Vito, I have to say I was after the name BIG time. As IKEA store would say, it just "fits". The .com name was taken in 1999, and the owner was being greedy. This is the same person who owned and sold names to couple of big communication firms for good chunk of cash. Now, I was crazy about the name, but not that crazy. So I started a long and tedious talks on how the budgeting is important to me. Every dollar counted. Then almost after I gave up, I snatched .net and .org., after which he contacted me on his own and told me how important owning a dot-com was. Sure it is, but there is nothing that I can do with a dot-com that I cannot do with a .net - I explained to him. And another round of negotiation continued. The suggestion is to show interest, but at times the lack of it. Finally, I resorted from negotiation for a week, after which thinking he could have potentially lost a good sale, he emailed me with an attractive offer I did not expect. By then I was in the driver seat, so I said: sorry, no can do, the price is no good anymore, and named the lowest price I could pay. We agreed halfway from there, and finally, now I have it.

In all honesty, most likely I would have still gone for the name in a few weeks at a not-very-attractive price. However, the name stands for what the business is, and I find the name is an important part of the game, especially in Web 2.0 play.

Very cool. I like your negotiation techniques. You somehow turned the tables so that you were in the driver's seat. Not an easy task. Well done, Artashes.

Like I said, you're my first pick for who will work my next R.E. purchase.

Vito

Sure, you can try sending me, but then I can't take responsibility if I mess up.

No kidding, way to haggle Art!

When are you going to be launching this domain? When can we find out what it is?

I have been working on the concept since late last year.
I closed seed round, so it depends on how fast I can close round two of financing. I am talking to a couple of local VCs and discussing the project. My projection - you won't see it anytime soon.