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Two-and-a-half
years have now passed since we flew from Florida up to New England to
talk with Jeff and Amanda about the new company they were about to
launch. Since then they made exactly the kind of major impact on
the brokerage business you would expect two people with their track
records to make. To find out more about exactly how far they have taken
Saw.com since launch, we just connected with them again to get an in-depth
account of what they have done over the past 30 months and what is
ahead for Saw.com now. Given what the world has been through over the
past two and-a-half years it won't surprise you to hear there have been many
challenges along the way.
Amanda
told us, "Shortly
after we launched in January 2020 we hired Brooke Hernandez and Rob
Wilson as part of the brokerage team and branched into nGTLD
consulting. We were having a great month in March 2020 until the
15th of that month when the news about a global Covid pandemic
broke worldwide. Like everyone else our business was greatly impacted -
it seemed like virtually overnight our pipeline was deteriorating."
The
ominous turn continued in April when Jeff and Amana saw buyers who had
been hot to close a negotiation now hoping the seller would counter
offer so they could decline and forget about making a deal with so much
uncertainty in the air. This went on until around mid-May 2020 when
Saw.com started seeing some small wins and a slight shift in buyer
behavior as some started cautiously re-entering the market. "We
felt that if we continued to provide solid consulting and service,
we would be their first call once consumer and business
confidence resumed," Amanda said. "In
mid-June we saw that confidence coming back and all of the fear and
doubt stating to wane," Waltz recalled.
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Image
from Bigstock |
If
it was like someone had flipped an instant off switch in
mid-March, it was like someone flipped it back on in
July. "July 2020 was our best month since our inception and
it has been record-breaking sales since," Gabriel
said. "
To help the growth continue we added to our team by bringing in
Kris Hou and Paul Thompson, we will have another new
team member joining us this month and we could not be more
excited! To keep our seasoned brokers supplied with leads and opportunities we have also added a team of four research/business development professionals to keep our pipelines full and accurate with contact details and, on the technology side, we have another team comprised of three developers, a designer/project manager and finally a marketing/social media specialist and a writer to help develop content."
Saw.com's
expanded team has been running full steam ahead for two years
now with a customer-centric approach that continues to fuel
growth, Amanda told us, "we approach each customer
engagement with a consultative sales approach to achieve success
on their behalf. Getting to know our customers,
understanding their needs, timeline, and budgets are what
sets us apart and keeps |
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us
not only relevant, but it also makes us recommendable.
Many of our customers continue to utilize our service and refer
and recommend our team to their colleagues. We use our
industry knowledge and experience to set the right expectations
and manage the transaction and the terms whether it is, cash,
stock, health insurance payments, or payment plans to make it
happen."
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Amanda
added, "In doing so we found a lot of common questions we
receive which are always how much, and why? Initially we thought
providing our customers with a very basic tool that enlightens the user
with specific information to make decisions would be helpful during the
purchase process. That is why we built our automated domain
appraisal tool. This is just the beginning of our suite of
tools that are built for our customers to save their appraisal history,
receive guidance, and further educate themselves about the domain
purchase process. An automated appraisal tool is not always right, of
course. Since every domain is totally unique, they might not reflect the
true value assessed by a professional.
"
Saw.com
handled transaction at all price levels but, as is the case with almost
all brokers, the deals they complete for top tier assets are typically
subject to non-disclosure agreements. Still, Jeff and Amanda were able
to give us some interesting background information on some of their
biggest transactions as detailed below. They offer some striking
insight into all of the obstacles that can get in the way before getting
a deal done:
M1.com:
We acquired the M1.com domain
name for a client that was looking to shorten their current domain to
provide them with the flexibility to expand their product offering under
the same brand. The acquisition took nearly 18 months with delays caused
by the domain being hijacked mid-way through our negotiations. We were
able to offer assistance to the seller in recovering the domain so our
client could acquire it. We were really pleased to get to an agreement
our client was happy with.
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Vamp.com: The
buyer received a quote that was too high and couldn’t come to
agreement on a cash deal so then offered a payment plan
that allowed them to come to an agreement on price. However,
then a change of CEO at the company delayed a deal and could
have killed it. We continued outreach and once the dust settled
with the new CEO we reached out to the buyer again this time he
paid cash and no payment plan was needed!
