At JamesNames.com, I’ve previously profiled the fortunes of the Molly.com domain name, a name that has been owned by the author, lecturer, and open web advocate Molly Holzschlag since the 90s.
Holzschlag has twice leased the domain name. Lease-to-own, or payment plan sales have risen in popularity as a way for a business to secure a premium domain name without paying the full asking price upfront. Instead, payments are staggered over a period of time. Whether it’s monthly payments, quarterly payments, or even annual payments, this sales format is flexible enough to benefit motivated buyers and sellers.
The first company that purchased Molly.com on a payment plan was bot builder brand Molly, a young company founded in 2018 by Esther Crawford and her fellow co-founders.
Crawford penned a Medium article entitled “How my startup acquired Molly.com — without it costing a fortune or my soul.” Unfortunately, the article’s sub-header is an unhelpful and incorrect generalization of the domain industry, but it does contain real insight into how Crawford managed to get a deal for Molly.com across the line.
At the bottom of the article, Crawford shares the lease-to-own payment plan agreement that was used in the Molly.com acquisition. While you’ll need to consult a lawyer and amend the agreement for your own situation, the template could be beneficial to end-users and domain investors alike who are looking for a purchase plan agreement.
This agreement, available via this Google Drive, is a multi-page document covering many of the basic necessities of a lease-to-own purchase plan agreement.
Ultimately, Crawford’s startup canceled its lease-to-own agreement with Molly.com. The domain’s ownership switched back to Molly Holzschlag and has subsequently been leased again.
