Another Ville.com sells but this time its not Zynga buying.
No the company is much larger than Zynga, its Cablevision. American Movie Classics the network owned by Cablevision is the new registrant for Fanville.com.
The name was sold by my friend Lance from Swells.com an ecommerce company that runs LicensePlateFrames.com among others.
He took a couple minutes to tell how the sale came about.
HD How did the sale come about ?
We acquired the name to brand another ecommerce store as an adjunct to TailgateParties.com, a project we are starting. We did not have any plans to sell. At the end of December we received a NetworkSolutions Certified offer out of the blue.
No the company is much larger than Zynga, its Cablevision. American Movie Classics the network owned by Cablevision is the new registrant for Fanville.com.
The name was sold by my friend Lance from Swells.com an ecommerce company that runs LicensePlateFrames.com among others.
He took a couple minutes to tell how the sale came about.
HD How did the sale come about ?
We acquired the name to brand another ecommerce store as an adjunct to TailgateParties.com, a project we are starting. We did not have any plans to sell. At the end of December we received a NetworkSolutions Certified offer out of the blue.
HD Did you have a specific price in mind for the domain
No, since it was acquired it for development, we did not have any pricing in mind. The initial offer was for $10,000; significant enough that we knew it was a serious buyer, but not significant enough to abort plans. After a few discussions we decided not to respond to the offer. In February we received another offer, but it was increased to $20,000. At this level we decided it would be best for the future of our business to pursue the sale. The Certified Offer Program is capped at $25,000, so the situation now was to accept, counter with $25,000 or once again ignore and hope the buyer would contact us outside of the NetworkSolutions program. We responded with the cap price and they accepted.
HD Did you have any idea who the buyer was when they made the first offer ?
We speculated it might be Zynga, but with the Certified Offer program you have no way of knowing.
HD How much did you acquire the name for if you can say ?
We acquired it in the mid-four figure range from Andrew Miller of IREG and SimpleDomains.com.
HD Did you think the buyer was going to be Zynga ?
We were very interested to see if it was Zynga, but shortly after we ignored the first offer they announced the launch of Rewardsville.com which put some doubt in our mind.
HD How much did you acquire the name for if you can say ?
We acquired it in the mid-four figure range from Andrew Miller of IREG and SimpleDomains.com.
HD Did you think the buyer was going to be Zynga ?
We were very interested to see if it was Zynga, but shortly after we ignored the first offer they announced the launch of Rewardsville.com which put some doubt in our mind.
HD Are you happy with the sale now that you see it was Cablevision ?
Very happy. With the help of a number of friends at Donna Mahony’s DomainBoardRoom.com, I think we made the right choice. Elliot Silver and Terrell Miller were a couple that were spot on that the revenue would go a long way at enhancing our current business, and one of the bits of advice that really stuck was Brian Null’s “it took me a few sales to realize that selling a domain name wasn’t the finish line… it’s one step along the way”. We are now using that revenue to completely redesign two of our store fronts and move them to a more scalable platform. Additionally we’ve been able to reinvest in a couple more premium names.
Congrats, Lance!
I wonder if Zynga will try to sue them now? lol. And it’s Rewardville.com, not Rewardsville.com but I bet there will by a lot of type errors to Rewardsville, it sounds better. Hold onto those ‘ville’ domains! What will Cablevision use it for, maybe sports related site for fans?
That’s a great sale. Congrats
I would have thought Zynga too. You got a nice price for the name. Is there good money in license plate frames ?
Great story. Enjoyed reading the details as I’ve never dealt with NS Certified Offers before.
Thanks for sharing. Great interview BTW!
$25,000 was the max about in the Certified Offer Program? Since they went from $10k to $20k so easily, makes me wonder if they would have gone to $30k or $40k? Their next step might have been to go to $25k or contact the owner directly through the Whois. Maybe should have ignored the second offer too?
Zynga doesn’t have long to go. Their game designer is not the best.
good sale. but it looks kind of lots of money left on the table.