Creative Domain Deal: Lease with Purchase Option

Elliot Silver
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Earlier today, I wrote an article sharing some thoughts about Zalmi Duchman’s Forbes article. In my opinion, the biggest takeaway was Duchman’s advice about being creative to find a deal that works for both parties. Creativity can go a long way in making a mutually beneficial deal happen.

I want to discuss a type of deal that could benefit a startup that needs a particular domain name and a domain name owner: a lease with a purchase option. Essentially this allows a company to pay a monthly fee to use a domain name, and at any point in time, they could purchase the domain name for an agreed upon price. I want to share some advantages of this type of deal for both parties:

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Give.com Acquired by HostGator Founder

Elliot Silver
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Earlier this week, Give.com was sold for $500,000 in a sale transacted via Sedo. The Whois record for Give.com updated yesterday, and I learned that the domain name was acquired by Brent Oxley, the founder of HostGator (who sold the company to Endurance International Group for over $200 million).

After seeing the Whois change, I reached out to Brent to learn more about the acquisition and his plans for the domain name.

Brent told me that Sedo’s Dave Evanson emailed him a list of high value domain names he was brokering, and Give.com was on the list. Although Brent was not in the market for a domain name at that time, he had been planning to set up a charity and had not finalized a name for it yet. The email proved to be serendipitous, and Give.com will be used for Brent’s charity.  Commenting on the deal, Dave told me, “I was aware of Mr. Oxley’s outstanding background and was delighted I was able to negotiate a price that made seller and buyer happy.”

Brent shared his vision for how Give.com will be used and when the charity will launch:

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Give.com Sells via Sedo (Updated)

Elliot Silver
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It appears that Give.com has sold via Sedo. According to Whois records, the current domain registrant of Give.com is Sedo LLC Transfer Service, which is generally the account domain names are placed in during the sales escrow process. Update:  According to a tweet from Sedo broker Dave Evanson, he brokered Give.com in a $500,000 deal.

I looked through my email, and I saw that Dave Evanson was recently brokering Give.com. In fact, Dave listed Give.com for sale for $800,000 via the Weekly Brokerage Listings article in June.

I reached out to Dave to see if he could share any information about the sale, and he confirmed that the domain name has been sold. Dave told me, “At this point I am able only to confirm I have been brokering give.com and the domain is currently in the process of being transferred. I will provide updates as appropriate. Thanks.”

Prior to Give.com moving to the Sedo escrow account, the domain name was

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Good to See Brokers Working Together

Elliot Silver
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I don’t think it happens frequently, but it’s nice to see domain brokers working together to get deals closed. I wrote about an example of this a little over a week ago when I reported about the QE.com sale, which was co-brokered by Media Options and eNaming.com. Heritage Auctions and Right of the Dot are also working together to auction the .Versicherung extension.

Many of the top domain brokers and domain brokerages have loyal clients who look to them when they are buying or selling a domain name. Much like people have favorite real estate agents, domain owners and domain buyers often establish a relationship with a domain broker, and that broker receives their business.

The domain aftermarket is quite

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TPO.com Acquired for “Charitable Social Network”

Elliot Silver
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Wired published an article announcing that “Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and mobile network The People’s Operator are launching a new charitable social network called TPO.com.” According to historical Whois records, TPO.com was acquired earlier this year from Telepathy, the domain investment company owned by Nat Cohen. TPO.com had been owned by Telepathy as recently as January 2015.

I reached out to Nat for a comment about the sale of TPO.com, but he did not share the sale price. Nat said, “I can confirm that the sale occurred at the end of January.” It looks like Nat’s company had owned TPO.com since 2008. Another domain investor was listed as registrant prior to Telepathy’s ownership, and I presume Nat bought it privately in 2008.

I think it would be very interesting to

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IJ.com Brokered by Domain Holdings

Elliot Silver
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Another two letter .com domain names has changed hands. When I received my daily DomainTools monitor email yesterday morning, I saw that a Whois change had occurred on the IJ.com domain name. The new Whois registrant is listed as Media Group of America LLC, which is the parent company of the Independent Journal Review.

After searching my email records for IJ.com, I saw that it had been brokered by Domain Holdings. I reached out to the company to see if the company brokered the sale of IJ.com, and Hobi Michalec confirmed that he was the broker of record.

Commenting on the transaction, Hobi told me,

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