Elliot Silver mentioned yesterday that Future Media Architects will now have it’s domain names brokered by Saw.com.
One of the domain names FMA owns is Cool.com. 20 years ago Cool.com had a lot going on and a potential $38 million deal that was never accepted.
ZDNet covered the story. Tim Lee hand registered the name back in 1995 and his friends had no idea why he was excited.
“I was bragging that I got this cool domain, and people asked me, ‘Why would you want a domain? What are you going to do with it?’ ” Lee said.
Adam Curry from MTV and MTV.com fame once made an offer on the domain name. Lee even loaned the name out for six month intervals to other entrepreneurs. When Lee and his partner put up a website, 75% of respondents on the site said they were teenagers.
Back to the $38 million deal, from the article:
Then came an offer from a New York lawyer, representing a consumer products marketing company, who offered $3 million cash. Last week, he upped the ante to $8 million plus a potential $30 million worth of stock.
“It’s tempting,” Lee admitted. “But the opportunities for using such a brand for marketing and a long-term business strategy are a lot more compelling. Long term, we have an opportunity to really develop a global brand that is a force to be reckoned with.”
The deals and development never panned out and a few years later FMA had the domain name.
Cool story LOL, see what I did there? Seriously was good, how did they not sell for big money?
Was one domainer who really wanted this domain and would payed a good price for the domain. He had about 2000 domains with word ReallyCool Domain and wanted to buy Cool.com Just never happened.
He sold the domain for way too cheap!