brandforge
White Label Software Provider
- Joined
- Oct 6, 2026
- Posts
- 2
- Reaction score
- 4
Hello all,
New here, though Acorn has been on my radar for a long time. Figured it was time to stop lurking and actually say hello.
Quick intro. I have spent 20 years in European hosting and SaaS, in CTO, CEO and COO seats at companies like Computer.nl, Hosting.co.uk and Cloudhosting.lu. Domains have been the thread running through all of it. I have sold a fair few over the years and I sit on a small portfolio, a few hundred names on the side. If I am honest I buy more than I sell, so "investor" is being kind. Collector is nearer the mark.
I am Netherlands based but over in London often enough that it has started to feel like a second home, so I expect our paths will cross. I am also a regular on the event circuit. You can usually find me at Nordic Domain Days, Domain Days Dubai, NamesCon, CloudFest and of course Domain Summit. If you are at any of those, come and say hi.
These days something I am doing probably sounds mad to this crowd: giving premium domains away for free. Not parking, not flipping, actually handing them over. The catch is we build a complete subscription business on the name, run all the tech behind it, and split the revenue with whoever takes it. The domain is theirs, the business is real, and they can sell it on later. Sitebuilder.cloud is one name offered this way.
That comes out of BrandForge, which is what I spend my days on now. For 20 years I watched the same thing happen from the provider side. A business buys a domain, full of excitement, and then nothing. No logo, no brand, no idea where to start. The hoster that just sold them the name has nothing to offer next, so the customer either stalls or wanders off to an agency that charges thousands. I saw that moment thousands of times and never once clocked it as an opportunity. That is the embarrassing part. When you are inside something long enough, you stop seeing what is right in front of you.
When we started BrandForge I almost made the classic mistake, trying to out-build the AI logo makers with a better product. But the better logo was never the hard part. AI makes a logo in seconds. The hard part is reaching someone at the exact moment they need a brand, through a company they already trust. That is when it clicked. Twenty years of relationships with hosters, registrars and agencies were not background, they were the distribution. So we built BrandForge white-label and channel-first, sitting inside the providers who already own the customer. Someone buys a domain, and now there is something waiting for them.
Anyway, that is me. Here to talk domains, swap stories, and no doubt buy a few more names I do not need. Looking forward to it.
New here, though Acorn has been on my radar for a long time. Figured it was time to stop lurking and actually say hello.
Quick intro. I have spent 20 years in European hosting and SaaS, in CTO, CEO and COO seats at companies like Computer.nl, Hosting.co.uk and Cloudhosting.lu. Domains have been the thread running through all of it. I have sold a fair few over the years and I sit on a small portfolio, a few hundred names on the side. If I am honest I buy more than I sell, so "investor" is being kind. Collector is nearer the mark.
I am Netherlands based but over in London often enough that it has started to feel like a second home, so I expect our paths will cross. I am also a regular on the event circuit. You can usually find me at Nordic Domain Days, Domain Days Dubai, NamesCon, CloudFest and of course Domain Summit. If you are at any of those, come and say hi.
These days something I am doing probably sounds mad to this crowd: giving premium domains away for free. Not parking, not flipping, actually handing them over. The catch is we build a complete subscription business on the name, run all the tech behind it, and split the revenue with whoever takes it. The domain is theirs, the business is real, and they can sell it on later. Sitebuilder.cloud is one name offered this way.
That comes out of BrandForge, which is what I spend my days on now. For 20 years I watched the same thing happen from the provider side. A business buys a domain, full of excitement, and then nothing. No logo, no brand, no idea where to start. The hoster that just sold them the name has nothing to offer next, so the customer either stalls or wanders off to an agency that charges thousands. I saw that moment thousands of times and never once clocked it as an opportunity. That is the embarrassing part. When you are inside something long enough, you stop seeing what is right in front of you.
When we started BrandForge I almost made the classic mistake, trying to out-build the AI logo makers with a better product. But the better logo was never the hard part. AI makes a logo in seconds. The hard part is reaching someone at the exact moment they need a brand, through a company they already trust. That is when it clicked. Twenty years of relationships with hosters, registrars and agencies were not background, they were the distribution. So we built BrandForge white-label and channel-first, sitting inside the providers who already own the customer. Someone buys a domain, and now there is something waiting for them.
Anyway, that is me. Here to talk domains, swap stories, and no doubt buy a few more names I do not need. Looking forward to it.
