4 ms·

You guys don't get it. He has a good job and doesn't care much for money. In other words, he has enough fuck you money to say "fuck you", and that's exactly w

You guys don't get it. He has a good job and doesn't care much for money. In other words, he has enough fuck you money to say "fuck you", and that's exactly what he's doing. Wanna own this very cool four-letters dot com? You can't because he's giving you the finger. Well... You could, but you'd have to fork out at least $10 million. At which point he's pretty much still giving you the finger.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
larrys 14y ago
Let me start by saying that I have been doing domains since the 90's and have both bought and sold domains in the hundreds of thousands of dollars multiple times. And have made money doing this. The domains I have purchased have mainly been for others so I have a good idea of the "mentality" of a domain seller. In addition by being an owner I get approached by plenty of people who want to buy a domain that I own. I have seen every single approach out there on the buy side multiple times. As far as "not needing to sell" the only 2 times I ever failed to buy a domain (for a client) was a domain that google owned where I was not able to buy that domain for a client. I even tried to trade them domains that I owned that they might need. And I was talking to the "right" people at google (high up contact referred by a well known person at google.) They carefully considered and then decided they weren't interested and would keep the domain that I needed. I used this strategy because obviously I quickly recognized that money was not going to make the deal (google doesn't need the money) which is why I went the route of a trade and it actually almost worked (where "almost" means they considered making a trade and took some time to ponder and pass around the domains I offered for any projects in the pipeline.) The other time was a domain that was owned by a Fortune 500 non-profit that a chinese buyer wanted. I was the go between. The non-profit didn't want to sell (buyer was willing to pay $50,000 nothing to sneeze at and the domain was not that valuable and well worth it to sell at that price). They buyer came to me because they had bought another domains from me and thought I could help them get this name. I still feel I had an angle to get the domain from them but the client didn't want to pay more money to try that angle. (Bonus points to anyone who can figure out that angle it's not a legal angle by the way.) No matter what this seller tries to feign my belief is there is a weak point that would make him sell for way way less than 10,000,000 which of course is absurd for this domain. There aren't many buyers for this domain at even a $500k value. He may say he does not need the money but more than likely he is what I call the "lottery ticket" mentality where he is hoping that some big fish comes along and buys the domain for millions. While that could happen and he could be proven correct I don't think that will happen based on my 17 years of experience doing this. The other thing is he is trying to hard to justify why he won't sell the domain and isn't interested. Shakespear comes to mind. As someone who owns plenty of domains I know exactly how many inquiries someone gets when they own a "good" short domain. Guess what? You don't get that many inquiries to be annoyed when you own 1 or even 10 domains. I could write a book on this obviously but the way to approach (a seller like this) is not to send an email but to dangle a formal offer in front of him with a deadline and see what he says then. Or I might get into a plane and fly out and try to casually meet him to determine what makes him tick or uncover some other info about him that will help me buy the domain (which could be 6 mos. later so the events aren't tied together).
- gbelote 14y ago
  I would love to read that book - I've always found domain negotiation fascinating.
  - larrys 14y ago
    Thanks. The strategies that are used are unique and sometimes they are made up on the fly depending on hunches that I have. And creativity is a must. A recent deal I did was a domain where both the buyer (my client) and the seller agreed to a price ($60,000) and both were happy. I perceived to much eagerness on the part of the seller (the tempo of his replies and his voice on the phone) and as a result managed to get him to lower his price by another $4,000 which almost covered my entire fee. All this w/o the buyer even knowing about it. (I did the entire deal from the start and the start price was $200k and it's a pretty good name actually.) It would be hard to put in words why I decided to take that chance along with the risks etc. (And it didn't put any more money in my pocket I did it just for the fun of following my hunch). On the sell side I once raised a price by $50,000 merely hearing the buyers voice over the phone. That said almost all deals are done by email not in person and not over the phone. (See if you can guess why I prefer to do it like that.) This is all psychology and pattern matching and I've been doing it for many years (as well as with things that have nothing to do with domains at all) I've never read a book on it and I wouldn't do that because it would mess up my instincts. I also do work for VC's and angels acquiring domains and I've helped plenty of people for free (but can't really do that because it's very time consuming). Questions are always invited obviously.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

