The following is an interview I did with Whoosh! Inc’s Jason Greenspan who I had noticed recent acquired the generic exact match .com domain name they have been attempting to acquire for the past 2.5 years. I tried to ask questions to give you insight into how, why and when. This is how it happened and a bit more about the company, its product and the domain names they own.
When was Whoosh Inc. founded, what do you offer and what domain name did the company first launch with?
Whoosh! was founded in 2011 as an innovative consumer cleaning products company. We launched with the domain name WhooshInc.com.
How did you come up with the name “whoosh”?
My partner was going through a car wash and the blower that dries the car after its clean makes that whoosh noise, so that set the tone and we did a domain search at GoDaddy for Whoosh.com and it was taken. Then we decided to search and see what else was available relating to “whoosh” and decided to pick WhooshInc.com.
You recently acquired Whoosh.com from Directv. Can you tell us how you went about securing the domain name?
We did a whois look-up about 2.5 years ago, and Directv was listed as the owners and nothing was on the domain name so we started calling different people at Directv to get in touch with the right people. We finally talked to the legal department but they were not interested in selling the domain at the time. I visited the domain name twice a year to check and see if anything changed. I checked 4 weeks ago, and Whoosh.com was listed for sale with a contact form and to place an offer. I placed a bid and we acquired the domain name.
It was a barrier to get a hold of the owner but once we were in contact with the right people, Directv was great to work with!
You purchased the domain name Whoosh.com from Directv? Expensive comes to mind?
Sorry, but we wish not to share the amount the domain was purchased for. We made and offer and they said ok.
How much of a factor did credibility, trust and brand come into play with acquiring the exact match .com domain to your company / product?
It was a bit of offense and defense really. Email address came into factor. The domain became available (for sale) and we wanted to prevent somebody else from getting it, plus it’s a domain we have been wanting for 2.5 years. We didn’t want to lose traffic and really didn’t know how much traffic we were losing because we were using WhooshInc.com and not Whoosh.com.
Are you concerned with people typing it in as whosh.com or woosh.com (Radio Test)
Yes we are concerned. Have you looking into acquiring the domain names that would be potential typos? We have not looked into them yet.
Whoosh.com already ranks #3 naturally in search engines for the search term whoosh less than a week after you purchased it, that has to make you feel good and be bringing in traffic already?
Thanks for letting me know that. Since we just acquired the domain name, we have yet to start tracking the traffic and we haven’t worked on SEO things yet. We have redirected WhooshInc.com to Whoosh.com already.
Since Whoosh is a “Screen Cleaner” is that exact match domain (ScreenCleaner.com) in the future for Whoosh!? You also use the term Tech Hygiene, how about that domain name?
Offensive and defensive again. We will look at it if it makes sense for the company to own and if it’s for sale at a reasonable price, we may acquire it. We do already own TechHygiene.com and Tech-Hygiene.com.
You use the hashtag #TechHygiene on Whoosh.com, own the domain name TechHygiene.com, but it’s on a standard registrar parking page. Why not redirect it someplace or build a mini-site on it?
We’re not ready to use it yet but felt it was a good domain name to register and own. We will do something with it shortly.
Are you aware of new gTLD’s domains like .cleaning that was launched on March 26, 2014? .technology ? or .tech which is in pre-registration?
No. Would you purchase or register a new gTLD today? Probably not. Not aware of what they are but maybe overtime if it makes sense for Whoosh!, but it’s a bit too early currently.
How many incremental sales over the life of the domain name could you capture by using the domain name in lieu of your current domain name? How quickly could you get to break even after paying the asking price?
It’s more but it wasn’t a pure ROI decision.
Where can you buy Whoosh! Screen cleaner?
The Whoosh! Screen cleaner is the core product of our company and is available at Amazon.com, Walmart, BestBuy and other retailers. Apple currently promotes the product but does not offer it for sale.
Thank you to Jason for the interview and insight into the buying of Whoosh.com from Directv. Best of luck to Whoosh! and its product that is getting great reviews on Amazon! My phone always looks gross, oily etc, so I need to pick some Whoosh! screen cleaner up (no I didn’t get offered one for free (sad face) ) and maybe you should consider it as well.
Whoosh! current owns 17 domain names in total and those are:
Whoosh.com, BuyWhoosh.com, DirtyScreens.com, TechHygiene.com, Tech-Hygiene.com, TryWhoosh.com, Whoosh-Clean.com, WhooshAntimicrobial.com, Whooshify.com, WhooshProtect.com, WhooshRides.com, WhooshScreens.com, WhooshScreenShine.com, WhooshSuperClean.com, WhooshSuperNaturalClean.com, WhooshTech.com and WSuperclean.com
Calling it a “tech company” might be a stretch, but how can you have a company in the tech space, in 2015, and not know about new gTLDs? lol
true!
Congrats on a great interview!
It’s interesting to see how end users view domain names and how they can be used in-house.
I am not at all surprised that the interviewee didn’t know about the new G’s.
If the company doesn’t give the purchase price then they don’t deserve the free advertising.
Also how did you notice ownership had changed? You were tracking this name, a list of names, you have software doing this…?
Seems Luke the author and company are holding back. C’mon share something of value.
My, aren’t we entitled…
While I would be curious to see selling price, the company is well within its right not to disclose it.
Free advertising?
Nah… I see this as interesting and valuable industry information.
This is a better info site with Jamie Zoch’s contribution.
🙂
Jen, I’m not entitled I just say it how it is. I don’t think I was rude, and I expect many of the readers here yearn for something to learn. How and why was this domain being monitored by the author? That’s interesting isn’t it?
The only thing I learned is that there is a company called Whoosh! and they got the domain by following it for a few years then contacting DirectTV when they finally put a for sale sign up.
You are rather defensive for the author though, which is cute, but my comments were not directed at him but rather the story he wrote.
I’m a terrible writer though so I credit the author for being brave, putting himself out there and writing the piece… (enough of a pat on the back?). Seriously though I’m only interested in learning and thought I was providing something constructive.
Good work. Thanks.