Domain Name Consortium - Could it work - If so, How?

[Sharpy]

con·sor·ti·um : An association or a combination, as of businesses, financial institutions, or investors, for the purpose of engaging in a joint venture.


Hi, any opinions on this?

A little background:

I have a name in mind. The owner is not adverse to offers, and I think would sell for the/her right price.

The name is active, but will expire soon. Both Snapnames and GoDaddy have backorders. Name winner has a substantial bid on it considering the name is still active. I can only assume the rest of the blind services have initial bids on the name.

My guess is the owner is leaving her renewal to the last minute, to create interest in the name. She is well aware of the looming expiery date, and has told me, through email that she will renew. I do not believe she is a speculator, just a proud owner of a great .com. Having said that, I'm sure over the years, she has recieved enough unsolicited offers to know that the name is worth a great deal.

In June, I made her a substantial offer, $25000us, which, after a lengthy consideration period, she declined, but still left the door open. My offer was all I could afford and a little more, at this time.

My Original Question:

Finding investors outside of the domain speculator community has proven fruitless. Most potential investors look at me side ways when it is discussed. They have little or no experience with domain names and therefore deem any investment in a domain name, as too risky.

I obviously have not discuseed this within our community until now.

Could a group of people here form a successful investors consortia to buy this name, or any name for that matter. I could ask a few members personaly, however I'm sure you recognize all of the inherent risks for me, in doing that.

For the amount of money invoved, certainly a lawyer would need to be involved. But how do you go about securing investors prior to invoving the lawyer? I don't want to set up a legal investors situation, only to find no investors.

Has anyone ever done this, or would anyone be interested in setting up a buying group? Not just for this name, but for this situation?

Let me know your thoughts and/or experience.

Posted on other forums as well


Thanks

Sharpy

 

[RajanUrs]

In my country the simplest way to legally form a firm is by partnership but it means unlimited liability on the partners and the form gets dissolved upon the death of any partner. Next is a limited liability company but it has more formalities and procedures.....very cumbersome for a small business. Last option is a public limited company where the shared are offered for the general public.....dont even think of it unless you got the head for such a large business operation.

IMO I dont think anyone is very keen on domain business thesedays. Just like the emails service providers....everyone thought it was a damn good idea till they realised it wasnt fetching any good profits anymore.

With country tlds and generic tlds people have lot more options than before when there was just .COM, .NET and ORG. Once I wanted to register an available .COM name and when I researched I found the same name was already registered with .CO.UK extension but the .COM and NET were not. It was very surprising because it was a nice short name....I delayed a few days and then it was taken by someone else.