davidbgk
/
larlet-fr-david-cache

<!doctype html><!-- This is a valid HTML5 document. -->
<!-- Screen readers, SEO, extensions and so on. -->
<html lang="fr">
<!-- Has to be within the first 1024 bytes, hence before the `title` element
  See: https://www.w3.org/TR/2012/CR-html5-20121217/document-metadata.html#charset -->
<meta charset="utf-8">
<!-- Why no `X-UA-Compatible` meta: https://stackoverflow.com/a/6771584 -->
<!-- The viewport meta is quite crowded and we are responsible for that.
  See: https://codepen.io/tigt/post/meta-viewport-for-2015 -->
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width,initial-scale=1">
<!-- Required to make a valid HTML5 document. -->
<title>I bought 300 emoji domain names from Kazakhstan and built an email service (archive) — David Larlet</title>
<meta name="description" content="Publication mise en cache pour en conserver une trace.">
<!-- That good ol' feed, subscribe :). -->
<link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="Feed" href="/david/log/">
<!-- Generated from https://realfavicongenerator.net/ such a mess. -->
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="180x180" href="/static/david/icons2/apple-touch-icon.png">
<link rel="icon" type="image/png" sizes="32x32" href="/static/david/icons2/favicon-32x32.png">
<link rel="icon" type="image/png" sizes="16x16" href="/static/david/icons2/favicon-16x16.png">
<link rel="manifest" href="/static/david/icons2/site.webmanifest">
<link rel="mask-icon" href="/static/david/icons2/safari-pinned-tab.svg" color="#07486c">
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="/static/david/icons2/favicon.ico">
<meta name="msapplication-TileColor" content="#f7f7f7">
<meta name="msapplication-config" content="/static/david/icons2/browserconfig.xml">
<meta name="theme-color" content="#f7f7f7" media="(prefers-color-scheme: light)">
<meta name="theme-color" content="#272727" media="(prefers-color-scheme: dark)">
<!-- Documented, feel free to shoot an email. -->
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/static/david/css/style_2021-01-20.css">
<!-- See https://www.zachleat.com/web/comprehensive-webfonts/ for the trade-off. -->
<link rel="preload" href="/static/david/css/fonts/triplicate_t4_poly_regular.woff2" as="font" type="font/woff2" media="(prefers-color-scheme: light), (prefers-color-scheme: no-preference)" crossorigin>
<link rel="preload" href="/static/david/css/fonts/triplicate_t4_poly_bold.woff2" as="font" type="font/woff2" media="(prefers-color-scheme: light), (prefers-color-scheme: no-preference)" crossorigin>
<link rel="preload" href="/static/david/css/fonts/triplicate_t4_poly_italic.woff2" as="font" type="font/woff2" media="(prefers-color-scheme: light), (prefers-color-scheme: no-preference)" crossorigin>
<link rel="preload" href="/static/david/css/fonts/triplicate_t3_regular.woff2" as="font" type="font/woff2" media="(prefers-color-scheme: dark)" crossorigin>
<link rel="preload" href="/static/david/css/fonts/triplicate_t3_bold.woff2" as="font" type="font/woff2" media="(prefers-color-scheme: dark)" crossorigin>
<link rel="preload" href="/static/david/css/fonts/triplicate_t3_italic.woff2" as="font" type="font/woff2" media="(prefers-color-scheme: dark)" crossorigin>
<script>
    function toggleTheme(themeName) {
        document.documentElement.classList.toggle(
            'forced-dark',
            themeName === 'dark'
        )
        document.documentElement.classList.toggle(
            'forced-light',
            themeName === 'light'
        )
    }
    const selectedTheme = localStorage.getItem('theme')
    if (selectedTheme !== 'undefined') {
        toggleTheme(selectedTheme)
    }
</script>

  <meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow">
  <meta content="origin-when-cross-origin" name="referrer">
  <!-- Canonical URL for SEO purposes -->
  <link rel="canonical" href="https://tinyprojects.dev/projects/mailoji">

<body class="remarkdown h1-underline h2-underline h3-underline em-underscore hr-center ul-star pre-tick" data-instant-intensity="viewport-all">


<article>
  <header>
    <h1>I bought 300 emoji domain names from Kazakhstan and built an email service</h1>
  </header>
  <nav>
    <p class="center">
      <a href="/david/" title="Aller à l’accueil"><svg class="icon icon-home">
        <use xlink:href="/static/david/icons2/symbol-defs-2021-12.svg#icon-home"></use>
      </svg> Accueil</a> •
      <a href="https://tinyprojects.dev/projects/mailoji" title="Lien vers le contenu original">Source originale</a>
    </p>
  </nav>
  <hr>
  <p>TLDR; I bought 300 emoji domain names from Kazakhstan and built an <a href="https://mailoji.com" target="_blank">emoji email address service</a>. In the process I went viral on TikTok, made $1000 in a week, hired a Japanese voice actor, and learnt about the weird world of emoji domains.</p>

