My son registered a domain name in 1996, that was his last name.com. The company attached to that domain closed several years ago. He has kept the domain active, mainly because he uses it for e-mails. The phone numbers listed on the website are all disconnected. He got an e-mail from a domain broker Monday, asking if he would consider selling the domain. Offered 10,000.00 for it. First offer. The kid is all up in the air about what to do. www.hanlon.com is HIS. If he sells it, gone forever. Flip side, he gets no benefit from it, other than pride. He wants wise counsel on this and called Dad. I said weigh it out, can you do something with the money that will benefit you long term. And, of course, if the first offer was 10K, how much higher will he go. Obviously the broker has a client in hand with my last name. Anybody have any knowledge on this subject ? I remember that WWW.GRM.com is held hostage by one of these guys.
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April 19, 2011 9:51 a.m. cwh SuperDork
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April 19, 2011 11:18 a.m. RandyS Reader
10k seems fishy unless a company named Hanlon wants it. A quick google says there is an investment company named hanlon
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April 19, 2011 12:42 p.m. cwh SuperDork
There are a lot of us out there. Hanlon and Hanlon is a major law firm up north. My Google of my name turned up quite a few companies.
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April 19, 2011 1:53 p.m. Derick Freese Dork
I say if they're starting out at $10,000, there's more that they'd be willing to pay. He can likely go out and buy hanlon.net, hanlon.org, hanlon.biz, hanlon.co, hanlon.whatever and still have money in the bank.
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April 19, 2011 2:20 p.m. Matt B HalfDork
Uh, yeah if that's a legit offer then that's a lot of money to give up just to have your last name in a website. Especially if you're not using it for business purposes.
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April 19, 2011 6:02 p.m. 93gsxturbo HalfDork
GONE! As soon as I could milk them for every cent.
A serious $10k offer is a decent chunk of change. See what you can shake them down for and sell it.
firstname.lastname at gmail is a decent substitute. Or register something thats firstnamelastname.com.
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April 19, 2011 6:30 p.m. Sultan Reader
Ok a little story. I will have to remove the names. At one point "the company" was going to launch a new product so they did a domain name search and found out that a guy already had the domain name. A third party contacted him and offered him a few grand for the name. He said he would think about over the weekend. People at "the company" went into overdrive and got approval to spend up to seven figures to buy the name. Wow! So Monday comes and the guy asked for a few thousand more than the orginal offer. In the end the product never used the domain name but I often wonder how that guy would feel if he only knew.
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April 19, 2011 6:44 p.m. Don49 Reader
First rule of negotiations, never offer a number. As was indicated in the previous post, you could be giving a lot away. Then whatever number you get, say you need to consider it. When you next speak, ask if that's the best they can do. You don't want to be a dick, but you could be suprised at the offer you'll get.
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April 19, 2011 11:50 p.m. cwh SuperDork
He's not bad at negotiations. Just for giggles, I contacted one of the bigger Hanlons on the web. They were not the ones making the offer, but are certainly interested in the domain. Junior says I get a commission if it goes through. FWIW, the website that is up is his, just totally inactive. It was an impressive site, just totally bogus. World Headquarters Campus was a cheesy warehouse. The picture was from an unknown area. All put together by the partner that insured the company would fail. If I ever see that weasel again, I will probably go to jail.
