Would you be willing to give away 1% of your company to someone who helps you buy a domain?
Hey IH,
I've been working on https://buymeadomain.com where first-time founders or indie hackers could post about their idea/project along with the domain-name needed & an interested investor can buy them the domain in return of 1% stake.
Would you be willing to give away 1% of your company in return of a "domain-name round investment"? Should it be up to the founders to decide on the equity percentage?
Let me know your thoughts please and any feedback you have. 🙏
Peace.
Nowadays domains don't matter. ola.com vs olacabs.com, nissan.com vs nissanusa.com it doesn't really matter
I agree with you, it doesn't matter really, unless your are building something that requires a short domain (url shortener, etc.), or the domain is part of your brand? I think the quality of the product is what give value to the domain most of the time, I don't believe Google needed search.com to get where they are. Also , is really hard to trust a first time founder with a 100k+ domain, in exchange for a x % of a company that haven't make a dime? A bad intentioned founder can ruin the reputation of a domain, for example if I run an adult site on boys.com , the next person to own the domain, will have a hard time selling socks for kids there.
Agree
Hey Hammad, I'm not sure if it's that simple. Some domain names are more expensive than others. For example, why I should give away 1% of my company for $500-$1.000? It doesn't make sense to me as a founder. On the opposite, some founder might want to buy domain which costs $100.000+, and I think in these cases, investor should want a higher stake in the company. If that's scenario happens (with $100.000+ domain), I'm sure a founder should use these money to build a product, not buy a expensive domain. You can do that in later stages. That's my opinion on this. Hope it's not too negative. Anyway, good luck with your project.
Amazing pointers, @jacobp! We can leave it to the founders to decide on the equity percentage based on the price of the domain.
Yeah, it makes sense.
Hello Hammad,
I would definitely consider it because a good domain helps an early-stage product get memorized easily, but so many good domains get registered & undeveloped.
I like .com domain most, but I have to use https://heyform.net because the .com was taken. I believe this case doesn't only apply to me, most of the indie hackers ever run into a problem like this.
1% is totally acceptable, especially in early-stage.
Amazing! Thanks for your valuable feedback, @dearroy. You can post about your project on https://buymeadomain.com & maybe someone would do the "domain-name funding" for you. :)
My problem is the current holder of .com domain is not willing to sell it. LOL
Definitely not. I can buy a domain for a cheap $50 (some of them for even $10). I'd see no reason to give up 1% of all future earnings just to avoid that low one-time cost.