How I Came Up With a Telegram Bot for Domain Monitoring and Got 700 Users

I want to share a story from my life, explaining how I came up with and launched my pet project.

How did creating a Telegram bot for domain tracking come to me?

Why did I believe it would be in demand?

How does employment and working in a team contribute to generating new project ideas?

Let’s get straight to the answers.

Employment and working in a team

After several unsuccessful attempts to build a profitable and successful web studio, our team dispersed, and each of us had to find our paths for further development. The choice of a company was not a question for me at that time; my immediate concern was paying the rent for the next month and having something to eat. I didn’t pass the first interview, but I immediately received an offer from the second one and gladly accepted it.

I joined a fantastic team. Imagine a team of professionals where everyone is open and always willing to help, there is no toxicity within the team, and every initiative from the bottom is heard at the top.

Our team served both product and service roles. In the product team, we developed new features, tested hypotheses, and improved the product. In the service team, we supported the service and its users, fixed bugs, rolled out fixes, and solved customer problems that technical support couldn’t handle without our assistance.

Generating ideas for the future

Every day in the service team, we received feedback reports from users. If the reports for the month showed many user complaints about a particular feature in the user account or users complained about a part of the interface, the project manager took the issue for further improvement in NPS (Net Promoter Score).

NPS, Net Promoter Score, indicates customer loyalty to a product or company. Measurements are based on whether the customer would recommend the company to their friends, with a score from 0 to 10 points. Usually, this survey pops up in the user’s account once every three months.

As I immersed myself in processes and the product, I noticed user pains and needs that could be addressed. In large companies, project owners and managers often overlook minor user issues, chasing prominent hypotheses whose implementation will profit the company. I think there’s no argument here; they are doing it right.

Therefore, I documented all ideas and issues that came to mind during work in a separate document, briefly describing the user problems it could solve, how often it occurred, whether there were analogs, and the possibility of technical implementation. Then, I sat down and thoroughly worked through the list to identify a more viable idea.

Choosing an idea for product implementation

One of these problems was the adverse user reaction to emails that registrars send to them. These emails notify users that the registration date of their domain is expiring and needs to be renewed.

Registrars are required to send at least two notifications reminding users to renew the domain approximately a month and a week before the domain registration expires, as well as within five days after the expiration of this period.

The frequency may depend on the domain zone and the requirements of the managing company. Some countries may have legislative requirements regarding customer notifications about registration deadlines. In such cases, companies must comply with these laws. The registrar’s website should specify the methods of sending such notifications.

It seemed to me that users psychologically dislike receiving a notification suggesting renewing the domain a month before the actual expiration date. Users get the impression that they have been deprived of one month of paid service. For this reason, users usually wait until a few days before the domain registration expiration date and only then renew the domain.

Another problem is that there are registrars that send more than two emails and start doing so 60 days in advance. If you have only one domain, you can tolerate it, but if you have five or more domains, the user’s email becomes inundated with emails. These emails annoy users, and some end up in the spam folder.

I’m not talking about all users; most users feel fine. I encountered users who genuinely felt discomfort in my field of view.

Developing the idea and possible use cases

Is this even possible?

Can users set when to receive notifications themselves?

What if users don’t want to be bombarded with emails?

I thought, what if there’s a proxy in the form of a Telegram bot between the user and the registrar? Then, it struck me that sending notifications via messenger would be better than email.

We use messengers several times a day; most of us work in messengers to communicate with colleagues and friends. It’s almost impossible not to see a notification about the need to renew a domain in a messenger, unlike an email inbox that we may not check for weeks.

Can the user control the notification date themselves?

Why can’t users decide when to receive notifications? Why can’t users choose where it’s more convenient for them to receive notifications? Whether it’s Discord, Telegram, or Viber?

In the Telegram bot, functionality can be implemented to set up notifications for each domain, indicating how many days before the domain registration expires the notification should be sent.

What if I have many domains, and they’re all registered on different emails?

If you add all your domains to the Telegram bot, they will be in one place, and notifications for them will come to your messenger, even if they are registered with different registrars and on different emails even if they belong to different people.

1. Monitoring competitors’ domains

Why would one want to keep an eye on competitors’ domains? I later explored this scenario in various ways.

2. Webmaster or web-studio

A webmaster with numerous clients for technical support or SEO optimization may face an issue if a domain owner fails to renew. The webmaster might discover one morning that a client’s domain has expired, and they weren’t actively monitoring it, leading to an unpleasant situation.

3. Domain collection

In another situation, a desired domain for a project or company might be taken, or a site with errors might occupy it. Anticipating its release in a couple of years, one could buy and redirect it to their domain, potentially gaining traffic.

Acquiring domains in a related theme

Similar to the second situation, if one owns an online store for children’s toys, one might add all domains related to children’s toys to the bot for monitoring. By possibly acquiring an expiring domain, they could tap into its existing traffic by redirecting it to their main domain.

Does auto-renewal solve the problem?

In my opinion, enabling auto-payment doesn’t solve the problem. I’ve seen emails from frustrated users who did not intend to renew certain domains, yet auto-renewal charged their cards for 60 or 30 days. Most registrars do not offer refunds in such cases. Attempting to refund and relinquish the domain while it’s still in the registry might be an option.

Dismissal from work

So, everything was already decided; it was time to start developing the bot and plan its further promotion. There was just one thing holding me back — my job. After three years in this wonderful domain registrar company, my dreams became a bureaucratic state entity after a corporation takeover.

How is the Telegram Bot doing now?

After leaving, I spent several months developing the Telegram bot, creating a website for SEO traffic, and working on promotion. I filled the site with content, adding around 1200 pages, performed SEO optimization, attracted initial users, and tested my hypotheses.

I spent about three months on website development, content creation, translation into English, and SEO optimization. A piece of advice I’d give myself for the future is to start with an SEO-friendly website before developing the product. By the time the project is in development, SEO will already be working and bringing in initial users.

As of now, I can confidently say that the bot is in demand, with around 700 users and 2000 domains being tracked. The bot sends daily notifications to users on Telegram; in return, users add new domains for tracking.

Conclusion

If facing a creative crisis or experiencing setbacks in launching projects, it’s beneficial to work in a good company for a few years, immersing oneself in its processes and products. You’ll undoubtedly identify problems that your future product can solve. Record all ideas in a separate document, briefly describing the solution, target audience, and potential. During this time, you can relax, improve your financial situation, and gather resources for your next launch. Learn the techniques and tools used in the company for marketing. Never give up, and keep moving forward.