Steli Efti made an announcement on the Close.io blog that they acquired Close.com.
Regged in 1996 the domain was once used as a startup and raised $250,000 in 2013.
The .com crowd will love this statement,
Now that we’ve reached a level of maturity and stability in the CRM space, we decided it was finally time to invest in acquiring the .com domain—in part to reconcile that disconnect between calling ourselves Close internally and “Close-dot-I-O” externally.
He also put together a video explaining the decision.
Hat tip to Namepros member ivbran
There is only one serious extension for business, anything else signals a weak fly by night company.
A bit over the top, certainly .com is #1 by a mile, but I am pretty sure no one thinks Twitch is weak or fly by night.
Of course it looks weak to be on a .tv. I see they have now acquired the .com as well. Watch for twitch to do the switch.
They acquired it in 2015.
There is nothing weak about Twitch.tv but keep trying little man.
The seminal moment is at 1:35s where he describes the acquisition of the .com as “buying a real domain name”.
LOL
Message:
.io is for kids, amateurs and for fun.
.com is for grown ups, professionals and for REAL.
They probably fooled themselves for years that they don’t need the .com, until they finally woke up and decided to grow up and to PAY UP. That they have to invest in the brand their company deserves. Well done!
“that disconnect between calling ourselves Close internally and “Close-dot-I-O” externally.”
BINGO
Love the video message, especially the closing part 🙂
Steli is a great guy and an inspiring entrepreneur. I am a DotCom advocate but the key takeaway from this example is that they were perfectly fine building a very successful and financially healthy business on a .io
They acquired the .com over a month ago: https://twitter.com/doronvermaat/status/1105347218150612992?s=09
I don’t think it is “perfectly fine” they had a problem and luckily they were able to fix it, doesn’t mean the original domain was a good idea, in fact they seem to be suggesting it wasn’t a real domain. Companies on alternate extensions all have big domain problems and they know it, but none will ever admit it publicly until after they acquire the .com.
Whatever the sale price they are fortunate someone else didn’t acquire it. You know that phrase going around “Off the market forever”, not to mention someone branding as Close, capitalising on lost traffic etc. could really harm their existing business more than if it was simply parked/for-sale as it was.
Great five-letter word .com sale! I wonder what they spent for it? That being said, Close.com has a radio-test problem with Clothes.com which sounds exactly the same.
.whatevers are .dead
only .com counts
why is codepen.com using codepen.io
The important thing to remember is not every one can afford a ticket to the Big Leagues, but when you can, it’s better to close the deal.
Welcome to the Bigs, Close.com!
I’ve never heard a biz owner claim buyer remorse after upgrading from a lesser extension to a .com. Most claim iit was one of the best biz decisions they made.
I like .me, .io, .ai and .org and .tv when the extension fits the product, but .com signals you’ll all in and can hit a curve call.
Just another .io domain upgraded to a .com. Minor leagues to the big leagues.
.io = input .io / output .com