This morning, I shared that Namecheap Founder Richard Kirkendall stepped down as CEO of Namecheap following the company’s acquisition. I noticed this when he transitioned off of the @NamecheapCEO account on X and he is now using the @NamecheapCEO123 account.
Longtime Namecheap COO Hillan Klein was promoted to the role of CEO. In taking over the executive suite, Hillan also took charge of the @NamecheapCEO account on X. His first post was made this afternoon:
Last night, I noticed that Richard Kirkendall no longer had the NamecheapCEO account on X. Instead, his account handle changed to NamecheapCEO123, which I was following. I mentioned this precautionary in the event he had lost control of the account for some reason. Fortunately, the change was intentional.
In a post on X early this morning, Richard shared that he has stepped aside as Namecheap CEO. This change comes in the wake of CVC Capital Partner’s $1.5 billion acquisition of Namecheap. According to Richard, the new CEO of Namecheap is Hillan Klein, who has been the company’s Chief Operating Officer for 12 years.
When I visited a Namecheap auction this morning, I noticed an informational header indicating that Namecheap may change the time of day its auctions end.
“Have your say on Auction end times
We’re reviewing our end time schedules and want to know what works for you. Share your ideal bidding window and shape the future of Auctions, all from one short survey.”
I’ve been impressed by the growth of Spaceship and its recently launched SellerHub. The sister company to Namecheap has shown a great willingness to engage with its customers, and the platform quickly implements suggestions and feedback. I like working with businesses that value and prioritize customer feedback. The low 5% sales commission is a nice sweetener as well.
About two weeks ago, I added a swath of domain names to Spaceship’s SellerHub as a test. At the moment, I am only listing domain names on the platform without using its landing pages.
Richard Kirkendall is one of the hardest working executives in the domain name space as the Founder and CEO of Namecheap. He has built Namecheap into one of the largest domain name registrars, and he recently launched a sister registrar platform, Spaceship.
This morning, the Wall Street Journal reported some massive news as it relates to Namecheap. A private equity company is reportedly close to acquiring a majority stake in the company. Here’s an excerpt from the article with the gist of the deal.
In January of this year, I won Pinwheel.ai in an auction held at Namecheap. My winning bid was $541, as archived by NameBio. The total cost I paid was $726.96 with the $185.96 renewal fee tacked on to the total. I have been under the assumption that the renewal fee charged for .AI domain names adds two years to the registration.
