One thing I can tell you is that we frequently get approached by people who have some kind of an idea that someone is going to let go of an asset because somebody really wants it and tells a good story. That approach is actually quite common. And anyone who owns even 1 good domain has almost for sure been approached by someone with a story about why they need the domain but don't have any money to spend.
Even though the owner of this domain isn't in the domain business they still have some idea of the value. They aren't just going to let the domain go because some guy shows up from London. In fact, how do they even know that's the truth? That he flew in from overseas just to do this transaction? And not for some other reason? This is not "Bud Fox" in "Wall Street".
I'm currently working on a deal trying to purchase a domain for someone which is owned by a non-profit Fortune 500 company. They don't need the money even though the amount the person is willing to pay ($50,000) is a good number for this domain.
The approach that I will try after being turned down by the usual suspects at the company is to simply work my way up to the board of directors at some point and perhaps make a case that as a non-profit the $50,000 can do some good and the domain isn't being used bla bla bla.
Find an angle that matters. (Note same angle probably wouldn't work with a for profit but it's worth a try with a non-profit ..)
I'm surprised that calculating risk before investing large amounts of time and money now qualifies as 'conservative'. If that's a common attitude in SV these days, the bubble may be worse than I thought...
The OP made a point of saying how he thought he had a good story to tell YC. The fact is something like this could backfire and show how naive you are and be easily viewed as stupid.
From what I read, it was the hedge fund not the billionaire that had the domain.
if that's the case, then the problem is that the fund is carrying the domain on their books for some value, say $100,000.
If they give it away for "free/cheap" then they report a loss of $100,000 to not only their investors but also themselves, presumably they are invested in their own fund:)
no one is going to let someone else at the fund just give away $100,000 of gains.
Remember the money isn't just the owners, it belongs to the limited partners, ie the people who put money into the fund.
Are we still talking about the same thing here?
> or buy the asset personally and then invest it personally.
Yes he could obviously do this, but he can't just give part of hte funds assets away, which is what I was clarifying.
If a few days and a few thousand pounds isn't worth much to him then I understand but if resources are scarce, using them on long shots that might not even pay that much over the alternatives is not good business.
edit: punctuation, grammar
And given that Paul Graham turned Stevie Graham down for not having thought things through, rather than for lack of a good domain name, then I'd say the time and money was wasted. With those resources he could have conducted 20 user tests against prototypes. If PG was wrong about his concern about the business model, Stevie Graham would have had real evidence from real users. And, if as is more likely, PG was right, then Stevie Graham would have discovered the problem before he was pitching somebody so important to the future of his company.
They got widespread mockery and bad press coverage for that, and no longer use the domain.
A domain name won't make or break your business. But all that time and energy spent on this problem could probably have been spent better on something else.
I get the point, but why the snark? Why be so dismissive? Especially since this "stunt" didn't work. (Yet?)
I love the conservative objections here. Stunts like this only work if most people aren't willing to try (EDIT - thanks).
EDIT: Outlandish stunts are the best way to improve your hustling abilities. If you have the time and money to try it, you win either way.