Pulled Out Just in Time

I was recently going back and forth in a competitive domain name auction. My initial research that morning had given me an amount I felt the domain name was worth. This intel helped me bracket an amount I was comfortable spending.

I received a couple of outbid emails, and the high bid was close to the maximum amount I felt comfortable spending. Instead of bidding once more, I did some cursory research to see what companies existed in that brand space. I opened several websites that appeared to be different companies operating on a similar brand name. One thing stuck out to me – all had the same unique favicon. I stopped bidding and lost the auction.

That feeling when I am in a competitive domain name auction and notice something critical that makes the domain name less valuable than I initially thought. pic.twitter.com/xHQJGojKiU

— Elliot Silver (@DInvesting) May 26, 2026

The additional research I did via DomainLeads.com helped me understand there weren’t numerous different businesses operating in that namespace. Instead, it was the name of a website template, and the different websites were concepts for how the template could be used.

I wasn’t bidding on a domain name that match the brand name of an architecture firm, consulting company, large multi-national business, and a few other smaller businesses as I thought that morning. It was the name of a small web template that wasn’t much of a brand at all.

Relief – I withdrew from the auction just in time.