<h3>🌅 The setup</h3>

<p>Not long ago I decided it would be a brilliant idea to buy the domain name <a href="/posts/i_bought_netflix_dot_soy" target="_blank">netflix.soy</a>.</p>

<p>Whilst arguably there are better ways to spend £17, I did learn a lot about domain names, including that it's possible to have emoji domains like <span class="domain">😊.ws</span>.</p>

<p>It's pretty hard to go a day without seeing an emoji somewhere on the internet. Yet, I'd never seen an emoji domain name before.</p>

<p>I wondered:</p>

<p>Could I buy an emoji domain name?</p>

<h3>💸 Buying an emoji domain name</h3>

<p>My goal was to buy a single character emoji domain name, like 💡 or 🍰. I didn't know what I'd do with it, I just wanted to see if I could get one.</p>

<p>I found a website that showed every available emoji domain for 4 different extensions.</p>

<p>Sadly, nearly every single one had been registered. I was late to the party.</p>

<p><img src="https://i.gyazo.com/6aa39e2f0e8e2f9039b61c95ea360cb7.png" alt="Taken emoji domains"></p>
<p>A simple mailbox emoji with a .ws extension was still available though, so I bought it.</p>

<h3>📪 The mailbox</h3>

<p><img src="https://i.gyazo.com/1b78a0aab3ca0b04649eacf46fd3bc0a.png" alt="Mailbox emoji domain in GoDaddy"></p>
<p><span class="domain">📪.ws</span> was now mine. Mission complete.</p>

<p>I set up a website and felt rather accomplished with my tiny mailbox.</p>

<p>I could've stopped there and called it a day. But, then I had another thought:</p>

<p>Could I use my little mailbox emoji domain in an email address?</p>

<p>That'd be pretty cute.</p>

<h3>✉️ Emoji mail attempt #1</h3>

<p>I gave it a go. I setup an email forwarder to route all email sent to <span class="domain">📪.ws</span> to my regular email address.</p>

<p>Eagerly I typed <span class="domain">ben@📪.ws</span> into the "to" field of gmail and hit send.</p>

<p><img src="https://i.gyazo.com/3ab67d13bcfad786b7f3ba9a01968272.png" alt="Sending first emoji mail"></p>
<h3>🛑 Blocked</h3>

<p>The email never hit my inbox. It was lost forever in cyberspace.</p>

<p>Turns out emoji domain names score very highly for spam and were going to be blocked to high heaven.</p>

<p>But, it was interesting that I could send mail towards an emoji email address.</p>

<p>So I wondered:</p>

<p>If a normal .com email address doesn't get blocked for spam, could I route my emoji mail through that?</p>

<h3>💌 Emoji mail attempt #2</h3>

<p>It would work like this: </p>

<ol>
    <li>Email sent to <span class="domain">ben@📪.ws</span></li>
    <li><span class="domain">ben@📪.ws</span> forwards to <span class="domain">nospam@normal.com</span></li>
    <li><span class="domain">nospam@normal.com</span> forwards to my email address and won't get blocked.</li>
</ol>

<p>I cobbled together something using AWS, and tried my experiment again.</p>

<p>
    </p>
<p>to: <span class="domain">ben@📪.ws</span></p>
<pre><code>&lt;p&gt;message: Hi Ben, how's it going?&lt;/p&gt;
</code></pre>
<p>Send.</p>

<p><img src="https://i.gyazo.com/bdc529a214b0e2019a96a86c933c4bcb.png" alt="First emoji mail"></p>
<p>It worked!</p>

<h3>🧨 Where things started to get out of control</h3>

<p>At this point I was inclined to stop and write a post about emoji email addresses. I'd had a good run.</p>

<p>But then I wondered:</p>

<p>My mailbox emoji email address is great and all, but do you know what would be better? <span class="domain">ben@⭐</span></p>

<p>Now how do I get one of those?</p>

<h3>🎣 Emoji domain name hunting</h3>

<p>Only 13 TLDs in the world accept registrations of emoji domain names: .cf, .ga, .gq, .la, .ml, .tk, .st, .fm, .to, .je, .gg, .kz, and .ws.</p>

<p>The website I had used to purchase <span class="domain">📪.ws</span> only showed 4 TLDs: .fm, .ws, .to and .ml. These are considered the gold standard of emoji domain name registrars.</p>

