DNForum.com
DNForum is under new ownership; former owner, Adam Dicker, has sold the domain name, the forum and all associated assets, retaining zero interest.
Real estate and domain entrepreneur, George Verdugo, is the new partnership’s CEO, along with domain investor and entrepreneur, Kevin Faler, who will serve as the CFO of the US-based corporation.
The new DNForum.com, along with DNForo.com for the Hispanic domain market, will be aimed at providing domain industry professionals with a dependable platform to transact on, and discuss domains.
Existing members of DNForum who paid for memberships over the years, will be happy with this announcement:
“DNForum.com is transitioning to new ownership and will be online within 24 hours. All existing memberships will be honored and expect many positive changes over the next month.”
Prior to this acquisition, DNForum had been offline for a solid month.
George Verdugo shared with us the following:
“Our company wrapped up buying DNForum from Adam Dicker just days ago, and I’m very happy to be co-owner of a domain name forum with a very long history, the place where I actually learned the basics of domain investing.
DNForum is a great brand, offering domainers a familiar community to trade their domains, and to learn about domain investing from their peers. We’re also introducing DNForo for the Hispanic domain market soon.
It’ll be a great year for everyone in the domain industry! Me and Kevin will be at NamesCon, meeting with other domain investors to discuss our new venture and future plans. We invite everyone to join DNForum.”
Details about the selling price of DNForum and its associated assets were not made public, due to an NDA signed by the parties involved in this sale.
A brief history of DNForum:
DNForum.com was founded in 2001 by Dan Gessler, who was a 15 year old high school student at the time. The forum became popular very quickly, initially running on free forum software before switching over to vBulletin.
In 2002, Gessler sold the forum for $5,000 dollars (exact price is not confirmed) to domain investor, Greg Ricks, who soon after established the system of paid memberships.
That move, spawned two more independent domain forums, DomainState in 2002, and NamePros in 2003.
In early 2003, Adam Dicker bought the forum, for $50,000 dollars (price is unconfirmed).
The new owners are looking forward to restore the domain forum’s former glory and its appeal among established and new domain investors, by enhancing the current services and expanding the brand’s potential.
I had a chance to handreg DNForo.com last month but I let it past for another domain name instead.
I’m glad to see DNForum coming back online I had a lot of fun there collecting DNF$ to upgrade my account to exclusive.
This is not an arms length transaction, they are business partners, sorry, no thanks
The acquisition was a seamless transaction and we both are excited to “Make DNforum.com great again!”
George is a mastermind when it comes to business…don’t let him fool you.
One thing we’ve both agreed on as co-partners, is we must have fun along the way and at the end of the day we want everyone to be happy.
We bring more to the table than one may think.
There will be breaking news often as the implementation of new innovative technologies are incorporated.
Additionally, we both would like everyone to know that we are extending an “olive branch” to everyone in the domain industry.
With that being said, we both have many mentors and supporters who have supported us along the way. Our journey, is one which will add power to the industry… kind of like a shot in the arm. Our mission is simple with a short term goal and a long term goal.
Both of our sons are accredited with offering up vibrant and youthful insights from their age groups. Meaning, we have the youth to guide and suggest what that particular era expects and would like to see happen within the domain industry. It’s called post-modernism vs. traditionalism.
Looking forward to using DNForum.com again! 🙂
I’m interested to see if they can carve out any sort of market share with NamePros being the juggernaut that it is today.
My only concern is that with George Verdugo behind it, there will still be trust and credibility concerns due to many unanswered questions about him and his partnerships with Adam that were raised at the end of 2015. For the sake of the forum, he should address those and get them all behind him, to prevent it from affecting the future of DNForum under his new ownership.
I wish them best!
MichaelG – What matters is that DNForum is under new ownership and Adam Dicker is no longer involved.
Completely new company, bought all the assets, and are based in the US.
AFAIK, George Verdugo is only a “minority shareholder” in Rams.com, and it was never a secret. As you can read above from Kevin Faler’s comment, the new owners are welcoming everyone to DNForum.
I think DNFORUM is dead, between DNBOARDROOM, and Namepros, people have moved on, the term presents negative thoughts of a time once upon a time.
Kris – Personally, I will be joining, but thank you for taking the time to present your negative thoughts here.
Good for you, why do bother having a forum if you only want to listen to yourself, and that of people you take money to PR.
Kris Kringle – This is not a forum, and I cover the news. In this case, I had the exclusivity.
I will cover your domain sales, if they are noteworthy, or how much you love the forums you mentioned.
