"Oh, if only those merchants weren't so savvy. But the surrounding local tech boom certainly hadn't been lost on them. According to Mickiewicz, when he approach

"Oh, if only those merchants weren't so savvy. But the surrounding local tech boom certainly hadn't been lost on them. According to Mickiewicz, when he approached them to make a deal, they laughed, saying they'd expected an offer--and had already received offers--that topped $1 million. Cross Saffron.com off the list." Just to fill everyone in in case this isn't obvious that's a total ploy. And a stupid one at that. While it's common in the business to state that "I've turned down $x" it's more typical to state "I want $x and I've already turned down $x-(some number)." Or at least that's the smarter way to BS someone. Obviously a local merchant didn't turn down $1,000,000 at least not a serious $1,000,000 in other words a real offer. The only exception to this might be perhaps super valuable names (of which saffron.com is not) such as certain words, 2 letter .com's, some 3 letter .coms or names owned by large corporations (that don't need the money) or for developed sites where there is a cost for someone to change their web presence.