BusinessInsider.com just covered SnapChat.com which it just calls “2013’s Billion Dollar Startup”
What the article didn’t tell you is that the domain name SnapChat.com was just purchased in May of 2012 for less than $5,000 at Sedo.com
The domain, SnapChat.com was acquired for just $4,900 according to the Sedo.com weekly report that we published on May 8th 2012
The SnapChat App is the 5th most downloaded free app in the Apple App Store according to the current Apple App Store charts.
Already compared to Instagram, which Facebook bought for $1 Billion dollars last year, here is how BusinessInsider.com describes the App which the domain name is being used to promote:
“It’s an app where users send each other self-destructing photos.”
“Teens use it to send each other provocative images, which adults call “sexting.”
No matter what you call it, buying the next Billion dollar property for $4,900 is as Mastercard would say is “priceless”.
They didn’t “buy the next billion dollar property for $4,900”, they bought
a reasonably ‘brandable’ name at market value*, and then, using SKILL and
APPLICATION, created a popular business using the domain as the biz’s online
identity.
*The business valuation has nothing to do with the potency of the web domain,
and frankly, I believe they probably overpaid for the name as there are many
adjective+chat.com domains that could have been used here; some of which
are still available at reg fee…