The decision to acquire a high value domain name and use it for a rebrand is not an easy choice for founders or executive teams. Thankfully, there have been several founders willing to share their stories on the process of upgrading their domain and brand names and the impact it has had on their businesses.
Companies we’ve sold premium domains to have all shared the same sentiment - that it has been one of the best decisions they’ve made. Check out a few interviews of founders and corporate executives that went on record to share their stories publicly:
Article: Ben Carmitchel, President and CEO of DataRecovery.com discusses why his purchase of DataRecovery.com for $1,660,000 was well worth the acquisition price.
Podcast: Tim Hargis, VP Marketing of Tuft & Needle discusses why their company acquired TN.com for an undisclosed amount and how it affected their advertising and marketing results.
Video Blog: Michael Saylor, CEO of MicroStrategy discusses his sale of Voice.com in 2019 for $30,000,000 and why he acquired over 100 top one word .COM domains in his company’s early days.
Article: Extend drops the ‘Hello’ from its domain and shares three key factors as to why they upgraded to Extend.com in 2019. In October 2020 the company raised $40M in series B funding.
Podcast: Jamie Siminoff of Ring.com discusses how and why he acquired Ring.com for $1,000,000 in 2016 (fast forward to 29 minute mark for the ring.com discussion). Ring was later acquired for $1,000,000,000.
Article: Craig Clark, founder of Pacific Pillows discusses why they acquired both Pillow.com and Pillows.com (for an undisclosed amount) and how they’ve benefited from owning the two domains.
Podcast: Noah Kagan, CEO of Sumo discusses how and why they upgraded from SumoMe.com to acquire Sumo.com in 2017 for $1,5000,000 and what he learned from the process.
Article: Jacob Smith, CMO of Packet discusses how and why they purchased Packet.com in 2019 for $350,000. They were recently acquired for $335M.
Article: Joe Vargas, CEO of Buy Legal Meds discusses how and why he acquired CBDOil.com for $500,000 in an interview on DNJournal.com.
Article: Karn Saroya, CEO of Cover discusses how and why his team acquired Cover.com for $825,000 in 2018.
Podcast: Tim Campos, CEO of Woven discusses how and why he acquired Woven.com for an undisclosed price, upgrading from the limiting woven.app.
Video: In 2011 Brian Sharples, CEO of HomeAway discusses why they acquired the VacationRentals.com website for $35,000,000. “Only reason we bought it was so Expedia couldn't have that URL.” HomeAway was later acquired by Expedia.
(BONUS) Article: Tencent, parent company of popular messaging and social media company WeChat acquired We.com for $8,000,000 in 2015. Not a case study but interesting domain acquisition by a large corporation
(BONUS) Article: Walmart acquires Shoes.com for $9,000,000 in strategic domain name acquisition. Not a case study but interesting domain acquisition by a large corporation.
*These are only a small handful of case studies on premium domain names. This year (2020) there have been numerous domain upgrades by companies. While most sale prices on the highest end of the spectrum are under NDA, more and more companies are finding it a priority to acquire the best domain for their business. Also, see domain names for sale via Grit Brokerage.
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