Somebody shoot me. Just hit my head with a hammer nice and hard and put me out of my misery:
Fourteen years ago, Chris Clark shelled out 20 bucks to register the domain name "pizza.com." This afternoon, he sold it for $2.6 million.
"It’s crazy, it’s just crazy," he said somewhat giddily yesterday morning from his home in North Potomac.Source for all quotes: Baltimore Sun: Marylander gets big slice of Web pie
Yeah…sure it’s crazy…I agree. Now where’s a blindfold and that bullet ridden wall at? And sure, give me a last smoke before you take me out. I’m done with all this exercise in frustration. Here I’m wondering where the next set of groceries are going to come from and this guy sells "Pizza.com" for 2.6 million. On a whim no less.
Then they heard about the Vodka.com sale, and wheels began to turn.
"I thought, ‘Why don’t I just try to see what the level of interest is?’" Clark said. "If someone’s willing to pay that much for Vodka.com, maybe there’s more interest in pizza.com."
Oh, but there’s more:
He kept up the annual $20 registration fees on the pizza.com name, though, and basically sat on the site, selling advertising space here and there. About a year ago, he and a friend turned it into a profitable pizza directory and advertising site that earns more than the $5,000 it costs to maintain.
So let’s see now. Seeing as how we don’t know how much above $5,000 is actual profit or whether that’s a quarterly, bi-annual or annual maintenance cost, let’s concentrate on just the maintenance of the domain name itself. Including the initial purchase price and assuming the worst that he actually had to pay 20 bucks a year for renewing Pizza.com, that would bring the grand total investment into the domain name itself to a whopping $280.00!
I need to find a cliff and jump off it.
Oh well, congratulations Chris on your windfall. You obviously made a smart investment even though you may not have realized it at the time. You’re CPA is going to have a heart attack. 
Comments 4
And I let CBSEveningNewsWithKatieCouric.com expire just a couple of month ago. Bought it right after it was announced she was moving to CBS.
Still have SaleEndsSunday.com and FourDaysOnly.com, if you know what agent he listed with, will you let me know?
And who pays $20 a year for a domain registration? I guess he didn’t believe the GoDaddy.com ads!
Posted 06 Apr 2008 at 7:15 pm ¶Hey Sixty,
I don’t know who his agent is but I’d sure like to find out. I’ve got IESucks.com somewhere in the closet
Posted 07 Apr 2008 at 1:20 pm ¶I was trying to get just-thinkin.net but some feker has it already. Wonder how much they want for it?
Posted 12 Apr 2008 at 3:07 am ¶Primal, (welcome sir)
$4,532.95. I ain’t greedy like other people I know, just hard up.
Posted 12 Apr 2008 at 10:49 am ¶Post a Comment