When tech entrepreneur Ian Leaman needed to buy a website address for his new artificial intelligence start-up he found that he had an expensive problem.
The New Yorker had named his business Pantry AI, so in December of last year he decided to see if the domain name Pantry.ai hadn’t already been taken.
Unfortunately someone else had already registered it a number of years previously, so Mr Leaman had to get in touch with that person to see if he could strike a deal to buy it from him.
« I offered $2,000 [£1,647] and he said he only wanted $12,000, » says Mr Leaman. « Then I offered $7,000 and he remained stuck on $12,000.
We agreed on $12,000 as long as it could be done with a payment plan. »
Now the proud owner of Pantry.ai, Mr Leaman says that as pricey as the deal became, he’s happy he has secured a memorable website address that has « a strong noun » within it. The latter is said to be increasingly rare to obtain.