The Sales Roundup: Why January.com Sold for $107,000, and More

In the domain industry, we see sales figures daily. Services such as NameBio post hundreds of closed deals allowing investors to find comparisons that can be useful for both buying and selling domain names. What we often don’t see is why a domain sold for a certain amount.

This new weekly sales roundup series will focus on the stories behind the numbers. Every week, I’m going to take a dive into the history and current usage of the top five reported DNJournal sales of the week to see if we can collectively establish why each domain sold for the price it did. Was it an end-user sale? Was it acquired by a well-funded investor that will ultimately sell it for more? Was the name acquired for its previous popularity? We’ll find out.

Today we’re looking at DNJournal’s top five sales from February 24th to March 1st, 2020. Since DNJournal is currently only producing their chart on a bi-weekly basis, we’ll soon catch up to analyzing present-day deals.

 

January.com – $107,000

Topping this DNJournal weekly chart was the sale of January.com for $107,000.  The name was sold by Apex Moon, a domain brokerage company that looks to be specializing in brokering names to investors. The sale of January.com is no different, as it was acquired by Hostgator founder Brent Oxley.

Brent is known for paying over wholesale value for domain names with some of his previous acquisitions including Message.com for $195,000, RX.com for $1 million, and Give.com for $500,000. It’s unknown who the domain was acquired from, as January.com has been under privacy protection for many years.

Up until Brent’s acquisition, the domain was under privacy protection at Uniregistry, with ParkLogic nameservers which would indicate that this was an investor-to-investor sale.

As of writing, the domain holds a $200,000 minimum offer on Oxley.com, so it’s highly likely that this name will be sold for a larger amount in the future. We have very few public comparisons for “month” domain sales, but they do seem to be popular as brands.

August.com is owned by a smart home company, April.com is owned by a French insurance company, and July.com was acquired last year by a new luggage company for an undisclosed amount.

 

Satisfying.com – $50,000

Next up is a satisfying name. According to NameBio, the domain had previously sold for $2,139 in 2014 and $3,500 in 2015 at NameJet and Flippa respectively, both investor-centric platforms. The name was acquired in 2015 by Braden Pollock, an investor whos previous sales include Q.org for $500,000, Surround.com at $150,000, and Statement.com for $140,000.

Braden is an investor who will happily say no to offers that some domainers may accept, in order to hold out to reach his own perceived value of each name. Sticking to his guns has helped Braden attain sizable sales.

Satisfying.com is no different, with Braden likely saying “no” several times before agreeing to a $50,000 sale. The domain was likely sold to an end-user based on the price alone. Unfortunately, there are few insights to be gained from visiting the domain or viewing WHOIS, as of writing.

Googling the word “satisfying” brings up pages of videos under the “Oddly Satisfying” moniker, a popular video trend. Perhaps the name will be used in that respect. There are also possible connotations with the adult industry, where brands have been known to spend up to seven-figures for the right .COM.

 

Codi.com – $40,000

This $40,000 came in at number 3 on the DNJournal list. The name, sold at leading marketplace Sedo, was acquired by coworking startup, Codi. Think of it as Airbnb meets WeWork. The domain was a major upgrade for Codi, moving from CodiWork.com to this attractive four-letter .COM.

The sale came just as the company closed an undisclosed seed funding round, which included money from ProductHunt founder Ryan Hoover. Codi smartly used some of this funding to close a deal on Codi.com at a fair price.

Codi.com was sold through Sedo, but the name was owned by investor Garry Chernoff who is another investor who has recorded countless five and six-figure sales by saying “no” to most offers. His sales include Drink.com for $500,000, Signet.com for $300,000, and LEV.com for $200,000.

 

Digid.com – $33,300

Another sale from Sedo is Digid.com, which sold for $33,300. The five-letter brandable name could have strong usage as a “digital identity” name, but it seems that the domain was acquired by a digital diagnostics company in Germany.

The domain was sold from the Future Media Architects portfolio via Sedo. The buyer, Digid, seems to be a brand new company that was founded in December 2019. According to Crunchbase, the company raised an $8 million funding round in January 2020, two months before closing a deal to acquire Digid.com.

There is a large Dutch company called DigiD who operates on Digid.nl. They have now lost the chance to own Digid.com.

 

HomeLab.com – $20,000

HomeLab.com was sold by domain investment company Empire Names using the DAN.com platform. The price, $20,000, was attained after receiving significant offers from two parties, according to a NamePros post.

The domain was acquired by an end-user, LabFellows, which operates out of California and boasts clients such as UPS and Amazon. According to Crunchbase, the company has closed five funding rounds, three of which are disclosed. None of these rounds happened close to the domain acquisition.

It seems that HomeLab.com may have been acquired as it’s an exact match for one of the company’s products. In a 2016 Twitter picture, LabFellows’ CEO is showing off a HomeLab product. As of writing, the domain doesn’t show any meaningful content.

 

 

Hat tip to Braden Pollock for coming up with the idea for this series.