DomainNoob.com » Andrew Warner

How We Acquired Groupon.com

John — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 01:00:31 +0000

Mixergy’s Andrew Warner recently interviewed Groupon’s Andrew Mason. This clip discusses how Groupon got Groupon.com.
Full interview with video and transcription can be found at Mixergy.
Andrew calls it ‘the perfect name’, but another fellow with a similar idea already owned Groupon.com. He didn’t want to sell it and he didn’t want to work together. Only later, after obtaining a trademark for ‘Groupon’, which extended to the domain owner’s home country of England, were they able to talk him into selling. Did they pay too much? Andrew doesn’t think so. It helps to remember that Groupon is now doing hundreds of millions in sales annually, but in the interview he states, “We bought it in May of 2009 or something like that, for maybe $250,000 dollars, which seemed like a lot at the time, but now seems cheap.”

(Click arrow to hear clip) How We Acquired Groupon.com

Is a Hyphen Worth $15,000 Dollars

John — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 00:54:38 +0000

Mixergy’s Andrew Warner recently interviewed Blank-Label.com‘s co-founder Danny Wong. This clip discusses Danny’s frustration with trying to acquire the domain BlankLabel.com
Full interview with video and transcription can be found at Mixergy. [Note: Danny was Skyping in from China so the audio clip is a little funky.]

Danny calls the owner of BlankLabel.com both a ‘squatter’ and an investor. Using the real estate analogy, a squatter would be someone living in a house someone else actually owns. The person who owned the house might be a ‘slum lord’ but nevertheless, anyone can see he’s holding the property as an investment. So sure, in my opinion, the guy who registers Gooogle.com would be a squatter- looking to profit from someone else’s property, but the guy who owns BlankLabel.com (and 29,000 other dot coms) is an investor. The problem seems to be that when people’s passions around building a business are involved, they lose sight of the fact that domain names are simply another product a market grew up around. That some domains are available at registration price somehow allows people to imagine buying the domain they want at that price. Well, you can get a house in Detroit for next to nothing! It might have all the pipes and wiring ripped out, but the city is giving them away in hopes people will move in. That doesn’t make anyone think the house in Beverly Hills should be free does it?

(Click the arrow to hear the clip) Is a Hyphen Worth $15k?

PS $15k seems like a lot, but it’s all relative. IMO it would be worth maxing out a few credit cards or doing another round of friends and family to get the domain.

Inane Domain Names – InaneDomainNames.com

John — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 19:12:01 +0000

I’m starting a collection of inane domain names. InaneDomainNames.com will resolve to this page on the blog. If it generates enough interest I’ll move it to it’s own site at some point. Please send me your favorite Inane Domain Names (and why you think they’re inane)!

I’m overwhelmed. Just watched ThisWeekInVentureCapital and one after another Mark Suster is rolling out these recently funded multimillion dollar companies whose names are, IMO, horrific!
Xobni.com Sendgrid.com Swipely.com Assistly.com Burstly.com Telepart.com? Earlier in the day Jason Calacanis talked about paying @$18k for ThisWeekIn.com (for his network of shows). He gets it! A good name is going to cost you a little dough. If VCs are pouring in cash- stop! Get a new name! Your customers will thank you- they won’t be embarrassed telling their friends about you (and then spelling the url, and then spelling it again).

Sorry, even the press articles covering the launch are calling it unvarnished.com, but it’s actually GETunvarnished.com I feel for these guys, that’s one crappy domain name.

Kevin Rose just sent out a tweet announcing his investment in a new startup. He links to a NY Times article about said startup. I’m just sayin’, if Kevin Rose is investing in you and the NY Times is writing about you it’s probably too late to change your domain/company name, but give me a break! formspring.me? For another question/answer site? Amazing.

This looks like a great product and I loved Andrew Warner’s Mixergy.com interview with Harry Lin that hipped me to it but, really, Lottay.com? Described as a cross between lottery and latte. More like a cross between can’t spell and can’t remember. I think this was one of the situations where by the time they had some money and momentum to run with the idea, they’d actually become fond of the name.

The Crunchpad fiasco is ongoing, but in the meantime the manufacturer is offering the tablet pc for sale as the Joo Joo. Bad enough they don’t even own the domain name joojoo.com but doubly inane because of the the.
theJooJoo.com

This has been mentioned elsewhere on the blog. Vark itself isn’t all that bad a domain name. The problem here is that the company is called Aardvark.
vark.com. (Wow! Aardvark/vark.com sold to Google for $50 Million! Wonder if they’ll keep the name.)

Domains ARE Brands!

John — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 07:54:04 +0000

I’ve been listening to a LOT of startup related podcasts. Especially ThisWeekInStartups.com mentioned earlier and Andrew Warner’s Mixergy.com. I’ve pretty much spent the last month going over every one of Andrew’s podcasts. It’s surprising how many startups miss the boat on domains and how that can impact marketing efforts. I think this clip from an interview Andrew did with Grasshopper.com founder Siamak Taghaddos pretty much sums up what I hear over and over again.

Siamak Taghaddos

Seems pretty obvious, right? But here’s an example (from another excellent Mixergy interview) of what so often happens.
Noah Kagan

Matt (WordPress / www.Ma.tt) had to get it. Would like to know more about that story.
Matt Mullenweg

Otis (of Goodreads.com) definitely gets it. Exactly, “a good domain will give you a 30% extra chance of success”.
Otis Chandler

Sure, domain names can be expensive. But the trouble is, the larger you grow your company, the more you
run the risk that someone is going to hold that domain name hostage (and why shouldn’t they, really?)
I guess my point is that getting the right domain name upfront will save you a lot of money in the long run.
If you would like help finding or acquiring a domain name for your startup please drop me a line. I love to
brainstorm domains and can help broker a deal for a domain that’s already owned.

In The News.
From: DomainNameWire.com

Social gadget company upgrades its domain name.
Sedo has brokered the sale of Poken.com for $75,000 to a company that bills itself as a mobile social business card.

According to the web site, “poken is your ’social business card.’ it’s an easy way to share your contact details and online social networks in the real world. just hold two poken palms together – high4! – and you’re connected.”

The web site makes it look like a product primarily for teenagers. This domain is a big upgrade, as it appears the company has been using DoYouPoken.com as its web site.

From: DotWeekly.com

Ad.ly Purchases Adly.com Domain Name
Ad.ly is becoming a very popular in-stream advertising platform for Twitter.com users and they just purchased what would be considered a typo of their domain name, Adly.com for $6,000 at Sedo.com .

Adly.com was first registered in late 2001 and changed hands to Adly Inc. on 10-31-2009.

This is a very wise purchase for Adly Inc. because not only could the domain name be considered a typo of it’s Ad.ly domain, but it also matches the company name exactly.

I think Adly Inc. got a Great Deal on the new domain purchase, as Adly is a nice 4 letter brandable domain name… Just like Ad.ly decided to name their company!