Rick Schwartz Agrees to Sell GoBet.com for $850,000

Rick Schwartz has been tweeting about his negotiation to sell the GoBet.com domain name. The prospective buyer started with an offer of $70,000 in June of 2019, and the buyer incrementally improved the offer since then. This morning, Rick announced that GoBet.com is “now in Escrow for $850,000 AFTER commissions!!

Rick initially tweeted about the state of the negotiation to sell GoBet.com back in November of this year when the high offer was $280,000:

Rick has done very well for himself over the years, and his acquisitions and sales have put himself in the position to be able to turn down serious six figure offers without any regret.

From what I can gather from Rick’s tweets, the company continued to slowly increase its purchase offer over the course of 18 months. Rick continued to say “no” or some variation of no without giving a counter offer. The company improved its offer to $750,000 and Rick gave them a counteroffer for the first time:

Rick did not share if the counteroffer was $850,000 or if the counter was higher and the company maxed out at $850,000. Whatever the case may be, an $850,000 sale for this domain name is quite high. In fact, once the deal closes and Rick confirms it with DNJournal, it will rank as the the second largest domain name sale of the year, behind the seven figure sale of Bullish.com.

Congratulations to Rick Schwartz on a great domain name sale.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

33 COMMENTS

  1. Congrats to Rick.

    The main takeaway from this isn’t that it pays to be patient – because 99% of domainers would have stopped at $100K; it’s that excellent domain names, on which a billion-dollar business can be launched (!), are worth far more than we think.

    During my days as a TM lawyer my co-workers and I wrote for licensing and royalty journals; and the average TM royalty rate at that time was anywhere from 3% to 12% of YEARLY profits.

    So for those who are ‘quantitative’…just do the math on what a TM licensor is paid each year based on a profitable company or product.

    You should use the same type of royalty-rates (adjusted for net present value (NPV)) to figure out what a solid domain name is worth – particularly one that will give a business a massive leg-up on branding.

  2. I think he could have negotiated higher.

    The old Schwartz I know and love wouldn’t have settled for this. If they were willing to go to $850k they believed in the name and needed it.

    He should have gotten Drew Rosener to get it to $1million. All it needed was one little push.

    • Let me see if my math is right and compare it to your thinking and math.

      $1 million less 20% to Rosener would net me $800k and so I would be better off taking that instead of $850k??!! ROTFLMAO!!!

      Thanks for the love bro!
      :-))))

      • Brokers at that level should take 10% max leaving you $50k better off but that wasn’t my point. Have you been paying brokers 20% of a million dollar sale? You have to renegotiate that.

        My point was that you left money on the table. This buyer had $1m to spend and you accepted $850k.

        There is nothing wrong with that especially if you needed the money.

        It’s the same as someone who has a $5k domain selling for $4k to help cashflow. Or someone buying a domain for $200 and selling it for $500. Everyone’s gotta pay bills.

        Good luck though – nice sale even though you have the buyer a $150k discount.

        • So Matt,

          We all know you have a feather up your ass……
          We all know you are an idiot……

          Personally I DESPISE passive agressive IDIOTS more than anything!

          Please list al your 7 figure sales so we can learn.

        • @Rick – you have quite the potty mouth and a short fuse, try to relax. Also I’m not sure why you always start talking about feathers and asses.

          I was just making an observation about the buyer likely having 1mil to spend, maybe you know otherwise, I just don’t know why you didn’t hold out for 1 million. Seems like you left $ on the table.

          Did you at least put that asking price out there?

        • Matt sells .nyc domains for $500. This guy does not know anything about domains and has a very unhealthy obsession with DomainKing.

  3. I don’t know who this Matt is, but he is full of beans. By now people should also know I’m not the kind to say that just because it’s RS, and that I’m often among the first to declare that something was a steal or undervalued or underpriced, and am committed to “truth in domaining.” I seriously doubt many people either could or would have held out for $850k on this one, as in doubt more than perhaps even only one, two or three people. Would like to know what the final counter was though.

  4. Can anyone handle the real truth?

    I’m torn between saying nothing and saying the real whole truth. Not sure which is best. Just realize this was a great sale, and how often do you ever (like, ever) see me even say that?

  5. Rick and only Rick has the gumption to negotiate . . . and hold out for . . . $850k for a domain any of us folks would have thanked our lucky stars for getting $100k for.

    The king . . . is the king . . . is the king.

    Long live the king!

    • Nah, I’m happy for him. I just like to prod him with a bit of his own medicine.

      In this case the power of saying no got the price up to 850k – in all seriousness that is a great job. Turning down $500k, $750k… Impressive but why settle on $850k? Why not just say no again and then accept $950k or $1m?

