How Groupon Bought The Domain Groupon.com [clip]
on Jul 24, 2010 - 8:38 AM PSTCheck out the way Groupon bought the domain Groupon.com. When the service launched it was on Groupon.ThePoint.com because they didn’t own Groupon.com.
I excerpted the video & transcript from my Groupon Interview with Andrew Mason (which is one of my best, so I hope you check it out).
The transcript (video is below)
The guy who actually writes all the content had the idea for the name and its like the perfect name ["Groupon"].
We emailed the people that own it and said, ‘Hey, are you interested in selling?’
They said, ‘No.’
We said, ‘Fine.’
At that point, we had no idea where [the business was] going. We went and worked on the project. We got some momentum.
A couple months in, we emailed again and said, ‘Hey, are you interested in selling?’
He said, ‘No, definitely not.’
We said, ‘Just curious, what are you planning on doing with it?’
He said, ‘Well, I live in England and I’m interested in, at some point, starting a group coupon service, where somebody would be able to buy a coupon that, if they bring four people into a restaurant, all five of those people would get a discount.’
So, it’s like a slightly different take on the group buying, group coupon model.
We said, ‘That’s interesting. We’re doing something somewhat similar to that in the United States, so, maybe we can work together on this. We can take this to Europe.’
He said, ‘No way.’
We said, ‘Okay.’
We continued operating.
Then we had a trademark for Groupon. That trademark extended to England.
We contact him and say, ‘Hey, you can launch that thing, but you can’t use the name Groupon because we have a trademark on it.’
So then, he decided he wanted to sell.
I think we bought it in May 2009 or something like that for maybe $250,000, which seemed like a lot at the time and now it seems cheap.
The clip
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(Can’t see video? Go to Mixergy.com)
Continue to the full interview >>
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July 24th, 2010 at 5:44 pm
wtf? what name were they operating with before they owned the domain? how did they trademark someone else's name?
July 24th, 2010 at 6:08 pm
It used to be groupon.thepoint.com
July 25th, 2010 at 12:42 pm
wow interesting…. definitely something to keep in mind when founding a new name.
July 25th, 2010 at 4:55 pm
Very interesting back door approach. I'd be curious how the 250k for the domain was agreed upon.
July 25th, 2010 at 9:04 pm
That's a lot of money for a domain that's not in the dictionary.
July 25th, 2010 at 9:05 pm
Groupon really is a perfect name.
I'm surprised they'd start without locking it up, but it says a lot about
the approach they took with Groupon, compared to the one they took with
ThePoint.com
With ThePoint, they seem to have waited till everything was fully baked
before launching.
With Groupon, they seem to have just launched with whatever they could roll
out on within a few weeks.
July 25th, 2010 at 9:36 pm
[...] How Groupon Bought The Domain Groupon.com [clip] Line Break [...]
July 26th, 2010 at 4:01 am
It's pretty interesting actually. I would have thought that common law would have given the original owner of the groupon domain name at least some rights regarding the trademark as well, at least in England where he lived. I suppose the original site was just a placeholder with no actual content. I doubt this approach would work against a more established site in countries that operate under common law.
July 26th, 2010 at 9:32 am
interesting one.
July 26th, 2010 at 4:04 pm
250k ? Way too much. But well, if you learn to spend VC money at that rate … good luck and I hope the IPO in 2011 works.
July 26th, 2010 at 5:36 pm
So the lesson here is for people to start trademarking the domain names they register and have plans for so this kind of bullying and/or being “forced to sell” doesn't happen. It is really starting to look like people should start incorporating or llc'ing to protect themselves and their names, to fend off the “billion dollar valuation” folks.
July 26th, 2010 at 8:19 pm
[...] The startup interview blog Mixergy recently had a clip from an interview with the group coupon service Groupon and how Groupon acquired the Groupon.com domain. [...]
July 27th, 2010 at 1:31 am
In the Domain Industry its also called “Reverse Hijacking the Domain Name” at least you guys paid a v. decent amount of 250k.
Ken Singh
July 27th, 2010 at 12:40 pm
I'm not sure there's any jacking involved here. Like you said, they paid a
lot of money.
July 28th, 2010 at 5:03 am
Andrew, This is the best inspiring interview. In these days there are many young korean entrepreneurs trying to open the business like Groupon. Thank you : )
July 28th, 2010 at 12:35 pm
Looks like people all over the world are learning from their success. Good
luck James.
July 28th, 2010 at 3:29 pm
How does a United States Trademark extend to England?
August 2nd, 2010 at 7:06 am
[...] How Groupon Bought The Domain Groupon.com [clip] (mixergy.com) [...]
September 4th, 2010 at 1:57 am
[...] 本文部分资料来源在这里，还有Andrew现身说法的视频。 http://mixergy.com/domain-business-tip/ [...]