larrys 14y ago

Let me start by saying that I have been doing domains since the 90's and have both bought and sold domains in the hundreds of thousands of dollars multiple times. And have made money doing this. The domains I have purchased have mainly been for others so I have a good idea of the "mentality" of a domain seller. In addition by being an owner I get approached by plenty of people who want to buy a domain that I own. I have seen every single approach out there on the buy side multiple times. As far as "not needing to sell" the only 2 times I ever failed to buy a domain (for a client) was a domain that google owned where I was not able to buy that domain for a client. I even tried to trade them domains that I owned that they might need. And I was talking to the "right" people at google (high up contact referred by a well known person at google.) They carefully considered and then decided they weren't interested and would keep the domain that I needed. I used this strategy because obviously I quickly recognized that money was not going to make the deal (google doesn't need the money) which is why I went the route of a trade and it actually almost worked (where "almost" means they considered making a trade and took some time to ponder and pass around the domains I offered for any projects in the pipeline.) The other time was a domain that was owned by a Fortune 500 non-profit that a chinese buyer wanted. I was the go between. The non-profit didn't want to sell (buyer was willing to pay $50,000 nothing to sneeze at and the domain was not that valuable and well worth it to sell at that price). They buyer came to me because they had bought another domains from me and thought I could help them get this name. I still feel I had an angle to get the domain from them but the client didn't want to pay more money to try that angle. (Bonus points to anyone who can figure out that angle it's not a legal angle by the way.) No matter what this seller tries to feign my belief is there is a weak point that would make him sell for way way less than 10,000,000 which of course is absurd for this domain. There aren't many buyers for this domain at even a $500k value. He may say he does not need the money but more than likely he is what I call the "lottery ticket" mentality where he is hoping that some big fish comes along and buys the domain for millions. While that could happen and he could be proven correct I don't think that will happen based on my 17 years of experience doing this. The other thing is he is trying to hard to justify why he won't sell the domain and isn't interested. Shakespear comes to mind. As someone who owns plenty of domains I know exactly how many inquiries someone gets when they own a "good" short domain. Guess what? You don't get that many inquiries to be annoyed when you own 1 or even 10 domains. I could write a book on this obviously but the way to approach (a seller like this) is not to send an email but to dangle a formal offer in front of him with a deadline and see what he says then. Or I might get into a plane and fly out and try to casually meet him to determine what makes him tick or uncover some other info about him that will help me buy the domain (which could be 6 mos. later so the events aren't tied together).

gbelote 14y ago
I would love to read that book - I've always found domain negotiation fascinating.
- larrys 14y ago
  Thanks. The strategies that are used are unique and sometimes they are made up on the fly depending on hunches that I have. And creativity is a must. A recent deal I did was a domain where both the buyer (my client) and the seller agreed to a price ($60,000) and both were happy. I perceived to much eagerness on the part of the seller (the tempo of his replies and his voice on the phone) and as a result managed to get him to lower his price by another $4,000 which almost covered my entire fee. All this w/o the buyer even knowing about it. (I did the entire deal from the start and the start price was $200k and it's a pretty good name actually.) It would be hard to put in words why I decided to take that chance along with the risks etc. (And it didn't put any more money in my pocket I did it just for the fun of following my hunch). On the sell side I once raised a price by $50,000 merely hearing the buyers voice over the phone. That said almost all deals are done by email not in person and not over the phone. (See if you can guess why I prefer to do it like that.) This is all psychology and pattern matching and I've been doing it for many years (as well as with things that have nothing to do with domains at all) I've never read a book on it and I wouldn't do that because it would mess up my instincts. I also do work for VC's and angels acquiring domains and I've helped plenty of people for free (but can't really do that because it's very time consuming). Questions are always invited obviously.