interviews Inside Interview: Why Adam Perzow Spent 7 Figures on Coins.com

Coins.com Buyer, Adam Perzow​

First off, thanks for your interest. After you contacted me, I looked more deeply at NamePros and was very impressed with the depth of knowledge of your user base.

My name is Adam Perzow, and I have been an entrepreneur going back to my college days. I am originally from Montreal, Canada, and I've had the pleasure of living in some great cities over the last 15 years since I Ieft Montreal. I've been fortunate to call Los Angeles, New York, and Tel Aviv my home. I have even lived for months at a time in less obvious cities such as Bangkok, Kiev and Hong Kong. I absolutely love traveling, but I prefer immersing myself in a city as a quasi-local.

Starting in my high school days I operated kiosks at the largest flea market in Montreal selling Disney products and apparel (was actually a great business ). In College, to support myself, I operated a business selling TV cable boxes that provided access to movie channels and premium programming. After graduating university with an economics degree and a postgraduate program certification in financial management, I worked as a wealth manager for the largest bank in Canada. I very soon realized though that I wanted to go back to pursuing an entrepreneurial future.

As the internet era became THE industry to be in, I turned my attention toward that. I have since founded, started and invested in a number of companies. Perhaps some of the more relevant ones to mention vis-a-vis this Q&A are Invest.com, MDInsider (mdinsider.com), investing.com and now Coins.com

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Yes. I acquired the domain earlier this year.

I was spending significant time overseas in Asia the second half of last year and I couldn't go anywhere without people talking about "Bitcoin this", and "Bitcoin that", as well as other digital currencies. I thought to myself "This is very cool, there is definitely a shift happening here". I have been aware of the digital currency and the blockchain space since 2013, but I hadn't seen mainstream people talking about it in a meaningful way since the second half of last year.

After I kept hearing the frequency of discussion about digital currency, I knew a shift in mindshare was on the horizon. This was my cue to figure out how to take digital currency to the masses all over the world. I started thinking about how the average person would best respond to a consumer-centric online brand for digital currency, as well as exploring the existing brands in the digital currency space (such as Coinbase). After a dedicated process with my team, we concluded that Coins.com was without a doubt the name we wanted and I went after it.

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To be blunt, I'm actually not a "domainer". Even though I have owned and/or been a part of some very valuable domain property's over the years, my grand total is 5 domain names including my purchase of coins.com, however, all of those names were all 7 figure names.

My goal in buying these domain names is never as an investment per se in terms of holding and sitting on them, but rather, always to build or position them to be something much larger. So, with regard to coins.com we have significant plans to position it as a major consumer brand in the digital currency space (not to be confused solely with the cryptocurrency space which is narrower).

We have a broad view of what digital currency means to the world and that is more than just cryptocurrency. It also represents native on platform currencies (for example, like Amazon coins for apps, and in app purchases which currently exists and is in circulation). Hence, coins.com was the broader mainstream brand for us.

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None of the domains I was looking at were technically for sale. They were not on the market. But, as they say, everything is for sale at the right price.

While I was overseas, I started contacting the owners of coins.com, coin.com, crypto.com and some other elite names. I knew a 7 figure budget was needed for what I wanted to do and I was prepared for that. I had communications with all of them while I was still overseas. Most of the owners are based in the United States and are protective over who they choose to speak to, and rightfully so. I came back to the US in January and I set up some in-person meetings. In my experience, face to face is far superior to emails and phone calls when demonstrating that you are for real and want to get a deal done, especially when negotiating a multi-million dollar transaction. These guys get a lot of inbound inquiries, most of which are time wasters. I had my own experience owning these valuable assets and having had a barrage of inbound inquiries, so I had first-hand knowledge of how best to approach the situation from my own experiences while also carefully considering the needs and perception of the counterparty.

Once we conducted our internal analysis (several polls and search analysis) on which domain was getting the best responses as a purely consumer-centric mass-market brand, I laser focused on Coins.com, and I went into my meetings prepared with real offers. I was ready to move forward on a deal ASAP - and this is key. A seller needs to know you are real and have the intention and the wherewithal to close on a deal.