      This raises the bigger question of how do you know that you didn’t leave $ on the table? What are the signs?

      Did this guy say “$850k take it or leave it?” And that was the sign? If he said “$750k take it or leave it?” do you walk?

      People can have skills in negotiating, sure, but the ability to say no at $750k (to get $850k) even though you may lose the deal (and I doubt many others are lining up to pay this price) is also a function of how much you need the $, the demand for the name and perceived value.

      I prod Schwartz for the following reasons:
      1. His advice often ignores the variables that the folks further down the food chain are juggling – and there’s no acknowledgement of that – yet it makes a big difference
      2. Even with the slightest opposition, he starts getting angry, cursing, name-calling, trying to put folks down and I don’t think that’s cool. Instead of having a thoughtful conversation about a topic, if he doesn’t like something that is being said he jumps to insults to intimidate in an attempt to force folks to retreat.

      He has called folks a range of vulgar names because they sell a $8 reg for $500. Yet he tweets asking for those same “dummies” to sell him their names – lots of hypocrisy here.

      I have also said this before that Schwartz’s strategy of saying no (also Mike Carson’s approach of asking for ridiculous amounts (credit Sherpa)) helped me sell a hand reg that I held for longer than I should have, for $25k.

      So no hard feelings, but I am interested in how he knew $850k was the top. How did he know he’s not leaving $ on the table when this has been one of his major criticisms of others.

      • How did I know $850k was the top??

        Just the same as everyone knows you’re a moron/idiot!

        That’s not name calling, that’s a FACT! Ask around. That is the FIRST word your PEERS use to describe YOU! Good job on reputation management.

        So $25k was your highest sale with an unknown domain. Congrats! VERY STRONG!!

        Tell us the domain name. Let’s see how much money YOU left on the table.

        Let me critique your negotiating skills or lack of them. Just like you have no social skills. NONE!!

        Thanks so much for your advice and knowing so much about negotiating high ticket domains even tho you have never sold a high ticket domain. BRILLIANT!

        Meanwhile I am so deep in your head that you should be charging me rent!!
        Maybe someday you will get professional help and get over it!

        How much time of YOUR LIFE have you taken to write about ME in 2020?? TO ME!!??

        That’s sick! You are stuck on me like some girlfriend dumped you. ROTFLMAO

        Get over it! GET HELP!!

        MORON:

        1 : a very stupid person They were acting like a bunch of morons. 2 dated, now offensive : a person affected with mild intellectual disability.

        IDIOT:

        An idiot, in modern use, is a stupid or foolish person. It was formerly a technical term in legal … In Latin, idiota was borrowed in the meaning ‘uneducated’, ‘ ignorant’, ‘common’, and in Late Latin came to mean ‘crude, illiterate, ignorant’.

        That’s not name calling MATT.
        Those are the NOUNS that describe you the best.
        I can certainly add more.
        Don’t take it personally Matt, you can’t help it.

        Name-calling is a different art. But you have thin skin and so you run to mommy crying about this big bad man calling you names. LOLOLOL

        Believe me, when I call someone NAMES, they know about it!!
        You’re not worth the effort. Plus I don’t like to pick on those with “ISSUES”

        And wait til you see MY passive-aggressive side. They call me SLICE and DICE!!

        • Lol, ok Slice and Dice.
          You realize that you’re proving my point here with your anger issues above.

          I am equally impressed with your avoiding the question as I am with your use of CAPS and weak insults, but why don’t you just answer the question that would actually help domainers? The part of the negotiation that you knew you didn’t leave money on the table.

          To turn down 750k, accept 850k and not try to get a round $1m (unless you tried to) seems like you left money on the table. But hey, just my opinion.

          Also I’m sorry that you’re holding this much anger, and letting it spew out here, it really isn’t good for you. You should go out and celebrate. Why wouldn’t you be happier with selling this domain for $850k – even if you left $150k on the table you still got more than most people would have.

          Congratulations on the sale. Let’s leave it at that and move on. (Unless you want to give any info about why you know you didn’t leave $ on the table)

      • Matt, did you say Rick should of got that Bald Head goon Rossner to broker the deal LMAO! Rosner is not even in the the same league at Rick. Rick is the F*cking GOAT, the KING!!!!!

        • Rick is one of the best, but I would bet that Andrew Rosener is one of the few people who has brokered many times the value of Rick’s sales combined. I would not be surprised if Andrew has brokered into the 9 figures worth of domain name sales ($100 million +) and I don’t think Rick is close to that number.

          Yes, of course there is a difference between selling your own names and brokering someone else’s names, but I believe Andrew is right up there and has sold many more names.

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