The entrepreneurial spirit of Nick Spanos, a respectable Real Estate broker from Manhattan, NY and owner of bApple.com, led him to new ventures in the 1990’s. His vacation rental business was thriving and so was his portfolio of domain names. Nick’s business expanded on the Web to promote these vacation rental properties, through the simple philosophy outlined below:
In the past, the popularity of hotels was primarily due to the accessibility. You knew that if you went to the center of NY City there would be a hotel that might be able to accommodate you. Now, through the NoMoreHotels.com network, thousands of available rooms, villas, condos, estates, beachfront rentals, and apartments are for rent by owners and are accessible at the click of a mouse.
Nick’s an ever-busy mind, he programs his own applications, structures his own databases and runs his own hosting servers. This multiplicity of skills has allowed him to overcome tough times in life.
When the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center took America’s society by surprise, Nick went to ground zero to help with the rescue efforts as a volunteer. At that time, all travel stopped, tourism dropped to zero and his vacation rental business tanked, with the Bank taking 100% of the bookings. In his own words, Nick lost his shirt in the aftermath of 9-11.
As a domainer, Nick Spanos is fond of establishing domain verticals for his business and at the peak of his NoMoreHotels venture he also registered NoHotel.com and NoHotels.com, figuring that it’d be easier for non-Americans to remember. This foresight proved extremely worthy 10 years later.
Right after Christmas of 2008, Nick received a $1,000 offer via Sedo, for the domain NoHotels.com to which he countered with a whopping $100,000 ticket. During the course of the following weeks, Nick negotiated aggressively with what appeared to be an increasingly impatient buyer, who jumped from his original offer to $8,000 – then $15,000 and $16,000 – before showing his true financial colors by raising the offer to $55,000.
At that point, Nick’s asking price was $70,000 and he was soon contacted by a Sedo broker on behalf of the buyer. The deal was closed at $60,000 for both NoHotel.com and NoHotels.com – a move showing that the Norwegian buyer fully intends to capitalize on the brand: “No” is the ISO country code for Norway.
Nick Spanos could not be happier; a great domain sale that successfully closed the link to the past business and emphasizes the importance of negotiation: go with your gut feeling – if you don’t ask, you don’t get.
GREAT post!
Very nice sale. I think the buyer would have paid $100k. If you stick to your asking price and the buyer seems aggressive…he will most likely buy at your first asking price.
For example: I am in the process of buying a domain name and the seller is asking $15k. I already know in my mind that i am willing to pay his $15k because i really like the domain name…but i still made him an offer of $5k which he turned down…then i said $7.5k..he turned it down also…then i said my last and final price is $10k…he still turned it down…now i am going to slowly move towards his asking price and see if i can get atleast a little discount…but if he still hangs on to his asking price of $15k…i am going to pay him $15k.
Stick to your first asking price and the end user will definately pay your asking price if he really wants it…it just takes some time!
In this spirit of this sale, I just registered NOaccommodations.com and NOtrips.com. I figured for less than $8 each, it is worth a shot! Cheers to Norway and there is always New Orleans for NO too. 🙂