Gagan Biyani, a Co-Founder of Udemy, Advisor at Lyft, and former CEO of Sprig, announced the name of his newest startup: Maven. The thing that caught my attention is the domain name that the company is using – Maven.com. The domain name has been owned by General Motors, and in fact, Whois records show the domain name is still registered to GM.
With that in mind, I asked Gagan and his two Co-Founders (Wes Kao and Shreyans Bhansali) if they bought the Maven.com domain name from GM. Gagan replied with a link to a tweet thread he previously posted sharing the startup naming process his team undertook. He also shared insight into the process of securing the domain name. I think this is a great thread for investors to read for additional insight into the mind of a startup founder seeking a great brand and corresponding domain name.
Here’s the thread:
We’ll be revealing our name next week!
There’s very little out there about naming and domain name negotiations, so I thought I’d share a bit of our story… There were 2 steps:
1) Create a “short list” of names
2) Acquire the domainThe story of how we did it 👇🏾
— Gagan Biyani (@gaganbiyani) March 25, 2021
We enlisted two of our investors to help:
1) @hiiamArielle at First Round who ran us through a naming process (for free)
2) @krutal is a serial entrepreneur who also happens to be an excellent domain name negotiator
Talk about value-add!
— Gagan Biyani (@gaganbiyani) March 25, 2021
I like to use a temporary name for legal paperwork and investor pitches. At Sprig, it was “Fresh” and at NewCo, it is “Didactic”
Pick one you would never use so you don’t get tempted into using it bc of inertia…
Also don’t indulge the name when other people use it publicly!
— Gagan Biyani (@gaganbiyani) March 25, 2021
Step 1: Create a “short list” of names.
Over four 1-hour meetings, Arielle walked us thru a “Positioning & Naming” doc with questions like:
– What does Didactic do?
– How do you do it?
– Who is your target customer?
– How do they feel?Forced us to get tight on our value prop.
— Gagan Biyani (@gaganbiyani) March 25, 2021
The result is a positioning statement that looks like this: pic.twitter.com/aeNFd1QJic
— Gagan Biyani (@gaganbiyani) March 25, 2021
Arielle also recommends naming the category you are creating with your company. This led us to the name “CBC” or “cohort-based course.”@wes_kao and I spent a lot of time thinking about releasing the CBC name into the wild and did it here:https://t.co/LDVCFSC11v
— Gagan Biyani (@gaganbiyani) March 25, 2021
We took the positioning statement and ran a brainstorm with a bunch of linguistically-inclined friends. In 1.5 hours, we came up with 700+ names!
We later whittled those down to three names: [top choice], Coho, and Zeno
Yeah, there’s a big delta in quality between #2 and #3 😅
— Gagan Biyani (@gaganbiyani) March 25, 2021
Step 2: Try to acquire the domain names.
Krutal started researching the owners of these names. We mostly focused on .co and .com’s, but also looked into a lot of other options.
Our [top choice] was owned by a big corporation – we’ll call them [Owner]. Shit. This will be tough.
— Gagan Biyani (@gaganbiyani) March 25, 2021
Luckily, they no longer used the name! So we shot our shot: I LinkedIn’ed the person in charge and they responded: “Thanks for reaching out. [Owner] is keeping the [top choice] domain.”
I racked my brain to see if anyone I knew was connected at [Owner]
— Gagan Biyani (@gaganbiyani) March 25, 2021
Turns out an old friend is connected. Time to call in a favor!
He connected us to someone else at [Owner] and we had a call.
I kept Krutal on speakerphone so he could listen in. We were pessimistic after the call and interpreted their goals as being financially-motivated.
— Gagan Biyani (@gaganbiyani) March 25, 2021
We assumed it was out of our budget, and, shockingly, we GAVE UP. We thought it was better to focus our time on other names.
Started to reach out to the owners of https://t.co/WLwc7uvUK8 and https://t.co/BtHUBdPxnR. We would go back to [Owner] later when we had more money.
