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How Microryza Acquired the Domain Experiment.com

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Re: How Microryza Acquired the Domain Experiment.com

#41

Post by underwater »

todd3834 wrote: post #33
primitivesuave wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expensive domain registration would make it cost prohibitive for average people to start a website. The better thing to limit is how many domains you can own, or at least how many domains you can park.

I agree that $1000/yr would be too high for your average person but I think raising it to $100/yr should be reasonable enough and would still solve a lot of the squatting issues.

What about those who live in developing countries? Should they be excluded from owning domains?

Re: How Microryza Acquired the Domain Experiment.com

#42

Post by pyoung »

yid wrote: post #38
kkwok wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good system I've seen for domain buying is this: You set price you'll pay. Broker decides to take job. They negotiate a price that equal to or lower than your cap. They get fixed fee plus X% of difference between price paid and max price you'd be willing to pay.

I've always wondered why this isn't the way real estate agents work.

There are some complications to the implementation of this system. If you choose to incentivize the Realtor to stay below a specific budget, the Realtor might start steering you to cheaper units (re: smaller, shabbier, poor neighborhoods) in order to get a bigger commission. If you base the commission on the discount negotiated off the list price of a home, you may push the Realtor into low balling offers and not closing deals (not to mention, in many markets, homes sell for over list price).

Probably the best method would be too use a flat fee, or a percentage of list, and then add bonus commissions for performance in negotiations, using the average 'over/under asking price' in the local market as an index. But this is probably too complicated for most people, and at the end of the day, the Realtor is more concerned about the volume of deals they can close rather than the individual deals, so performance based commissions will still probably have minimal impact on behavior.

Re: How Microryza Acquired the Domain Experiment.com

#43

Post by CamperBob2 »

lauradhamilton wrote: post #23

I probably wouldn't have chosen the name "Experiment." They won't be able to trademark that, because it's descriptive. I think Ryza was the better choice.

They can trademark "Experiment.com", but if they really had a shot at a pronounceable four-letter domain name, that seems like a no-brainer.

From the article:

   It was just settling for a domain choice. In 40 years, 
   when I told my grandkids what I did, I shuddered at the 
   idea of telling them I worked at a company called ‘Ryza’.
Um, Denny, it's your job to make the name mean something. Why do you think your company was initially confused with Zynga?

Re: How Microryza Acquired the Domain Experiment.com

#44

Post by CamperBob2 »

dchuk wrote: post #19
avalaunch wrote: post #18

Am I the only one that likes the name Ryza more than Experiment? Experiment just sounds so bland to me and will be harder to rank high with.

Rank high for what? The term Ryza? It's easy to rank high for a made up word, but if you're ever in debate over whether to use a domain with ambiguous spelling or a standard word...go with the standard word.

The very first paragraph of the article puts the lie to that, doesn't it?

Re: How Microryza Acquired the Domain Experiment.com

#46

Post by 727374 »

Neat story. Were there any provisions should Microryza go out of business? Not a lawyer, but seems that org would be legally compelled to flip the domain for a price much higher than 54k, which could lead to the domain being used for something not 'nobel' as the seller intended.

Re: How Microryza Acquired the Domain Experiment.com

#47

Post by stared »

jhund wrote: post #10

Given that the company relies on word of mouth marketing, the move makes a lot of sense. 'Experiment' is a fantastic name. My only concern is that such a generic term negatively affects findability. E.g., it makes brand monitoring or web-searching very hard. You won't rise above the noise. You could address the findability problem by adding a unique token to the name (e.g., 'Experiment42').

Actually, I am curious if such generic name is a good choice.

You need to tell people that you use Experiment the Crowdsourcing Website, not experiment with crowdsourcing or use your experiment to crowdsource funds. And the same for googling.

(And BTW I really liked Microryza; I do know that it may be hard to spell (still easier than mycorrhizae), but Ryza sounds nice too!)

And an anecdote: when I was mailing with Cindy Woo almost a year ago, I joked about the tagline:

"

Mic[r]oryza

Mycorrhizae spelled in the sane way

"

Re: How Microryza Acquired the Domain Experiment.com

#48

Post by spking »

dchuk wrote: post #29
sheff wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have bought domains from them in the past. I would start off by offering half (as a maximum, less if you can) and sticking to the offer. The thing to remember is that they may have acquired the domain for registration price so even $2000 will be a large profit, and they may not have another buyer for years. If that goes nowhere, you can always go back later and pay the full price or whatever they have come down to.…

Awesome, thanks for the reply. Do you know of any way to find out if they're brokering the domain for someone or selling it themselves?

Just look at the whois. If the admin email is brokerage@buydomains.com, they own it.

Re: How Microryza Acquired the Domain Experiment.com

#49

Post by wpietri »

yid wrote: post #38
kkwok wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good system I've seen for domain buying is this: You set price you'll pay. Broker decides to take job. They negotiate a price that equal to or lower than your cap. They get fixed fee plus X% of difference between price paid and max price you'd be willing to pay.

I've always wondered why this isn't the way real estate agents work.

Because most real estate purchasers aren't sophisticated enough to manage their end of a deal like that well.

Re: How Microryza Acquired the Domain Experiment.com

#50

Post by wpietri »

keerthiko wrote: post #27
uptown wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a strong-enough name to be considered an asset. Worst-case ... just resell it.

I doubt anyone with a semblance of a conscience in their shoes could do that, except back to the benefactor, for cheaper (which would also be pretty lame)...the man turned down 6 figure offers and gave it to them because he believed in their mission. That they would go "whoops, it cost too much, gonna sell it to whoever offers me the most while we bail from our failed startup" would make the benefactor feel like tota…

I'm not a lawyer, but I believe a semblance of conscience is sadly not allowed for in a bankruptcy. If the Experiment.com people, like most startups, fail to make it, then I'd think they're by default obligated to get the best price possible for the assets. I think doing anything else (e.g., giving a company asset to a founder) would require a founder to agree.

Like goatforce suggests, I would have made sure the deal includes a buyback clause. I'd do that even as a founder, because a) it's the right thing to do in this case, and b) it would let me negotiate a lower price because I'm not making the guy give up his 15-year dream of making sure it is used for something good.

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