Pillow.com is a valuable domain name. Not only is a pillow a product, but the Pillow.com domain name could be utilized as an unrelated brand name. Pillow.com is what some people would consider a “brandable” domain name.
For many years, Pillow.com has been owned by a pillow company called Pillow Menu, LLC. Smartly, the company also owns the plural Pillows.com domain name. In fact, Morgan Linton wrote an article on Medium about an interview Craig Clark (the company’s owner) did to discuss the company’s domain name strategy. You should read the interview when you have an opportunity.
Last week, TechCrunch published an article about a rental management startup called Pillow that recently raised $13.5 million in funding. CrunchBase says the startup has now raised a total of $16.15 million in funding. I was curious to see what domain name the company is using, and I saw that the startup can now be found at Pillow.com. The domain name they had been using, PillowHomes.com, now forwards to Pillow.com.
I reached out to Craig Clark to see if his company sold the domain name to the startup. The short answer is no. Although Craig’s company still owns Pillow.com, there could be a deal in the works:
“Pillows.com is in a JV with respect to the domain, Pillow.com, with Pillow Homes, Inc.
Pillows.com remains the domain owner, but Pillow Homes, Inc. has an option to purchase the domain name if everything works out.”
Because Craig’s company sells pillows, I think the Pillows.com domain name is a better one for him to keep. Should things not work out on the Pillow.com deal, Craig’s company will retain the domain name. Should they work out, the startup will end up with the perfect exact match .com domain name for its business, and Craig’s company will benefit from a (presumably) nice sale.
Craig didn’t share any financial details about this purchase option, but it sounds like it could be a win/win.
Update – 10/28/18: Pillow.com was sold.
I’ve heard the MyPillow is good. Anyone ever try it? I’ll bet they got mypillow.com at a great price.
That guy is a genius. The pillow is filled with shredded foam. He was actually able to get a patent which consists of different size particles of foam that interlock into each other. It just so happens that when foam is shredded it creates these funky shapes that supposedly interlock into each other. Do they really interlock by design? Probably not.
You can give him 50 bucks or go to the craft store and buy a bag of shredded foam for 10 bucks and throw it into a pillow case. Same thing.
This is why Mark Cuban basically says the patent system is a joke.
Thanks, never would have thought foam was in there.
Ultra generics, that aren’t used for the exact meaning of the word, face SEO challenges.
The inverse is also true: generics used for the exact meaning of the word need to pump up their SEO efforts, but not as hard as those that become unrelated brands.
Obvious solution: use two word, descriptive domains, or brandables. They get SEO juice faster.