— Gagan Biyani (@gaganbiyani) March 25, 2021
For over 1 month, we never followed up with [Owner]. We tried every avenue to get to the owners of Coho. It didn’t work; we couldn’t even get them on the phone or via email!
Too bad for them – we probably would’ve paid good money for that name.
— Gagan Biyani (@gaganbiyani) March 25, 2021
It was a tough spot. Investors and the public were constantly asking me what the name was and I had no leads, no idea of a timeline.
Frustrated, I finally reached back out to [Owner] almost 1.5 months later.
They responded and were willing to talk.
Huzzah!
— Gagan Biyani (@gaganbiyani) March 25, 2021
We *completely* underestimated [Owner]. They were far faster and more efficient than we expected. Also, they were willing to work with us on a part-cash, part-stock deal!
After a few conversations, we ended up with a deal that benefited both parties.
— Gagan Biyani (@gaganbiyani) March 25, 2021
I feel kind of silly. We might’ve had this domain ~2 months earlier if I had just thrown out an offer on the first call. Or maybe it was good to feign a lack of interest for a few months. I don’t know.
Regardless, I’m super grateful that we were able to work out a deal!
— Gagan Biyani (@gaganbiyani) March 25, 2021
We spent the next month or so finalizing the nitty gritty of the deal terms and finally signed the paperwork. Couldn’t have done it without Krutal walking us through everything…
Some lessons we learned along the way:
— Gagan Biyani (@gaganbiyani) March 25, 2021
1. Get help with naming. If you can, enlist a naming expert like Arielle (she is free for @firstround portfolio co’s). If you can’t, brainstorm names with a group of friends and keep a running list over a few months.
Be patient; names don’t always reveal themselves right away.
— Gagan Biyani (@gaganbiyani) March 25, 2021
2. Find a domain broker.
Do not negotiate for a domain without someone like Krutal helping! No really, don’t even reach out without their help.
Good names require finesse; sometimes you want to go through the front door, sometimes you use a pseudonym to hide your identity.
— Gagan Biyani (@gaganbiyani) March 25, 2021
3. Be persistent. As a domain owner, I get lots of pings for https://t.co/70DIr86mRV. It’s amazing how many of them don’t follow up.
Also, learn what matters to the owner. We got creative to find the intersection between what we could afford and what [Owner] would accept.
— Gagan Biyani (@gaganbiyani) March 25, 2021
4. Be patient. We operated for nearly 8 months without a name. We launched 4 courses, did hundreds of thousands in revenue, and raised $5M including a crowdfunding campaign.
It took discipline and we could’ve caved at any point.
Personally, I think it was worth the effort!
— Gagan Biyani (@gaganbiyani) March 25, 2021
4. Be patient. We operated for nearly 8 months without a name. We launched 4 courses, did hundreds of thousands in revenue, and raised $5M including a crowdfunding campaign.
It took discipline and we could’ve caved at any point.
Personally, I think it was worth the effort!
— Gagan Biyani (@gaganbiyani) March 25, 2021
What is even more interesting is there is a sports media company (that acquired the rights to SportsIlustrated, for one, and they are Maven. I am very skeptical about their ability to survive for many many reasons BUT, how they could not be a player for this domain is mindblowing to me, which I guess speaks to my skepticism.
In their defense, GM shut down Maven less than a year ago: https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/21/gm-exits-car-sharing-business-and-shuts-down-maven/
Also, is that company a consumer facing brand? Maybe they did not feel the need to spend big on a one word .com?
Good read but without having a connection, it would of been dead in the water.
This was awesome. Thx for sharing, Elliot
The other “Maven” acquired “TheStreet.com” from Jim Cramer for $16.5 million cash in 2019. This was the only “Maven” i know of. Maven.io
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190808005215/en/Maven-Closes-Acquisition-of-TheStreet-New-Jim-Cramer-Deal-Announced
“We were pessimistic after the call and interpreted their goals as being financially-motivated.”
What a shock! Startup founder who wants to be a billionaire actually has to pay market price?