 2012 round.
When .xyz launched did people think that Daniel Negari, the CEO and a friend of mine, was really going to do what he’s done?
Did the domainer community jump in on day 1? I’m asking because I’m not sure but my sense is that the success of .xyz snowballed over time and those that were early believers had some great domain sales as a result.
Domainers have found and will continue to find opportunity but it’s not the same game it was 12 years ago.
Q7) Do we need to keep adding more domain extensions or at some point does it become too much?
I think we launched 80% of the amazing TLDs already but maybe next time we add another 5% or 10%. I do think this naturally peters out but of course trends, culture and technology change and so there is always potential for a new idea.
We should probably get to a place where they are not discrete “rounds” but companies can just apply to ICANN, maybe it costs $100,000 to apply for a new TLD that demonstrates some public benefit and $1,000,000 if you just need it for your next Super Bowl advertising campaign.
But for now, we’re at an important moment. I think we’ve now achieved new TLD acceptance – I’ve seen nTLDs advertised everywhere, on TV and in print and on the side of trucks and in radio advertisements – so I think they have potential and value. I’m still very bullish on new TLDs.
Every time new domain extensions are launched, it gives people another opportunity to get that perfect domain. I know that some would say the perfect domain is a .com but if that isn’t feasible we now have great options, and while .com is going to keep being .com folks are going to keep registering nTLDs in increasing numbers and the public and new generations are going to accept them at faster rates.
Q8) Where do you see Porkbun in 3 years?
Well we just celebrated passing the two million domains under management mark, which was a huge accomplishment we were excited about. We jumped from one million to two in about two years.
Within 3 years we’ll be celebrating +1 million more on an annual basis, and increasing from there.
Aside from that, I think we’re already hitting our goals faster than anticipated. I can confidently say that we are now in the conversation as a credible go-to alternative to GoDaddy.
We’re going to continue offering amazing customer support and low prices while ramping up all the other things we do well like our web and email hosting options. We’re going to grow from being the preferred registrar of the “in the know” crowd to being the name brand alternative!
