The DNJournal reported on the sale of the domain GetARoom.com for $30,000 on Sedo.com a couple of weeks ago.
Today it appears that the domain GetARoom.com was purchased by the founders of Hotels.com and is going to be rolled out in a multimillion dollar ad campaign.
The site is already up and running.
Bob Diener and David Litman, founded Hotels.com sold it in 2003, have been under a five-year non-compete clause, announced the launch of getaroom.com yesterday.
“We could not have found a better time to launch,” Diener said. “People look for better values. The hotels know us. We can be much more nimble than existing companies.”
Diener said he and Litman started hotels.com with an investment of about $600 each. The start-up of getaroom.com is a “multi-million-dollar” launch, he said. Revenue projections for the first year are about $45 million, Diener said.
Radio promotions for getaroom.com began Wednesday. Television commercials will begin running at the end of the month.
Domainers do you still think that no end users participate in industry auctions or buy from industry sites?
$30K for a domain to be used for a $45 million dollar business (projected first year).
Wow
There are 4 trademarks for “get a room”…
All are hotel/lodging related…
it would be nice to get an inside look on how this deal went down. Since a major player 9end user) paid for the domain via sedo I like to know a few things from the previous owner like….
Did they contact him OR did he advise on the name for sale
How many offers up or down did it take to get to $30,000
Did sedo just ESCROW the offer or was the sale on there for sometime.
This info would be great as I have a few travel related domains I will surely hold on to regarding this info.
Ricky
One was filed on July 10th which is not doubt these guys.
Guess we will see what the other trademark holders have to say
Bet if the domain were parked those WIPO cnuts would take it away even from Jesus himself…
Mike this story is really inspiring, not from a domainer perspective, but from an entrepreneur’s view point.
I think the question that you should have asked is, “Are domainers ready to be entrepreneurs and start developing their domains?”
I don’t think GetARoom.com would make $45m in domain parking in a 100 years.
Develop it, build a solid business plan, and launch a few marketing campaigns and you are on your way to making some cool millions.
Kevin
Interesting to see that the orginainal Hotels.com was started with a $600 investment.
However if you read the press release you can see that there are millions and millions behind this company.
It’s an inspiring story, yet domainers have to be realistic and know its going to take a major investment in capital and labor to get any meaningful site off the ground.
“its going to take a major investment in capital and labor to get any meaningful site off the ground.”
Hey not with “Mike-Spamalot-Wanna-Develop” haha
Mike,
Yes, these guys definitely have an advantage with their millions. They can move straight to radio and TV adverts straightaway without even having to make any basic ROI.
The initial outlay of $600 for Hotels.com speaks volume about how the right premium domain name can do wonders.
“yet domainers have to be realistic and know its going to take a major investment in capital and labor to get any meaningful site off the ground.”
This is what I have been preaching for a long time now, when I say that development is hardwork and is very costly. Rolling out a minisite is not web development.
Nonetheless, GetARoom.com should open up people’s eyes to the much bigger potential of domain names.
I was not asking about the trademarks but how the deal came to be from the origianl owner…any word on how the deal came down from him?
Ricky
I remember seeing the domain listed on Ron Jackson site and saw the press release for the site and put the two together.
I have no idea of the details of the transaction such as who the owner was, how long it was listed at sedo.com how many other bids there were or anything else, as I did not follow the sedo.com sale of this domain.
Maybe someone else did
Kevin
Funny yesterday I got an offer for bookyourhotel.com which we own.
The highest the buyer would offer was $10K and I actually pointed to the sale of getaroom.com selling for $30K before I saw this story in declining the offer.
This is a problem I have with Sedo.
You don’t know who is making the offer.
Would it be fair to guess that these guys would also have spent more than $30,000 if they laid their eyes on this name?
Tobias
I agree the buyers may have spent considerably more.
If Mr. Schwartz owned the domain they sure weren’t have gotten it for $30K.
On the other hand you don’t know what other domains they were considering and what the price of those domains were.
Could they have done the same site with bookyourhotel.com for example, sure.
Just depends how much they liked the getaroom domain.
They certainly have the money.
Thanks for the story Michael. Maybe this will help wake up domainers to notice the BRANDING value in domain names as well. I know it’s very often over looked and likely hardly brought up in negotiations by the majority of domainers.
@MHB
Here’s a clue on who sold the domain from my twitter feed:
http://twitter.com/acroplex/status/1545458761
I think its a fair price, for 30k they could have found a number of similar types of names to develop, they simply needed something that could be brandable to spend their advertising dollars on…whats interesting is that they are attacking the same field, 5 years later (assuming much higher competetion, etc) with a lower tier domain and still projecting 45 million in revenue, curious what their profit margins on 45 million would be…in comparison bankrate.com just announced they were selling and will do about 120-130 mill annually in revenues and own a number of key finance sites, so 45 million is quite a bullseye to send up…so what I am gleaning from this is a nice markup remains in the travel sector, or so the new owners believe…
I hand regged RoomsByTheHour.Com a few weeks ago.I know its sounds sleazy but a Japanese company says that it’s the norm there.
$600 each investment to start Hotels.com, hmmm. So does that amount include what they paid for Hotels.com, or did they just have Hotels.com, and the $600 each was their cost to launch & develop?
If they are developers and did the code themselves perhaps $600 is feasible, otherwise its just not true. $600 will not be enough to do any sort of meaningful development. GetARoom.com definitely easily to remember and super-brandable. Nice purchase!
Geo
Think your friend should have held out for the $100K
Knowing these founders, it’s highly unlikely they would have paid anything move for the domain.
Geo
The tweet on the $30K offer was dated 4/17. According to NameBio the domain didn’t sell until 6/30. If getaroom.com was worth more than $30K wouldn’t it have sold during those two months it sat on that publicized offer?