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Ask HN: Do dead YC companies sell their brands/IP?

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Re: Ask HN: Do dead YC companies sell their brands/IP?

#31

Post by fullspectrumdev »

kylebenzle wrote: post #3
yawnxyz wrote: post #2

I have no insight, but I always wondered what happens to the $100k+ domains that VC-funded startups buy and then go bust. Do they sell them at a bargain?

I have only one example (dont want to give any attention though) the company started maybe 5-6 years ago, lasted 3-4 years and last I checked the company sold to a "media company" who oddly just took the site and made it a generic "news" ad page. My guess is these domains can be juiced for a few $1,000 in ad revenu just from people searching the old name. So yes, they 100% do see off their domains to "media" compaine…

I know of a few people whose relatively high traffic sites domains expired for whatever reason, and the sites reappeared under new owners with some of the content recreated from archive but now with a shitload of ads.

Re: Ask HN: Do dead YC companies sell their brands/IP?

#32

Post by hoistbypetard »

kstrauser wrote: post #19
neilv wrote: post #11

> Good business names and domains are always in demand, being able to acquire those together with trademarks is even more attractive as a business investment. If branded social media accounts are included, now you have a startup package that many established businesses don’t have. How could you legitimately use the brand name, domain name, or branded social media accounts of a different company? Sketchy SEO could use…

Great question. I'll have to Kagi the answer.

Amusingly, I think this FAQ on Kagi's site:

https://help.kagi.com/kagi/faq/faq.html#are-you-affiliated-w...

got added in response to a question I asked on HN when they announced their search engine here.

Re: Ask HN: Do dead YC companies sell their brands/IP?

#33

Post by CuriousCosmic »

neilv wrote: post #11

> Good business names and domains are always in demand, being able to acquire those together with trademarks is even more attractive as a business investment. If branded social media accounts are included, now you have a startup package that many established businesses don’t have. How could you legitimately use the brand name, domain name, or branded social media accounts of a different company? Sketchy SEO could use…

At least until very recently (and to a certain extent even today still) many different companies would have the same name and similar branding despite being in vastly different industries.

Good names are hard (something any programmer should be familiar with) so it really just doesn't make sense to not use a name or domain that would work well for your brand just because a previous company existed at one point in the past.

Re: Ask HN: Do dead YC companies sell their brands/IP?

#34

Post by qingcharles »

yawnxyz wrote: post #2

I have no insight, but I always wondered what happens to the $100k+ domains that VC-funded startups buy and then go bust. Do they sell them at a bargain?

They sell them, not usually at a bargain. They used to have vastly more SEO juice than they do now -- there is a little more intelligence going on these days from the search engines in regards to domain registration changes.

Still, lots of newspapers and magazines have great "page rank" for their domains, and they are going out of business at an extraordinary rate, being bought up, all the content pulled from Internet Archive and replaced to make them seem legit and then a couple of links installed in the footer to your favorite off-shore casino.

Re: Ask HN: Do dead YC companies sell their brands/IP?

#35

Post by phendrenad2 »

I was curious about this a few years ago also. Seems to me that, as of now, the YC strategy seems to be to hold on to these brand names indefinitely. That's why so many YC companies that are obviously dead continue to occasionally release press releases and blog posts.

Re: Ask HN: Do dead YC companies sell their brands/IP?

#36

Post by playingalong »

esafak wrote: post #13
neilv wrote: post #11

> Good business names and domains are always in demand, being able to acquire those together with trademarks is even more attractive as a business investment. If branded social media accounts are included, now you have a startup package that many established businesses don’t have. How could you legitimately use the brand name, domain name, or branded social media accounts of a different company? Sketchy SEO could use…

Company names get recycled all the time. People have short memories. I wouldn't recycle the Twitter account but the domain, for sure, if it is generic enough. https://www.fountain.com/ today is an HR company. Yesterday, it was an advice marketplace: https://techcrunch.com/2015/10/29/porch-acquires-mobile-expe... . And so on.

At the first glance I thought you meant starting a different service called Twitter.

Re: Ask HN: Do dead YC companies sell their brands/IP?

#37

Post by exe34 »

neilv wrote: post #11

> Good business names and domains are always in demand, being able to acquire those together with trademarks is even more attractive as a business investment. If branded social media accounts are included, now you have a startup package that many established businesses don’t have. How could you legitimately use the brand name, domain name, or branded social media accounts of a different company? Sketchy SEO could use…

it happens all the time, companies go bust and get sold for pennies. they get bought and then pivot towards something the new owners want to invest into.

Re: Ask HN: Do dead YC companies sell their brands/IP?

#38

Post by iftheshoefitss »

petesergeant wrote: post #30
snowwrestler wrote: post #10

Worked at a dotcom which ran out of funding after Series A. After all the staff got laid off, the email list, domain, brand materials, and web content were all transferred to the lead investor of the Series A. Not sure if they were just “first in line” for it all, or if they passed anything on to minority investors. It probably comes down to who has how much equity in the business, and what the terms say. It is essen…

Feels like there’s an opportunity there for a business that will maximise dead tech startup IP

[flagged]

Re: Ask HN: Do dead YC companies sell their brands/IP?

#39

Post by dredmorbius »

petesergeant wrote: post #30
snowwrestler wrote: post #10

Worked at a dotcom which ran out of funding after Series A. After all the staff got laid off, the email list, domain, brand materials, and web content were all transferred to the lead investor of the Series A. Not sure if they were just “first in line” for it all, or if they passed anything on to minority investors. It probably comes down to who has how much equity in the business, and what the terms say. It is essen…

Feels like there’s an opportunity there for a business that will maximise dead tech startup IP

That used to be Computer Associates, now CA Technologies, owned by Broadcom:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CA_Technologies>

"Where technology goes to die" was the verbatim description I'd heard of it directly from someone whose former startup had been acquired by them. That's a reasonably widely-held reputation:

https://www.theregister.com/2018/07/12/broadcom_ca_technolog...>

Re: Ask HN: Do dead YC companies sell their brands/IP?

#40

Post by azeemba »

phendrenad2 wrote: post #35

I was curious about this a few years ago also. Seems to me that, as of now, the YC strategy seems to be to hold on to these brand names indefinitely. That's why so many YC companies that are obviously dead continue to occasionally release press releases and blog posts.

Do you have an example?
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