Thoughts

Andrew Miller

July 14, 2024

20/20 Hindsight

Those of us who are experts on the most premium domain names are often tasked with helping a CEO/Founder/VC understand why it is so important to ensure they own their exact match .COM domain. It helps to have been a Founder of 2 successfully sold exact match, .com branded businesses, because I can at least say “I lived it” & I “invested in it too”. It helps to have overseen transactions for many of the most successful companies in the world that also can attest to the strategic difference and enterprise value increase that resulted from acquiring their EM .com domain. Yet, every day, I encounter decision makers who still cannot find their way to the vision to understand how massive a difference it makes across all facets of their business to operate as the single word exact match and most certainly, to operate as .com. One story that I often tell (names withheld) occurred in early 2022. I had spoken several times to a CEO of a one word branded company using .IO. We discussed that they have email risk (see Gravity*com https://lnkd.in/eFS_NYXp ),danger of someone else getting big with the domain and owning the mind share of consumers with the .com, and investor risk. We ultimately sold the domain to another VC backed entity that subsequently got acquired for $270m. It is a brand you likely know. The .IO lost future investment from its VC, mainly because they had determined they then needed to rebrand ,which is a very costly exercise and was preventable. That company is still slogging it out, on a new, less effective brand. The rebranding had to cost more in hard dollars than the domain, which is a standalone valuable asset & investment, and the most important step they could have taken rather than spending dollars marketing on the wrong domain. Founders & CEO’s, at the bare minimum, take the time to understand the importance of moving from “HelloPublic*com to Public*com” or a secondary TLD to .com. Think about this; name me 5 brands/companies globally that have experienced mega-success that are not .com? I know, it’s a loaded question.

Atom is Revolutionizing Domain Sales

A big week for our Hilco Digital Assets run Ultra-Premium domain marketplace on Atom.com with a handful of strong sales. One came from a response to a well tested and run LinkedIn ad, where the domain was featured. Atom is pioneering the marketing of the world’s most valuable domain names and the results are strong. Patience is key, always with domains, but being technically ahead in the race is huge.

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