Domain Regrets. Share Your Story
By A on Mar 18, 2008 in Domain Sales, Regrets
Most of us who have been in this industry for a while have a story (or two) about the domain(s) that we let get away.
Ours was PrimeRate.com
Like others we were watching this name sit on Afternic with a domain sponsor page for years. $100,000 was the minimum offer. Every now and then I set out to make a bid but always got side tracked.
Then, we did make a bid – offered $85,000 – seller turned it down but did provide some feedback. Off I go to Peru for a few days on a television project and say – hell with it, we will give the seller what he wants when I get back.
I’ll never forget the day before coming home. Domain was sold – after 5 years on the home page – lesson learned, and a hard one to take.
Lesson is we all become complacent and comfortable at times. If there is a name you like – do whatever you can to secure the name today… not tomorrow.
Make me us feel better 
share your story with a comment below…
Gordon | Mar 18, 2008 | Reply
Ugh…where do I start….shoulda coulda woulda.
Being smart enough in 1997 to tell the company that i worked for (dimmer company) to buy dimmers.com, but not being smart enough to go out and register generics like that for myself.
buying 50 names in 1997, but buying about 47 ok names and only 3 very good ones.
i’ll stop now before i get depressed….never again!
Sammy Ashouri | Mar 18, 2008 | Reply
Oh God… can’t/don’t even wanna start!
Vic | Mar 21, 2008 | Reply
Try this one for size:
India.com !!!!
I’d not take the full blame for losing it, though.
I’m talking of 1998 (or was it ‘97 - don’t remember exactly). It had already been taken by someone, but the renewal date was close.
I was watching periodically - remember, no drop-catching services existed back then and the root zone updates used to take place twice a day - and oh yeah, ICANN was not formed yet and Net Sol was the monopoly domain registration service provider. ($35 per year, with a minimum of 2-year term on fresh registrations.)
Finally, it was past the renewal date and to my delight, it was not renewed. With my hopes high, I started tracking religeously, at least twice a day, immediately after the root zone updates. (Was it 2:30 AM and PM, CST?) There used to be a ‘grace’ period of about 15 days back then.
It was a tough-and-go situation, and a meternal uncle, living in my hometown passed away. None of his offsprings live in our town, so I had to be away for a few hours and surely enough, the domain became available while I was away from my PC, and was already taken when I got back online.
I guess I’d not be posting here if I had got that one.