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Unfortunately, the terms of the deal are confidential but I can confirm this was a 7 figure deal.

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Absolutely. This was all about an analysis of consumer branding and trust. This was not a play for your every day cryptocurrency enthusiast, which we estimate to represent less than 1% of the global population. We wanted a brand that represented digital currency as a whole, but also represented a name that could be trusted by 99% of the global population. To me, this is the real value of a premium domain - it's potential mass market appeal. The power to communicate to the 99%. As a matter of fact, the names crypto.com and cryptocurrency.com were names we considered along with other "crypto" related names, and almost unanimously the word crypto was not responded to well, at least for our consumer-centric mainstream goals. Our internal feedback from users was that "coins" or even "coin" were far preferred. Had we been looking to target the true crypto enthusiast, no doubt crypto.com is a very strong name.

I also think this poll is interesting about that the coins vs. crypto discussion, as you can see both POV's and both sides have relevant points to make in the comments

Truthfully, we see crypto.com as an absolutely amazing and valuable name, it just wasn't the right fit for us. Coins.com was the ideal fit and messaging. Furthermore, we also see the word crypto being synonymous with secrets and is also a highly technical term, that may or may not stand the test of time. The terminology in this new world of digital currency evolves so fast. On the other hand, Coins doesn't suffer from that same inherent risk in the long term.

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No, but at the same time they are very valuable. The cryptocurrency industry is about the evolution of currency, finance, financial inclusion and global interconnection. Most of that trust needs to occur online. To me, premium domain names represent pre-existing goodwill with your potential online audience. Therefore it is also important that the group behind that domain name have genuine intentions to live up to the name. At least to me, this is a premium domain names main value. Certain industries don't require as much trust as other ones. With regard to digital currency, trust is of paramount importance and therefore there is a huge premium value attached to these premium digital currency domains for that very reason.

I want to say it again, although we will certainly have a focus on the cryptocurrency space, there is far more to digital currency than just cryptocurrency (Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc). For example, think of Amazon Coins, or other apps such as Bumble Coins, and hundreds of other online game apps that are already using digital currencies (digital coins) as their in-platform currency. I am a big fan of existing and current utility and use cases. So while not many people are using cryptocurrencies yet for genuine utility (aside from speculation), existing companies like Amazon and Bumble and many others are already using digital coins and digital currency. So that is big.

The reason we saw massive value in coins.com was not to only to have prominence in the cryptocurrency space, but also to have a big influence in the overall digital currency space. Crypto and digital currency are not necessarily synonymous, but they are certainly related. Coins.com represents the bridge between these two worlds. The crypto world, and the 99% mainstream consumer world. So Coins is a cross-over brand into the realm of digital currency for the 99%. Crossing the chasm from crypto which is still very niche and an insiders world, and bringing to light the real value that digital currency can bring to the average consumer.

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That's an easy one. Online trust and category leadership.

You can build amazing and valuable companies with a brand-able name, let's say like Wix or Casper. Premium domains represent a bit of a different opportunity. They allow you to be perceived almost immediately as a category authority.

Think cars.com, hotels.com, insurance.com, escrow.com, vacationrentals.com - they are brands in one sense, but more so they are online category authorities or marketplaces that instill a sense of online trust that might have been missing in that particular category. You get a lot of value on day one and then you can build further off that immediate value. Brand-able's take a lot more time to see the value. Coins.com, the way we are using it, is a hybrid in my view.

Premium domains like Cars.com and Hotels.com are somewhat more literal and authoritative than brand-able names and that's where the opportunity is slightly different. I'm not saying one is better than the other, just a different opportunity. In our case, we intend to provide a portal to access all forms of digital coins and also create our own "coins" in association with major brand partners. So in that regard, the breadth, literalness, and authoritativeness of Coins.com is absolutely ideal for our vision in reaching the mainstream consumer all over the world.

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