The curious case of receiving a URL as a gift…

A few months ago, we thought of ‘Appucino’ as the new name for our mobile social network platform. 

When we looked up “appuccino.com” (as in with a double c – how cappuccino is spelt), I was a bit disappointed to find out that the domain belonged to someone else. 

So, in a bit a salesman style, I wrote to Serge Diekstra – the owner of appuccino.com who was listed on the Internet as the owner. 

I masked my identity and asked him if he was the owner. 

He wrote back confirming that he was. 

I then wrote to him stating that I was representing a Brand that was interested in buying his domain and made a cash offer of 350 US$. 

Internally, we were prepared to pay upto 1-2k for buying the domain. 

What he wrote back surprised me! 

Serge asked what we intended to do with the URL? 

So, I unmasked myself and actually sent him mocks of Appucino.com and the plan of making it India’s first ‘Mobile Social Network’. 

Serge then wrote back with a suggestion that knocked my socks off! 

He said that he was willing to GIFT (yup GIFT!) the URL to us on the condition that we would rename the site and business appuccino.com (from appucino.com) and mention him as the original creator – who had gifted the URL for our use. 

I persuaded him to understand that we could not change the landing URL to the one with the ‘cc’ because appucino.com was already coded in the SDK of the mobile platform and hence we would respect him as the Appuccino creator and gifter on the Appucino.com ‘about us’ page! 

HE AGREED AND GIFTED US THE URL for FREE!! 

Moral of the story: 

– Everything and everybody is NOT ABOUT MONEY. 

– Sometimes being humble and polite and sincere can lead to many victories beyond being arrogant!

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We are INDEBTED to Serge for his kindness and will be incorporating his credentials on the appucino.com about us section very soon!

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