Colin Campbell wrote a very interesting article on StartUpBeat.com, he went into detail on how he raised $7million in 30 days for Dot Club. Colin gives the timeline that led from start to finish and is a very good read imo.
From the article:
I had a problem. A problem that almost every startup faces: Raising money. I had to raise $7 million fast for a concept that hadn’t yet generated any revenue, but I had to do it in 30 days, all without a broker, and all on my own.
In 2013 I had applied for a valuable stake of land on the Internet—a new domain extension that would be an alternate to ‘.com,’ ‘.net,’ and ‘.org.’ After much research and good old-fashioned gut instinct, I applied for ‘.CLUB.’ I chose the word ‘club’ because of all the generic words I could think of, ‘club’ had such universal meaning and appeal in just about every language and every country in the world. It had more global context than anything else, including the ubiquitous ‘.com.’
I soon found out I wasn’t the only one vying for this new real estate. I was up against a domain industry goliath and another company competing for the rights to .CLUB. Donuts had raised over $100 million to apply for 307 extensions, and I hadn’t yet raised a penny. I prepared myself to be the David in this fight, and I had to come up with a creative solution fast.
One night I had a dream that the .CLUB name sold for $7 million. So, I took that as a sign that I needed to raise $7 million to make this endeavor successful, but I still had no idea where that kind of money was going to come from in such a short period of time. I knew I had a focused business plan, I had only applied for one name, and I was determined to win. The $7 million question: How would I raise the money in 30 days? Answer: LinkedIn
Read the full article on Start Up Beat
Here’s my story about how I went from an early relative new gTLD naysayer to a .club supporter who genuinely likes this extension, and my reasons why this new TLD rules them all (new gTLD’s, that is) including the one most people have probably been waiting for and expect to be the leader of the pack, .web: http://www.domaininvesting.com/sunday-thoughts-updates-31/#comments
Note: Colin Campbell and I do not know each other and he probably hasn’t got the slightest idea who I am.
Colin has done a great job with this extension.
I couldn’t agree more. He has had the perfect combination of spending money and creative advertising. He is the only new gTLD at this point that truly has created a brand. He promotes the new registrations through the twitter account. Gets large purchases in the headlines. And is letting the world know what’s going on in the extension on a daily basis. Great job Colin.
Colin wrote: “After much research and good old-fashioned gut instinct, I applied for ‘.CLUB.’ I chose the word ‘club’ because of all the generic words I could think of, ‘club’ had such universal meaning …”
I believe the gut instinct that Colin speaks of is really sophisticated logic at work. He made a good point about generics fitting the meaning represented in .club. Not all of the new tld’s are a sensible companion to the full range of keywords. And that is the probably the tipping point for long term success, i.e. an extension that offers a valuable meaning and that adds recognizable clarity/value to the keyword that comes before it.
Dot Com Domains Ltd are the owners of over 1000 top gTLD domains, many such as fly.flights , tickets.flights, club.flights appraised by SEDO at over $10,000, others catching names like shopping.international postcode.xyz are less. We also have .com .net .org domains. We write to ask if you are interested in acting as a broker for us and look forward to hearing back from you.
Philip Beckwith
Director of Business Development
DOTCOM Domains Limited
UK Contact – T: +44(0)7459 228 582, +44 (0)20 7060 6077, +44 (0)20 7193 4743
marketing@power.domains businessdevelopment@infotrust.uk pbeckwith609@gmail.com
http://www.infotrust.uk