Keep in mind that throwing out baseless accusations only makes you look bad. This is not a paid article, or a PR. Sorry that I cannot bring an ounce of joy to your negativity.
If anything else, look at the NPs banner above. Thanks bro.
I want to personally thank everyone for your well wishes 🙂 Kevin and I are 100% owners of DNForum. Just to reiterate, Adam Dicker has ZERO (0%) interest in Dnforum.com and its assets . Regarding the purchase of DNforum.com…
We know how sensitive this transaction is because of the negativity due to past events but I can assure you that we are going to do our very best to “Make DNforum Great Again!!” Myself and Kevin are excited about this new venture.. We are going to do our very best to reach out to everyone who was once a member at DNForum. Again, I want to thank everyone for their support and you will be seeing positive changes to the forum in the near future (this year).
Thanks everyone!
Dnforum will not allow me to sign up. It keeps looping
Congrats to George and Kevin! I’d enjoy being active in DNForum.com again. If you can keep the trolls under control I think you’ll have a great shot at success!!
I logged into my account of dnforum. There’s no data there. How come?
Vincent – The forum is not operational yet 🙂 Check back in 24 hours.
I read negative comments about the forum like it had something to do with whatever happened.
If you were to ask me if I’ll visit DNForum? Sure why not.
I’ve made Namepros my domain forum home a few months back.
Is Dicker banned from the forum now? He should be.
Adam should have sold the forum a long time ago, it had declined even before the scandal began, now it’s damaged goods and too late to salvage the DNF brand anyway.
DNF has been down for a while too, and domainers have moved on.
It is a know fact that Verdugo and Dicker are business partners, and co-own domain names. So I cannot be sure that Dicker doesn’t have some kind of backdoor or peephole into the forum. Nothing against the new owners, but:
– Verdugo has not been completely upfront as to his relation with Adam
– when you buy a tarnished brand, expect skepticism and suspicion
– no, DNF won’t return to its former glory
Kate – As a member of both forums I can say that the deal is done transparently and I intend to be active on both forums, as I’ve done since 2001/2003 respectively.
Dicker’s legacy as a former owner appears problematic but any ill dealings are his personal legal and financial responsibility. The forum was sold with official legal paperwork and lots of back and forth, and the new owners are not in any partnership with Adam on DNForum.
Verdugo is minority partner with Dicker on only one domain, Rams.com. Not only he has been transparent about it – when the scandal broke on NamePros and subsequently – but he has lowered his partnership interest to the domain (down from 1/2 to 1/4) as the result of this sale.
The DNForum brand has a long-standing history that sustained a lot of abuse, for sure. Kevin and George are professional entrepreneurs that have a business plan to make things work.
Kate – To answer your question regarding my relationship with Adam Dicker is redundant seeing as how I have made it publicly known that we were business partners (50/50) in Rams. com – that has been known for a while now even before the mess with Adam. I have no other business ventures with Adam except for one domain Rams.com in which now I am only a minority stake holder.
I completely understand when you buy a tarnished brand you are to expect skepticism. That comes with the territory. However I intend to put those “fears” or “concerns” to rest. Myself and Kevin are adding some new things with DNForum.
You stated – No, DNForum will not return to it’s former glory – While we are each entitled to our OPINIONS, I strongly disagree with your opinion. I thrive in these situations and will work my hardest to prove the Nay-Sayers wrong. Lastly we welcome all members of DnForum.com to reactivate their accounts at NO CHARGE! and I am also a Namepros member! and I always loved that fact that there were 2 forums to learn about domains! This will be my last statement regarding this subject! We are moving forward to Make DnForum Great Again!
Hey George, I like your positive attitude. Keep it and you will go far, both you and Kevin.
No matter what you do, few will always point the wrong things.
I see you and Kevin as the two to revive dnforum community. I applaud you for it.
I know you both are cool and are great entrepreneurs. Keep going and continue to be good. Some years from now, no one even remember the little negative things. The key is to make the forum fun, educational, informative. Make the conversations civil. No politics. No trash talkers. No bad-mouthers.
You will do fine.
So did they go down again…haven’t been able to get on the site for 4 days now and no reply from George to email
Jaydub – I was told they’re running updates to the forum software. The downtime started at noon on Feb. 28th, so it’s been down 3 days. Hopefully it’ll be back up soon.
They really should have sent a message out as this just got me wondering again not knowing what is happening.
And would have been nice to get a reply from George to my inquiry as to why it was down.