Ollie.com: In
an effort to acquire a domain a client wanted, we reached out to
the owner numerous times with no responses but finally spoke to
a gate keeper who said no because they use the domain for
internal products. We decided to continue to reach out to
higher ups. Again no responses so we sent certified letters
to all executives and board members and finally had a board
member get in touch and help get negotiations started. We
reached an agreement, leading to a final discussion with the
President to give final approval and wanted to double the
price agreed |
Image
from Ollie.com website
(nutritious dog food delivered to your door) |
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to
in the previous meeting. We stayed firm with our final offer and
obtained domain. It took four months and not listening to a
no to just get someone to respond and engage in talks -
eight months in all to close the deal. Persistence pays
off! |
YAC.com: The
buyer tried to obtain the domain before calling us into help. The buyer
had never received a response from company so we told them a starting
offer was needed to get company to engage. The buyer wanted to make
low ball offer but took our advice to present a realistic offer. That
triggered a call from the company's lawyer to go over all details. We
raised our offer, and the company accepted. We had a deal done in a
week once we had made contact with the proper decision maker and
made an offer to get them to engage in talks.
Kevel.com: As
was the case with YAC.com, the buyer had reached out to the seller with
no success. We reached out and had to do so repeatedly as the seller
kept being either out of town or unable to focus on a sale. We finally
got a call arranged and during that call were able to come to an
agreement on the price with the sale closed within 6 days.
Arbitrage.com:
We reached out to the seller, got a price and made an offer that the
seller accepted - but then the seller spoke to friends who felt the
seller had undervalued the domain so the deal was off. The buyer
agreed they had undervalued the name but would no go up to the new
asking price. We were at a stalemate that was complicated by Covid. Due
to the pandemic, the buyer thought prices should go down, not up. We
showed there had actually been a significant uptick in domain sales
during the pandemic as more companies came to understand the importance
of their online presence and brand. We were finally able to get
the seller to come down and the buyer to go up and got the deal done,
though it took about a year to do so.
Emescent.com:
The owner was an older gentleman who had just lost his wife and had no
idea how to do anything in the process of making a domain sale. We had
to assist him in transitioning all his emails of the domain into storage
and the forwarding of his emails to a new email address. We also assisted
with every little detail surrounding escrow and transfer and still
receive calls every so often from him when he has a question about the
internet.
Comet.com:
This was a situation where other firms had tried to purchase the domain
on behalf of multiple other businesses without having success. Our
team was able to discuss and convey the value of this name to the
potential buyer. This was such a great brand opportunity,
and the team of buyers was incredibly savvy from start to finish.
It was a great experience for our team to take a buyer from zero
interest to a very engaged buyer through our education process.
Finally.com
– This one was in the news as Backoffice underwent a
complete re-branding to Finally. It was a whirlwind engagement
for us. They knew exactly what they wanted and why. They had
been working with another brokerage team and they were not having
success but as soon as we were introduced to them we got to work. Amanda
noted, "The online stalker in me came out quickly and I used all
available information to get to the ultimate owner and continue
to provide offers until we got the deal done.
Tornado.com:
This rebrand from a sub-par domain happened fairly quickly. Our
team asked a few key questions about their target customer base, budget,
timeline, etc. It was great to work with the seller who was very
straight forward with his price expectations. In the end the
client was thrilled to get the new brand they desired under budget and
in time for their launch.
Mojo.com:
This one was about six months in the making. One of the key
investors always loved “mojo” as a brand and Amanda had previously
sold the domain to a Fintech company who was continuing to decide what
they would do with the brand. We kept revisiting the domain with
their general counsel on a monthly basis to increase our offer for the
domain. This included Jeff calling on Board members, the CFO, CEO,
and their investors. Finally, once we got our offer high enough
that it was a significant enough profit for the company the rest of the
negotiation on timing, and transfer etc. become quite easy to finish up.
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Candy.com:
We provided our consulting and acquisition services to the lead
investors to find the perfect brand for their new company.
We worked through all of our seller contacts for their top tier
names knowing this was going to be a blockbuster! In the
end there were three top tier .com domains that rose to the top
of the list and after some very tough negotiations with the
sellers through their advisor/broker we were able to come to
terms and get the deal done for our client.
RainPlan.com:
After the deal for this domain was done the buyer told us,
"Paul Thompson did a superb job acquiring the Rainplan.com domain
for our green infrastructure marketplace. He got the attention
of the seller and guided us from beginning to end with
professionalism. We would absolutely work with Paul and Saw.com again
in the future."
Summing
it all up,
Jeff and Amanda told us "All of these sales and really all
of our work requires a real commitment to our process which is how
can we create the most value for our clients? How can we get
them what they need in the most effective way for their company
and stakeholders within their organization? What bring us
the most satisfaction time and again is succeeding where
others have not. As we all know, while what we do is
NOT rocket science, it does require diligence and follow
through. We are super proud of our work and the team we have
both customer facing and behind the scenes making this all
happen for our clients." |
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