YouForm.com Deal Looks Like a Win Win

Davis Baer, Founder of Youform, shared that his company acquired the Youform.com domain name for $7,500:

The answer: We paid $7,500 for youform·com

It was listed at $25,000, but we were able to negotiate the price down to $7,500.

It seemed like a decent price for a 7-letter .com domain.

Why not stick with .io?

The .io TLD is fine, and I’m sure Youform would have been fine… https://t.co/lWFSgfuTR9

— Davis from OneUp & Youform (@mynameis_davis) March 29, 2024

There are a few things to unpack from this and from his subsequent tweets. Youform has been using Youform.io for its website. The .com domain name was acquired via Sedo following a negotiation. Davis shared how the negotiation went, and he was able to secure the domain name for $7,500. This seems like a great deal for his company, particularly considering its initial $25,000 asking price.

I think this was a win win deal for both the buyer and the seller.

Using the Whois history tool at Domaintools, I did some research to learn more about the domain name’s history. It has been registered at Enom under Whois privacy for 17 years. Using Archive.org, I can see a “for sale” link since at least mid-2009 – nearly 15 years.

My assumption with this information is that it is the same registrant who has been trying to sell the domain name for a long time.

In looking at LinkedIn, I can get an idea of why there may have been limited demand for this asset. There appear to be just two most likely prospects for it – the buyer and a small business in France using You-Form.com. There is also a pad company with YouForm in its branding that may have benefitted from upgrading domain names. I did not do exhaustive research on prospective buyers though.

If you look at DotDB, you can see there are 14 “YouForm” domain names registered. I did not check many, but it looks like the .org and the .CO domain names were just registered in the last couple of days. There’s also the .com and .io domain names owned by the buyer. I don’t know if they own other Youform domain names in different extensions.

I spent way too much time on a Saturday looking at this, but I think the buyer was the absolute best prospect for the domain name. Had Davis said, “fuck it, we love our .io and don’t care about the .com,” the seller could have had this name for 20 more years without a better offer. For $7,500 though, he now has the all-important .com domain name which “gives a ton more credibility,” in his words. I agree.

On the other hand, assuming the seller is the same person who owned it for 17 years, they are probably into this domain name for less than $200 and they made nearly $6k in profit. This was probably the best offer they received and if the .io company fails or rebrands as something else, it might be the best offer they would ever receive.

I’ll spend $7,500 on a speculative .com domain name investment without thinking twice. Shoot, show me a very good one word .com priced at $75,000 and I’ll quickly pull the trigger without a ton of consideration. Spending serious amounts of money on a domain name doesn’t scare me. For a small business owner outside of this space, spending $7,500 on a domain name is a big expense. In this case, I think Davis made a wise investment.

For me – as someone who makes a living from selling domain names, I’d be happy to turn this kind of investment into cash that can be used to grow my business.

All in all, I think this was a win win for both parties.