<p>Every emoji had been taken on these though. You could of course get multi-character emoji domains like <span class="domain">🎉🐢.ws</span>, but I wanted single character emoji domains only.</p>

<p>So I wondered:</p>

<p>Do any of those other TLDs have any emoji domains left?</p>

<h3>🔭 The great hunt</h3>

<p>I already had some code that performed WHOIS lookups to see if a domain name is available for a list of TLDs.</p>

<p>Previously I'd used this code to buy <a href="/posts/i_bought_netflix_dot_soy" target="_blank">facebook.网站</a>, only for Marky Z to snatch it back from me. Cheeky bugger.</p>

<p>I booted up the code and loaded in some A-tier emojis (e.g. ⭐,😂,❤️) and the 13 TLDs that accepted them.</p>

<p><i>&gt;node search.js</i> [ENTER]</p>

<h3>🎁 The results</h3>

<p><img src="https://i.gyazo.com/6adaeb53f45f75605749f78d4dcac8c3.png" alt="Console output showing available TLDs for emoji domains"></p>
<p>Instantly I was seeing results! .la, .ga, .gq, .je. There were plenty of emojis still out there on these alternative extensions.</p>

<p>An extension that stood out to me straight away was .gg, for the Island of Guernsey. "GG" is an acronym for "Good Game", and I say it often when I lose at online games. It was perfect.</p>

<p><span class="domain">⭐.gg</span> was available for €29. I hit purchase.</p>

<h3>💔 No GG for me</h3>

<p>The next day Guernsey sent me an email.</p>

<p><img src="https://i.gyazo.com/527c4941fbb3ddcffbc92a0c2ef1c828.png" alt="Email from Guernsey saying emoji domains not available on .gg"></p>
<p>Long story short, although you could register emoji domain names with them, they didn't actually work.</p>

<p>Good game Guernsey. Back to the drawing board.</p>

<h3>⭐ Crazy for KZ</h3>

<p>With every other extension I kept hitting walls. A lot of the registrars wouldn't even let me search for emoji domains. Nothing was working.</p>

<p>One extension that kept cropping up was .kz of Kazakhstan. But, I headed over to their registar website and it was entirely in Russian.</p>

<p><img src="https://i.gyazo.com/6c20c8eea912beb320555c0dace78b1b.png" alt="Russian domain name website"></p>
<p>I do not speak Russian.</p>

<p>Using Google Translate, I tried to navigate the website and buy a .kz emoji domain.</p>

<p>It was a long, painful process. But, after phoning my bank to confirm I was indeed trying to make a purchase using Kazakhstani tenge, <span class="domain">⭐.kz</span> was sitting in my account.</p>

<p>I plugged it into my email system and <span class="domain">ben@⭐.kz</span> worked.</p>

<p>Very nice.</p>

<h3>💼 Let's start an email service</h3>

<p>Something excited me. Nearly all single character emojis were available on .kz, and they were only $8 each.</p>

<p>So, I wondered:</p>

<p>What if you could get an email address with any emoji you wanted?</p>

<p>I pictured email addresses like <span class="domain">bob@🚀</span>, <span class="domain">alice@🌸</span>, <span class="domain">melvin@🍆</span>.</p>

<p>All I'd need to do is buy every emoji domain to build a service like this.</p>

<p>It was insane, but it was possible.</p>

<h3>🌙 The night of 150 emojis</h3>

<p>I decided I was going to do it.</p>

<p>If I was chuffed with my mailbox emoji email address, perhaps others would be too.</p>

<p>I got out my debit card, and, one by one, started buying Kazakhstan emoji domains.</p>

<p><span class="domain">💡.kz</span>, <span class="domain">👑.kz</span>, <span class="domain">🌈.kz</span>, <span class="domain">😎.kz</span>. Buy, buy, buy, buy.</p>

<p>It was slightly painful watching my bank account going down, and the number of emoji domains go up.</p>

<p>80 emojis in, forking over money for a goat emoji domain name, you seriously start to question what you're doing.</p>

<p>$1200 later, 150 emoji domains were mine.</p>

<h3>💻 Building an emoji email address website</h3>

<p>Finally, I needed a website where you could register an emoji email address and it would forward mail like <span class="domain">ben@📪.ws</span> did.</p>

<p>Using vanilla HTML, JS and CSS, plus Stripe's API for payments, I cobbled together an MVP over a few weeks.</p>

<p>Once it was done, I bought one last domain name: <a href="https://mailoji.com" target="_blank">mailoji.com</a>. My new emoji email address service <a href="https://mailoji.com" target="_blank">Mailoji</a> was ready. Get your emoji email addresses.</p>

