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Yeah, it's frustrating. There's a domain that I wanted, and the guy who's got it has been squatting on it for years and years. So I contacted him about it abo

Yeah, it's frustrating. There's a domain that I wanted, and the guy who's got it has been squatting on it for years and years. So I contacted him about it about 3 years ago and he said: "Thank you for your interest. The web site is under extensive development and is not for sale. Only a (1) public company or (2) private company with sales in excess of $5B would be considered." First of all, that website looks the same now as it did 10 years ago. So I'm not sure what "extensive development" means. And second of all, why would it be any of his concern whether my company is public or makes $5B in sales? That really rubbed me the wrong way. I'd rather just get back a ridiculous number that I'm obviously not going to pay.

pavlov 13y ago
If it's a good domain, you're certainly not the only one who contacted him about the domain just out of curiosity. He's getting a lot of emails about it. If he did what you suggest and replied to everyone with a ridiculous price -- "Hi, USD 20 million, ok?" -- then he'd just get a second wave of emails from people trying to haggle: "That's outrageous! The domain is worth $100k maximum. I'll pay you $2k and give you 0.1% equity in my awesome startup. Deal?" And if he doesn't reply to that, then the person will send another email with the worthless offer slightly tweaked, and so on... So he's better off setting a precondition that prevents the pointless replies, basically "I'll talk to you only if you have a legal department with more than 20 people."
- bratsche 13y ago
  It's honestly not that good of a domain though. I don't think it's worth $100k. Maybe $10k, although I'm not about to spend that much on a domain (but maybe someone will). Anyway, good luck to him. I hope when he is ready to sell his domain there is someone looking to buy it for the kind of money he's expecting.

pavlov 13y ago

If it's a good domain, you're certainly not the only one who contacted him about the domain just out of curiosity. He's getting a lot of emails about it. If he did what you suggest and replied to everyone with a ridiculous price -- "Hi, USD 20 million, ok?" -- then he'd just get a second wave of emails from people trying to haggle: "That's outrageous! The domain is worth $100k maximum. I'll pay you $2k and give you 0.1% equity in my awesome startup. Deal?" And if he doesn't reply to that, then the person will send another email with the worthless offer slightly tweaked, and so on... So he's better off setting a precondition that prevents the pointless replies, basically "I'll talk to you only if you have a legal department with more than 20 people."

bratsche 13y ago
It's honestly not that good of a domain though. I don't think it's worth $100k. Maybe $10k, although I'm not about to spend that much on a domain (but maybe someone will). Anyway, good luck to him. I hope when he is ready to sell his domain there is someone looking to buy it for the kind of money he's expecting.