We secured Delete.com (@joindeleteme)…and the process to buy it took a much bigger turn than we had expected. Prior to acquiring the domain, Delete.com had been owned by Dr. Luann Linquist, a psychologist in her late 80s who was living in a care facility. Years earlier, she had used the domain for a project called DeleteStress, but the registration had eventually lapsed and the domain ended up in the expired auction. We thought we might be able to buy the domain for around $200,000, when we knew it was heading to auction. But, once the auction started, one bidder increased their bids (right when time was about to expire) for four-hours straight. Eventually, the auction ended with 356 bids from 32 different bidders, and a final price of $494,352. The mystery bidder kept us on our toes and reminded us to keep our calendars open when we’re bidding on domains at auction – because you never know when your day is going to be monopolized by someone else trying to secure the same domain. Read Full Story 👇 snagged.com/post/how-delete-…

There are definitely easy ways to buy a domain name. Purchasing one from a large corporation is not one of them. We learned this the hard way while trying to buy Plateful.com from a massive food company that, (for a surprisingly loooonng time), didn’t seem to know it owned the thing. We were working with a startup called Plateful, and had helped them originally to secure Plateful.co. Getting the .com was always the end goal. The problem was that Plateful.com had been sitting inside a huge domain portfolio inherited through an acquisition, somewhere inside a corporation large enough that figuring out who actually controlled it became a project of its own. After months of emails, redirects, and corporate-domain archaeology, we finally reached a guy named “Mike” in Legal & Corporate Affairs. Mike was a champ. He agreed to track down the right people, and eventually we got connected with the marketing team. So we made an offer: $25,000 for Plateful.com. Then, we got a totally unexpected response. The marketing team said “they” weren’t interested in ACQUIRING Plateful.com. We were like, “Wait, whaaaaa??” We just told YOU that we want to BUY the domain from you, and you think we’re trying sell it to you?? Yeeeesh….we knew this was going to be a long ride. Once everyone was on the same page, the company confirmed that, yes, they did own Plateful.com. And then they told us what they thought it was worth. $850,000. At this point, you might assume the story is about an absurdly expensive domain and a company that finally realized what it had sitting in its portfolio. It gets better. They sent us research explaining their valuation, and some of the material looked awfully familiar. They had found our own content about domain valuations and were now using it to make the case for why we should pay them more. Using our own blog posts against us is honestly pretty good. Fortunately, we didn’t pay $850,000. After some more back-and-forth, we eventually acquired Plateful.com and the defensive typo domain Platefull.com for $87,500. Nine months of trying to find the person who knew they owned the domain, followed by an $850,000 valuation supported in part by our own advice about what domains are worth. Buying domains is weird. That’s why we love it. Read Full Story 👇 snagged.com/post/they-owned-…

A recent YC startup spent 250k on a domain. I was slightly shocked. But when I asked how much they raised after YC, the answer was 6.5m. So 1/26 of their round. This is the time we live in; one shocking number counterbalances the other.

At some point, spending too much time around startups and domains changes your brain permanently. You stop hearing words normally. Someone says two random nouns in conversation and your brain immediately checks whether the .com is taken. A while ago, this turned into a dumb game I kept playing with friends. Someone would throw out a domain and everyone else had to guess whether it was taken or available. The weird part is how bad human intuition actually is. A domain like LaserBadger.com feels taken immediately. You just assume some guy wearing wraparound Oakleys bought it in 2007 for a BBQ sauce brand or tactical fitness app. Then somehow it’s available. Meanwhile, something like QuantumLeaf.com has apparently existed for over a decade. The internet gets very strange once you spend enough time paying attention to names. So, naturally, we built the game. Now I play it constantly, mostly because it’s impossible to stop once your brain starts trying to predict internet history. If you want to test your instincts, or accidentally buy a domain you didn’t know you needed, you can play the game here👇 isit.snagged.com/game

📢 On this week’s Trailblazers pod, I spoke with the hilarious & brilliant growth mind, @rob (co-founder of @ro & founder of @snagged) We talked about the early founding days for each co, how growth marketing has changed in the past decade, & how he’s spending time now! So fun!

In 1994, a man named Uzi Nissan registered Nissan.com for his small computer business. Four years later, Nissan Motor Company decided they wanted it. What followed wasn’t a quiet buyout. It was a five-year legal war between a global automaker and a guy whose last name just happened to be Nissan. The car company argued that Uzi was creating brand confusion by owning the domain name. But, Uzi ONLY used the domain to host products and services related to his actual “mom & pop” computer business. There was nothing automotive-related on his site at all. So, brand confusion….not really a thing (despite what Nissan, the car company, actually thought). When litigation started, Uzi presented simple facts which ended up setting precedent for future domain cases. Uzi owned the domain, registered it first, used it legitimately and, most importantly, (not that any rationalization was needed)…NISSAN WAS HIS NAME. Despite being a corporate giant, Nissan (the car company) didn’t really have a case or real ground to stand on. Nissan may have been their brand, but it was a common last name. And, as it holds today, domains are standalone assets that people and companies can’t claim “rights” to, unless there is clear confusion, customer deception, or trademark infringement. In 2004, after years of litigation, the courts let Uzi keep the domain, since the exact-match .com was never Nissan Motor Company’s property to claim. After the case was over, Nissan had to settle for nissan-global.com to drive its traffic to…(a real “banger” of a domain, if you ask us). Uzi never sold and took on one of the biggest automakers in the world, refusing to budge on his principle for owning the domain. When he passed away in 2020, the domain stayed with his family. Today, Nissan.com is still online as a tribute site to Uzi. If it ever hit the open market, the domain would likely take high seven-figures (or more) just to start the conversation. The early internet rewarded timing and legitimacy, and Nissan.com is still owned privately by an individual because one person refused to be pushed around by a corporate powerhouse. Read Full Story 👇 snagged.com/post/nissan-com-…

February Domain Spotlight Champions are built long before the spotlight 🥇🥈🥉 The Winter Olympics remind us that performance is never accidental. It is preparation, precision, and fundamentals done right when nobody is watching. The same is true for brands. The ones that win big invest early in the foundation, starting with the domain. .COM 🔧 Piston.com 🌍 Everybody.com 🎯 Center.com 🎮 Playmaker.com 🌀 Labyrinth.com 📉 Bearish.com ⚖️ LegalConsulting.com 🧬 Antibiotics.com ⚖️ WeightControl.com .AI 🧠 LLM.ai 🔁 Workflow.ai 🎱 Cue.ai Train like a champion and build like one too. DM to get in the game before the podium fills up 🏆 mailchi.mp/c0184918b3ad/doma…