<p><img src="https://i.gyazo.com/30c54b0bed4ffc85cb38940a2b26748e.png" alt="Mailoji emoji email address website"></p>
<h3>📱 TikTok</h3>

<p>I'd gone from being curious about emoji domain names to now owning 150 of Kazakhstan's finest.</p>

<p>The next step was to convince someone else to buy an emoji email address.</p>

<p>TikTok seemed like a good place to start given its demographic. So, I recorded a short video advert and started a "TikTok for business" application to publish it.</p>

<p>On the final page of the application I was asked for a VAT registration number. Mailoji was not a proper business yet, so there was no way I could publish my ad.</p>

<p>Screw it, I'll post the video normally.</p>

<p>Upload.</p>

<h3>🎉 First sales</h3>

<p>Here is the <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@mailoji/video/6925405275201539334?lang=en&amp;is_copy_url=1&amp;is_from_webapp=v3" target="_blank">advert</a> if you're interested.</p>

<p>The video sat at 0 views for about 5 hours before the TikTok algorithm started to work its magic.</p>

<p>Slowly, the views started ramping up. 500 views, to 5k views, to 50k views. It was incredible to witness.</p>

<p>People were loving emoji email addresses, people were hating emoji email addresses.</p>

<p>It was like Marmite, a talking point. None of it mattered though because emoji email addresses were selling! <span class="domain">@🚀</span>, <span class="domain">@📷</span> &amp; <span class="domain">@💻</span> addresses were the most popular.</p>

<p>Over 2 days the TikTok video reached 200k+ views, and 60 emoji email addresses had been sold netting ~$300/yr in revenue.</p>

<p><img src="https://i.gyazo.com/e33fb288704cc42f58e50ff4a5d33fa8.png" alt="Stripe graph showing first sales from selling emoji domains"></p>
<p>I took this as a fantastic indicator. So guess what I did?</p>

<h3>💵 Buying more emoji domain names</h3>

<p>I decided to purchase 100 more emoji domains.</p>

<p>I cried into my keyboard forking out yet more money for a llama emoji that I probably didn't need.</p>

<p>In the end I had 250 emoji domains. If there was ever a moat into the emoji email address world, this was it.</p>

<h3>📅 Preparing for launch</h3>

<p>I figured the more people with emoji email addresses, the more people who would see them, and the more people who would buy them. A beautiful cycle.</p>

<p>My next goal was a Product Hunt launch to get exposure for Mailoji, and kickstart this cycle.</p>

<p>I prepped my launch post, carefully choosing each word and image.</p>

<p>I even created this over-hyped promotional video, complete with Japanese voice actor saying the words "Mailoji".</p>

<p class="video-container">
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JKxEXZv4G3c" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen>VIDEO</iframe></p>

<p>Mailoji was ready for launch.</p>

<h3>🚀 Launch Day</h3>

<p>At 12:03 AM PST Mailoji went live on <a href="https://www.producthunt.com/posts/mailoji" target="_blank">Product Hunt</a>. We had come a long way from that little mailbox emoji.</p>

<p><img src="https://i.gyazo.com/0cf1d62b2d820c8f456a95da3cffda01.png" alt="Product hunt launch thumbnail"></p>
<p>It was 8:03 AM UK time. Bleary eyed, with a cup of tea in hand, I watched as Mailoji did battle.</p>

<p>I had chosen to launch on a Wednesday against some stiff competition, but Mailoji really held its own.</p>

<p>At the end of the day it finished in 5th place. Here were the end of day stats: </p>

<ul>
    <li>🌎 6.7k website views
    </li><li>💌 150+ emoji email addresses sold</li>
    <li>💵 $830/yr ARR</li>
    <li>🔺 320 upvotes</li>
    <li>🏅 5th place on Product Hunt</li>
    <li>🎀 Most popular Mailoji: @🚀</li>
</ul>

<p>Over 150 emoji email addresses were sold in a day, and I received some fantastic feedback from the Product Hunt community.</p>

<p>It was done, Mailoji had officially launched.</p>

<h3>📙 The aftermath</h3>

<p>I wish this story ended with Mailoji blowing up and the queen registering an emoji email address or something (I'll reserve <span class="domain">Liz@👑.kz</span> just in case).</p>

<p>But, currently Mailoji is sitting at ~$1440/year in revenue. There's now 300 emoji domains to choose from though.</p>

