I wanted to share with you the story of my first five-figure domain name sale, which came from a $69 purchase. This story isn't intended to be boastful in any way. I hope it will show that sometimes luck, along with taking a risk, can lead to a good return. This is by no means my usual method or motive for acquiring a domain name, but I hope you find it interesting.
A couple of years ago, I was set upon building my own social media sharing startup. I planned on creating a share button that would have been similar to AddThis, but it had the option of posting to more than one social network at a time, .e.g, you could share this story to Twitter and Facebook with one click.
At the time, I needed a name for the brand, and I initially set upon "Amigo" due to the fact that it's a memorable word, everyone knows it, and I felt that it instilled positivity and warmth to the brand. Naturally, I wanted a simple, memorable .COM domain name and started to research options surrounding the word "amigo." I found what I thought was a great brandable domain name that was due to expire: amiigo.com.
Keen to get the name, I placed bids at NameJet, SnapNames, and Pool.com to ensure that I would get the name. NameJet caught it, and I ended up paying $69 for the name.
However, like most startup ideas, mine stalled. After working tirelessly on a presentation and documentation to put forward to tech companies, blogs, and investors, I was advised that the proposed technology was impractical. Disappointed, I stopped my plans and parked amiigo.com, not expecting anyone to have an interest in the name.
Within a few weeks, I received a $4,000 opening offer from someone working with a new startup interested in owning the domain name - no details of the startup were ever given. A $4,000 offer on a $69 domain investment? In normal circumstances, I probably would have accepted this offer immediately, but I opted to reject it. This was a very big risk for me at the time and to this day, I'm not entirely sure why I was so confident in rejecting the offer.
At this point, I decided to do some research as to who the mystery buyer could be, but I had very few clues except for their business niche. I had no luck finding my potential buyer, but I did find a fitness brand called Amiigo who were preparing to launch after raising over $580,000 on a crowdfunding website.
At the time, the fitness brand was using the ".co" extension and from the traffic statistics I had for amiigo.com, it looked like a lot of traffic was directing to my domain name instead.
During the next couple of weeks, a few very fortunate events happened. Firstly, the fitness brand got in touch with me to ask about acquiring the name. After learning about the other interested party, they placed an offer around $7,500 if my memory serves me correctly. I then decided to go back to the first brand to notify them of this bid. A mini bidding war ensued until I finally agreed to a low five-figure deal with the fitness brand.
The deal took a while to complete, with the Escrow transaction timing out a couple of times. I was worried that the sale would fall through, and by this time, the other interested party had opted for another domain name, so I was at risk of losing a large sale. I emailed the buyer periodically and eventually they paid the funds; my $69 domain name had turned into a five-figure sale within 12 months, after initially taking a risk in rejecting a very healthy $4,000 offer.
There was a lot of luck in this sale surrounding the circumstances of acquiring the domain name, as this isn't typically the type of domain name I buy. I know many people who buy up brandable domain names who never achieve a sale and eventually let the names expire.
It did show me the power of saying "no," though. In some cases, saying no can lead to a deal falling through, but in this case, I was confident enough to be able to say no a number of times until I felt that I'd pushed my luck as far as it would go.
A couple of years ago, I was set upon building my own social media sharing startup. I planned on creating a share button that would have been similar to AddThis, but it had the option of posting to more than one social network at a time, .e.g, you could share this story to Twitter and Facebook with one click.
At the time, I needed a name for the brand, and I initially set upon "Amigo" due to the fact that it's a memorable word, everyone knows it, and I felt that it instilled positivity and warmth to the brand. Naturally, I wanted a simple, memorable .COM domain name and started to research options surrounding the word "amigo." I found what I thought was a great brandable domain name that was due to expire: amiigo.com.
Keen to get the name, I placed bids at NameJet, SnapNames, and Pool.com to ensure that I would get the name. NameJet caught it, and I ended up paying $69 for the name.
However, like most startup ideas, mine stalled. After working tirelessly on a presentation and documentation to put forward to tech companies, blogs, and investors, I was advised that the proposed technology was impractical. Disappointed, I stopped my plans and parked amiigo.com, not expecting anyone to have an interest in the name.
Within a few weeks, I received a $4,000 opening offer from someone working with a new startup interested in owning the domain name - no details of the startup were ever given. A $4,000 offer on a $69 domain investment? In normal circumstances, I probably would have accepted this offer immediately, but I opted to reject it. This was a very big risk for me at the time and to this day, I'm not entirely sure why I was so confident in rejecting the offer.
At this point, I decided to do some research as to who the mystery buyer could be, but I had very few clues except for their business niche. I had no luck finding my potential buyer, but I did find a fitness brand called Amiigo who were preparing to launch after raising over $580,000 on a crowdfunding website.
At the time, the fitness brand was using the ".co" extension and from the traffic statistics I had for amiigo.com, it looked like a lot of traffic was directing to my domain name instead.
During the next couple of weeks, a few very fortunate events happened. Firstly, the fitness brand got in touch with me to ask about acquiring the name. After learning about the other interested party, they placed an offer around $7,500 if my memory serves me correctly. I then decided to go back to the first brand to notify them of this bid. A mini bidding war ensued until I finally agreed to a low five-figure deal with the fitness brand.
The deal took a while to complete, with the Escrow transaction timing out a couple of times. I was worried that the sale would fall through, and by this time, the other interested party had opted for another domain name, so I was at risk of losing a large sale. I emailed the buyer periodically and eventually they paid the funds; my $69 domain name had turned into a five-figure sale within 12 months, after initially taking a risk in rejecting a very healthy $4,000 offer.
There was a lot of luck in this sale surrounding the circumstances of acquiring the domain name, as this isn't typically the type of domain name I buy. I know many people who buy up brandable domain names who never achieve a sale and eventually let the names expire.
It did show me the power of saying "no," though. In some cases, saying no can lead to a deal falling through, but in this case, I was confident enough to be able to say no a number of times until I felt that I'd pushed my luck as far as it would go.
Que sera, sera. Congrats buddy 
