Although I do not report my own sales, I appreciate when other investors and companies share their sales. Some of the benefits I get out of seeing other people’s sales include the following insight:
When I am trying to buy domain names from registrants who have held them for many years, I am frequently told that their domain names are worth more than I am willing to pay. Perhaps they have turned down better offers in the past, or maybe the discussed the value of the domain names with a broker or someone else. Whatever the case is, some people believe their domain names are worth more money than I am willing to pay.
In all honesty, they are probably right. I would not be willing to pay $25,000 to buy a domain name as an investment if I believe it is worth $25,000. Obviously I can not pay an amount of money that I would hope to get if I was selling it myself. So why should someone sell a domain name to me for less than it is worth? Liquidity.
Here are Nat Cohen’s comments about domain investors who bring liquidity to domain registrants. I believe Nat’s company recently acquired Owen.com and Higgins.com, and his commentary is in the wake of those deals:
A reader sent me a link to an article from a Dutch entrepreneurial website, and the author reported that he spent $1 million to acquire the Meal.com domain name in 2019. On the about us page on Ondernemer.nl (dutch for Entrepreneur), the Publisher, Mitchel van Duuren, reported that he acquired Meal.com after founding MealPlanner.com and rebranded the business under the shorter domain name.
Here’s the excerpt from the page, with the English translation courtesy of Google Translate below the original excerpt:
“Ik kocht de domeinnaam mealplanner.com en huurde developers in om mijn visie tot leven te brengen. Deze visie bleek steeds groter te worden en dat zorgde ervoor dat ik in November 2019 de domeinnaam meal.com kocht voor het astronomische bedrag van 1 miljoen dollar voor wereldwijde expansie.”
“I bought the domain name mealplanner.com and hired developers to bring my vision to life. This vision was getting bigger and bigger, which meant that in November 2019 I bought the domain name meal.com for the astronomical amount of 1 million dollars for worldwide expansion.”
I reached out to Mitchel via the Meal.com contact page, and he confirmed that he acquired the domain name last year for $1 million. He also told me the domain name was purchased with a two year payment plan. I presume the deal has not yet been paid off.
Because the Whois information is “REDACTED FOR PRIVACY” at Enom due to GDPR, I am unable to see the current registrant of the domain name. I sent an email to the registrant via Enom’s website asking about the deal, but I did not hear back. The Whois record says, “Registrant State/Province: DC,” and the only domain escrow service in Washington DC I am aware of is facilitated by IP attorney Stevan Lieberman. I reached out to ask Stevan if he is handling escrow for this domain name, and he told me he could not confirm or deny.
Although this million dollar sale is self-reported and has not been verified by an outside source, it definitely seems well within the realm of possibility for Meal.com to be a million dollar domain name.
Assuming the domain name is paid off and also assuming Ron Jackson from DNJournal and/or Michael Sumner from NameBio are able to independently confirm the sale, it could become one of the top domain name sales of 2021. In the meantime, operating the business on Meal.com is a pretty nice upgrade for the company that was founded as MealPlanner.com.
This morning when I visited Sedo to search for new listings, I noticed a new banner under the header asking users to fill out a survey: “We need your Feedback! Help us to improve the search and thus your experience with answering a few questions.”
The survey is being hosted via Google Forms, and it is reportedly anonymous. I do not know if Sedo will be able to track participants who may be logged in to their Google account when they do a survey though.
I don’t know about you, but in domain name sales negotiations, I regularly receive a reply from a prospective buyer that attempts to devalue my domain name by pointing out its flaws. “The problem is…” and then the prospect lists some of the potential issues with the domain name that, in their opinion, would reduce the value or the utility of my domain name.
How do I typically respond when someone points out some of the potential drawbacks of a domain name in my portfolio?
Earlier this afternoon, I wrote an article about a change I noticed on the GoDaddy homepage. The primary color scheme was changed to black and white, and the GoDaddy logo was exchanged with a grey on black GoDaddy icon. I speculated it was related to #BlackoutTuesday and the Black Lives Matter movement, and it looks like the speculation was correct.
I just heard back from a GoDaddy representative responding to my request for more information, and I was given a statement that explains why GoDaddy made this website change:
