Tell me if this sounds familiar. You know exactly what you want to call your company and immediately go to register the .COM. Then you realize what you were probably expecting from the beginning…someone else owns the domain. The normal reaction at this point is to think to yourself, “stupid squatter!” and instantly become both angry and annoyed at the person who bought the domain name before you and aren’t using it for anything.
It’s called doing a WHOIS lookup. Note: all the domain investors reading this post will say, “duh Morgan, everyone knows what a WHOIS lookup is!” and they’d be right…if we were just talking about domain investors and industry professionals. But normal people actually don’t know about WHOIS lookups yet it’s the best way to get directly in touch with a domain owner. There are a zillion services that do whois lookups, one of my favorites is iWhois.
Read MoreI can tell you with confidence, your average person doesn’t know this. Once again, if you’re a domain investor or domain industry insider who reads my blog, yup, you knew this. However, if you’re a startup founder, small business owner, or entrepreneur getting ready to start your next venture, this just might be news to you. Since I’ve told this to dozens of people who had no idea that those crazy privacy protection email addresses actually went anywhere, it means that for some of your reading this, I just blew your mind...
