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When the Best Prospect Goes Under

It feels pretty good when a startup founder wants to buy your domain name. I know the domain name can probably incrementally help the business, and it will likely open some doors or impress some people as they raise capital. Oftentimes, it can be challenging to get that startup to make an acquisition commitment. ‘We’ll be in touch after we close our next round,’ a founder will tell me.

Every once in a while, I will touch base and see if anything has changed. Perhaps the business has gained traction, grown revenue, or the company has realized it is hampered by its current domain name. Sometimes founders will stay in touch, and other times they disappear.

One Month to Go

My wife and I did some traveling and enjoyed the 4th of July holiday weekend with friends. My wife is an incredible runner, and we did a short run together on Friday followed by a longer individual run on Saturday. I can’t hang at her 8 minute/mile pace for 10 miles – nor would I run 10 miles in the humidity.

On Sunday, we were back home and did a 30+ mile bike ride together. It wasn’t super fast, but the purpose of these rides is to get my legs into shape to be able to ride 162 miles over two days in a month from now. The Pan-Mass Challenge is coming up August 3-4.

Quality is Remembered – the Price isn’t

I was driving through town the other day when I saw a landscaping truck with a perceptive quote on the back: “Quality is remembered long after the price is forgotten.” It turns out that this is reportedly a quote from Aldo Gucci of the famed Gucci luxury brand.

I think the same sentiment can be felt towards a domain name acquisition.

Oftentimes, a business will spend more money than it is comfortable spending to acquire the perfect domain name. The expenditure may be significant, and it could impact business operations in the short term. It can take a company time to wrap its collective “head” around the idea of making what could be deemed as a staggering investment in its branding and web presence going forward. In the short term, this can eat a massive chunk of a company’s cash reserves and may be painful.

GOAT Foods Getting Set to Launch Cookies.com

G.O.A.T. Foods operates a number of confectionary and food-related brands on exceptional one word .com domain names. You can buy licorice via Licorice.com, you can buy chocolate via Chocolate.com, you can buy pretzels via Pretzels.com, and you can buy caramels via Caramels.com.

The company’s authoritative domain names are coupled with great branding, and they go beyond e-commerce websites. I have seen GOAT Foods’ branded vending machines at various points in my travels. The business model seems to be working for the company, as evidenced by its growth and development of new brands.

Last night, GOAT announced the forthcoming launch of Cookies.com. As you can imagine, Cookies.com will sell cookies:

How I am Using DomainLeads.com

Michael Cyger introduced me to DomainLeads.com, a recently launched domain industry tool created by the company operating Estibot. DomainLeads.com is a tool that helps identify the number of registered and developed TLDs (extensions) in specific SLDs (keywords or phrases). For instance, I can see the Logical SLD is registered in 134 extensions, and 13 of those are developed websites.

I think this data is critically important when it comes to understanding potential prospective buyers and determining the value of the .com domain name.

DomainTools Retiring Domain Monitor Tool

The DomainTools Domain Monitor tool has been an invaluable tool for me in uncovering domain name sales and transactions. I monitor tens of thousands of domain names, and when DomainTools detects a change in its Whois record, I receive an alert notifying me the following morning. The tool has been greatly impacted by GDPR and similar privacy laws, but it has continued to help discover when domain names change hands or transfer.