Years before the likes of Mark Cuban and Kevin O’Leary graced American screens as the stars of Shark Tank, there was a British version of the show, called Dragons’ Den.
Featuring successful British entrepreneurs such as Peter Jones, Dragons’ Den follows the same format as Shark Tank and other global versions of the show, allowing business owners to pitch their product to the Dragons in the hope of attracting financial investment.
In a recent episode of the show, Peter Jones rejected the opportunity to invest in a company because it didn’t own the right domain name.
Jones, who owns premium domains such as Tycoon.com, noted that one dental brand named SmileTime operated on the SmileTimeTeeth.com domain:
I noticed that you have SmileTimeTeeth.com. But you haven’t got SmileTime.com.
Jones went on to ask the business owner if they knew who owned SmileTime.com. The founder, an ex-lawyer, wasn’t sure who owned the domain name.
Shocked, Jones asked
Why didn’t you get that? You’re a lawyer! That’s one of the first things you do to protect your business.
Ultimately, Jones rejected the chance to invest in the company because it didn’t own its exact-match .com.
SmileTime did ultimately get financial investment from two other Dragons, but Jones was clear; own your exact-match .com domain as a priority!
You can watch the exchange in full on YouTube.