This story centers around a domain name sale that took place a couple of years ago, but details only came to light recently thanks to @john_karr who posted a link to an audio file in which the seller describes how he sold the domain name ME.DM to Twitter's co-founder, Evan Williams.
Meet Phil Campbell, a former brand advocate and current owner of The Apiary Haus. In 2005, Phil registered the domain name me.dm for a cost of $150 per year. The .DM extension is the ccTLD for Dominica, but the term DM has special resonance with Phil, after years of using the nickname Danger Mouse as his CB Radio handle, which changed to DMouse for online gaming tags, eventually scaling down to just DM.
Whilst watching the Olympic Opening Ceremony in 2012, Phil received an email from Evan Williams who co-founded the blogging platform Medium along with Biz Stone. Within this email, Evan enquired about buying the domain ME.DM. After verifying that he was indeed speaking to Evan Williams, Phil started a dialogue and Evan sent his opening offer of $1,500.
"$1500 is not going to change my life" is the reply that Phil sent, and then Evan sent a very simple, but powerful email:
After this, Phil sent an email to Evan "and just kept pressing the zeros." His asking price was now $50,000. Phil's reasoning behind his asking price was that he'd had the domain for six years, it had some value. Most importantly, it was his brand, something that I think Evan Williams realized too.
After seven days with no reply, Evan sent the email that Phil had hoped for. An email agreeing to pay $50,000 for the ME.DM domain name. Within two weeks, the escrow transaction was completed and Phil was $50,000 better off.
You may think that Medium acquired ME.DM as the perfect URL shortener for their brand, but surprisingly it was never used. It currently doesn't resolve to any type of web page, and it doesn't even redirect to Medium's official website. Medium was launched in August 2012 on Medium.com, a domain name originally owned by DigiMedia.
Although Phil still owns a couple of domains, he doesn't consider himself to be a domain investor, but he did know the value of his own brand and he knew that Evan Williams valued the domain name at the time. Congratulations to Phil on a great domain sale and probably a record sale for the .DM extension.
Listen to the audio file of Phil's story here.
Note: The description of the audio file says the domain sale was 2011. The sale was confirmed as happening in 2012 rather than 2011 by Phil himself.
Meet Phil Campbell, a former brand advocate and current owner of The Apiary Haus. In 2005, Phil registered the domain name me.dm for a cost of $150 per year. The .DM extension is the ccTLD for Dominica, but the term DM has special resonance with Phil, after years of using the nickname Danger Mouse as his CB Radio handle, which changed to DMouse for online gaming tags, eventually scaling down to just DM.
Whilst watching the Olympic Opening Ceremony in 2012, Phil received an email from Evan Williams who co-founded the blogging platform Medium along with Biz Stone. Within this email, Evan enquired about buying the domain ME.DM. After verifying that he was indeed speaking to Evan Williams, Phil started a dialogue and Evan sent his opening offer of $1,500.
"$1500 is not going to change my life" is the reply that Phil sent, and then Evan sent a very simple, but powerful email:
Think of a figure that works for you. If it's too much, I won't think you're crazy.
After this, Phil sent an email to Evan "and just kept pressing the zeros." His asking price was now $50,000. Phil's reasoning behind his asking price was that he'd had the domain for six years, it had some value. Most importantly, it was his brand, something that I think Evan Williams realized too.
After seven days with no reply, Evan sent the email that Phil had hoped for. An email agreeing to pay $50,000 for the ME.DM domain name. Within two weeks, the escrow transaction was completed and Phil was $50,000 better off.
You may think that Medium acquired ME.DM as the perfect URL shortener for their brand, but surprisingly it was never used. It currently doesn't resolve to any type of web page, and it doesn't even redirect to Medium's official website. Medium was launched in August 2012 on Medium.com, a domain name originally owned by DigiMedia.
Although Phil still owns a couple of domains, he doesn't consider himself to be a domain investor, but he did know the value of his own brand and he knew that Evan Williams valued the domain name at the time. Congratulations to Phil on a great domain sale and probably a record sale for the .DM extension.
Listen to the audio file of Phil's story here.
Note: The description of the audio file says the domain sale was 2011. The sale was confirmed as happening in 2012 rather than 2011 by Phil himself.
