SAW.com - an interesting question (1.Viewing)

Nobody SAW it coming, but they have already been in business for a full year.

Domain industry veterans, Jeff Gabriel and Amanda Waltz co-founded domain brokerage powerhouse, SAW.com a year ago.

How time flies!

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Source: https://domaingang.com/domain-news/one-year-later-nobody-saw-it-coming/


I posted this because I had a thought I wanted to converse about.
Look down to the next post to read and discuss.

Hmmm, in the famous style of Donald Trump

If they were REALLY REALLY good brokers they would have sold saw.com by now.

I mean, would it make a difference in sales if a company like GoDaddy was called just Daddy instead?
Does the short domain name increase their success rate at what they do in the domaining industry?

I cannot understand why they would not broker and sell their own domain to start with.
The domains that are worth a small fortune and companies like saw.com or dan.com should consider selling them.

Personally I would sell the domain for a few million and add a second word to use as the company name. Especially if I was in the business of selling domains and had first dibs at prime buyers. Just my opinion because I think there is money being left on the table here and I am not sure if the company itself is worth more because of the domain name or not. I have seen a number of companies with prime domains sold and the new owners never utilized the domain.

On the other hand, they are a business using a premium domain, setting an example for others that it helps to have a premium domain in business.

If they were a domain broker using a second rate domain, what message would that send?

domains said:

On the other hand, they are a business using a premium domain, setting an example for others that it helps to have a premium domain in business.

If they were a domain broker using a second rate domain, what message would that send?

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I agree with this 100%. You've gotta practice what you preach. And the fact is, they too want to be memorable. And it works. How many domain brokerages aer out there that you don't know about using some multi-word domain. TONS. And you will struggle to name a couple. And yet you can name 2 LLL.com brokerages off the top of your head.

I've told this story before, but, I was originally running on Bonfire.ca, which I picked up in TBR in 2004. A year later, and a household name comes knocking and wants it, so I sold it to them for somewhere in the $20K range. I switched to BonfireDev.ca just because I really didn't care, I wasn't trying to build a brand out of it, I just used the domain because I liked it and wanted a decent one-word for the site. It was my first big .CA sale that kinda helped turn the light bulb on. Years later when they weren't using the domain, I bought it back from them for pennies on the dollar. I would sell it again, happily, for the right price. But that's because to me, the brand doesn't mean anything other than to other domainers who stumble on it in whois.

So there's nothing to preclude Saw or Dan from changing their domain if they right buyer comes along and _REALLY_ wants it. And if anything, their existing use of it will obviously just jack up the price even more. But unless one of them just folds, I still see it being worth more to them using it than to sell it - unless of course its a blank check type of offer.

Plus, I'm sure when they started the business, they "sold" the domain at a good value to the new startup - as a loan. So as they make income from the brokerage, they get to take it back out of the company as a loan repayment, not income.

So I think its not such a simple decision. I think bottom line, both Dan & Saw felt they could extract more value out of it right now by creating a business than if they sat around and waited for the right buyer to come along. And they probably had a bunch of them laying around doing nothing anyway. So they just picked one and went with it. Sacrificing one to sell 99 others just like it would be worth every penny too.

I'm with maple on this one, the brand is questionable at best. Short but devoid of substance if you ask me.

I understand and think that it's a good idea for brokers to use a premium domain for their brand; lead by example. We have many great examples of this in the industry - from the top of my head: pool.com, fabulous.com, evergreen.com, igloo.com (now gone), dan.com, voodoo.com etc. Personally, I am not a huge fan of the name "saw.com" as a find the name a bit of a stretch - as it comes with an explanation: "be seen". This makes me question why they are not using "seen.com" or "BeSeen.com" instead.

Both of them are great and experienced brokers, so I'm sure they are doing well.

The problem I have with the word SAW is that I immediately think of the tool and not the visual aspect of the term, so I immediately get a "reno" or "construction" vibe from the name, in the basic sense of the word.

If you want the same feel, something like SEE/SEEN, VIEW, or VISTA works better for me.

But hey, at least it's not COMESEEALLOURPREMIUMDOMAINS.ca

DomainRecap said:

The problem I have with the word SAW is that I immediately think of the tool and not the visual aspect of the term, so I immediately get a "reno" or "construction" vibe from the name, in the basic sense of the word.

If you want the same feel, something like SEE/SEEN, VIEW, or VISTA works better for me.

But hey, at least it's not COMESEEALLOURPREMIUMDOMAINS.ca

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Thats why buying domains with random short letters shouldn't be the goal but rather short nouns and verbs. The buyer always couples it with the right business. I have had a few short names and my returns haven't been that great. Yet long commercial catergory domains works every single time. I wouldn't know what to do with the domain saw and unless it was obviously everything saws (cutting) or an accronym for an organization like Sam and Wilder (You see I can't even come up with a sexy name for the damn saw. All i am thinking the movie and the chain saws that one could associate with the word.

Interesting to stumble on this thread, as I have been vaguely researching/noting for some time the names used by the companies in the business.

I don't really totally agree they should have sold their own name first! Although the principals in Saw are very experienced in industry, having a 3L word helped them to get noticed out of the gate (the DNJournal article also helped!). I don't totally see Saw as necessarily a name for their business, but it is memorable.

Bob

FM said:

igloo.com (now gone)

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Is my igloo.com Tshirt now more valuable?