<p><img src="https://i.gyazo.com/6eac0eb3bcdaa1ee78e57b6692ed9afc.png" alt="Final Stripe ARR chart for Mailoji"></p>
<p>Even though I still haven't made the money back on all the emoji domains I bought, creating an emoji email address service was so much fun.</p>

<p>It was an adventure. A rabbit hole containing multiple rabbit holes.</p>

<p>This project started out as an exploration into emoji domain names; a weird, forgotten about internet feature that I've now become quite fond of.</p>

<p>Yes emoji domains are hard to type on desktop, yes there's too many variations, and yes, most form validations hate them.</p>

<p>But they're fun, and I think tech should be more fun.</p>

<p>Thanks for reading. If you want to get in touch, I've got a brand new email address at the bottom of this website.</p>
</article>


<hr>

<footer>
  <p>
    <a href="/david/" title="Aller à l’accueil"><svg class="icon icon-home">
        <use xlink:href="/static/david/icons2/symbol-defs-2021-12.svg#icon-home"></use>
      </svg> Accueil</a> •
    <a href="/david/log/" title="Accès au flux RSS"><svg class="icon icon-rss2">
        <use xlink:href="/static/david/icons2/symbol-defs-2021-12.svg#icon-rss2"></use>
      </svg> Suivre</a> •
    <a href="http://larlet.com" title="Go to my English profile" data-instant><svg class="icon icon-user-tie">
        <use xlink:href="/static/david/icons2/symbol-defs-2021-12.svg#icon-user-tie"></use>
      </svg> Pro</a> •
    <a href="mailto:david%40larlet.fr" title="Envoyer un courriel"><svg class="icon icon-mail">
        <use xlink:href="/static/david/icons2/symbol-defs-2021-12.svg#icon-mail"></use>
      </svg> Email</a> •
    <abbr class="nowrap" title="Hébergeur : Alwaysdata, 62 rue Tiquetonne 75002 Paris, +33184162340"><svg class="icon icon-hammer2">
        <use xlink:href="/static/david/icons2/symbol-defs-2021-12.svg#icon-hammer2"></use>
      </svg> Légal</abbr>
  </p>
  <template id="theme-selector">
      <form>
          <fieldset>
              <legend><svg class="icon icon-brightness-contrast">
                <use xlink:href="/static/david/icons2/symbol-defs-2021-12.svg#icon-brightness-contrast"></use>
              </svg> Thème</legend>
              <label>
                  <input type="radio" value="auto" name="chosen-color-scheme" checked> Auto
              </label>
              <label>
                  <input type="radio" value="dark" name="chosen-color-scheme"> Foncé
              </label>
              <label>
                  <input type="radio" value="light" name="chosen-color-scheme"> Clair
              </label>
          </fieldset>
      </form>
  </template>
</footer>
<script src="/static/david/js/instantpage-5.1.0.min.js" type="module"></script>
<script>
    function loadThemeForm(templateName) {
        const themeSelectorTemplate = document.querySelector(templateName)
        const form = themeSelectorTemplate.content.firstElementChild
        themeSelectorTemplate.replaceWith(form)

        form.addEventListener('change', (e) => {
            const chosenColorScheme = e.target.value
            localStorage.setItem('theme', chosenColorScheme)
            toggleTheme(chosenColorScheme)
        })

        const selectedTheme = localStorage.getItem('theme')
        if (selectedTheme && selectedTheme !== 'undefined') {
            form.querySelector(`[value="${selectedTheme}"]`).checked = true
        }
    }

    const prefersColorSchemeDark = '(prefers-color-scheme: dark)'
    window.addEventListener('load', () => {
        let hasDarkRules = false
        for (const styleSheet of Array.from(document.styleSheets)) {
            let mediaRules = []
            for (const cssRule of styleSheet.cssRules) {
                if (cssRule.type !== CSSRule.MEDIA_RULE) {
                    continue
                }
                // WARNING: Safari does not have/supports `conditionText`.
                if (cssRule.conditionText) {
                    if (cssRule.conditionText !== prefersColorSchemeDark) {
                        continue
                    }
                } else {
                    if (cssRule.cssText.startsWith(prefersColorSchemeDark)) {
                        continue
                    }
                }
                mediaRules = mediaRules.concat(Array.from(cssRule.cssRules))
            }

            // WARNING: do not try to insert a Rule to a styleSheet you are
            // currently iterating on, otherwise the browser will be stuck
            // in a infinite loop…
            for (const mediaRule of mediaRules) {
                styleSheet.insertRule(mediaRule.cssText)
                hasDarkRules = true
            }
        }
        if (hasDarkRules) {
            loadThemeForm('#theme-selector')
        }
    })
</script>
</body>
</html>