Expensive Domain Error Costs Investment

The BBC Television programme, Dragon's Den has become very popular over the past few years, as entrepreneurs try to secure funding and assistance from the panel of business experts.

Last night's episode featured two guys from Ireland trying to secure investment for their web and phone based food web site, ifoods.tv.

It looked like a good idea. They had superb credentials (Niall, the chef had cooked for Bill Gates) and handled themselves extremely well. I thought that they'd got their investment.

After a very polished and well-rehearsed presentation, the questions started.

They wanted to create a social network based on recipes, whereby users can see professional chefs preparing food. Users can upload their own recipes and their own videos showing how to cook meals too. It looked like a winnning idea. A niche YouTube for foodies.

Initially they performed well. But then one of them dropped the bombshell, "I got to be honest with you guys, there is a competitor out there with a social networking site, with the name ifood.tv".

Their site is called ifoods.tv, very similar of course, but so similar that ifood.tv would most likely take their traffic, or as one of the dragons put it, "there's a competitor on your doorstep who will eat your lunch".

Then another question was asked by the same dragon. "Who owns NiallHarbeson.com"? (The guys name - I don't know if that's the correct spelling).

"It's free" came the reply. His partner chipped in, "He hasn't got that big an ego yet".

The dragon advised him to get it the moment he walked out of the den. "Otherwise you will"? asked Niall. "Yes, I will" came the reply.

Eureka! At last, a high profile business person (Duncan Bannatyne, owns Bannatyne's Gym chain in the UK and several other investments) who gets domain names!

Notice he didn't ask whether he owns his .tv name? He went straight to .com.

That's because .com is still the default extension, no matter how good a product or service, if you're trying to build a web site or business with a global reach.

One of the other dragons explained that he was going to make them an investment offer and asked if they would rebrand. They wouldn't as they said it would be too expensive.

You can't expect everyone to "get" domains. These guys didn't and that was their downfall. The idea was superb, but because of their short-sightedness on the domain name, they lost the chance of investment from the programme.

Personally, I think that they are strong enough ad have a good enough idea to be able to make it work anyway. Maybe they'll rebrand. Maybe they'll buy the .com - which ironically, is parked, but so much stronger and brandable than the .tv name.

If I were one of the dragons, my advice would have been to grab the investment and buy that .com from the current owner and rebrand it ifood.com. It's begging to be developed - and not by the current owners, a grain company according to the whois.

I hope they do well. It was an expensive lesson in domaining and one that all domainers should take heed of.

You can view the episode for the next seven days at www.bbc.co.uk/dragonsden - it's episode 5. Fast forward to about half way on the video slider, as that's where it gets interesting.