Member-only story
Inside the War Between Domain Flippers and Startup Founders
The world has been at war for over 20 years and you didn’t even notice
No, not the real world. The digital world. I observed the latest battle personally so that I can report to you from the front lines.
A well-known entrepreneur recently announced that he had bought a .com domain for his company. That’s not big news until you hear the rest: it took 6 years of negotiating and $100,000 to get that domain.
His announcement prompted a war of words between his fellow startup founders and the folks he referred to as domain squatters. These are people that make money by buying and holding domain names in hopes of eventually reselling them for a much higher price.
I took it upon myself to enter the heat of battle to bring to you this report. No, no, keep your Pulitzer. It’s all in a day’s work.
Squatters or investors?
The people our founder friend referred to as squatters take exception to that term. They usually call themselves domain investors. They claim that domain investing is akin to real estate investing — you purchase a piece of property and you sit patiently until somebody comes to you with an offer.
