HubSpot co-founder Dharmesh Shah bought Chat.com for over $10 million and sold it for a profit 2 months later; to donate part of the profit to KhanAcademy

HubSpot co-founder and CTO Dharmesh Shah made headlines back in March when he purchased the domain name chat.com for over $10 million. At the time, many called it a strategic move for the future after he acquired the domain Connect.com for $10 million in the summer of 2022.

However, Shah, who has a propensity for buying domain names, surprised everyone today after he announced today that he has sold chat.com for a profit just two months after he bought the domain name. He added that he was not “at liberty to disclose details on who the purchaser was or the price paid.”

In a post on Twitter, Shah said he sold chat.com for a profit and he’s donating $250,000 to support the online learning platform, KhanAcademy.

“2 months ago, I bought the domain http://chat.com for $10M+. Here’s what happened next: https://linkedin.com/posts/dharmesh_chatux-ai-chatux-activity-7067513561303916544-w12b tl;dr: Sold it for a profit and am donating $250k+ to @khanacademy,” Shah tweeted.

2 months ago, I bought the domain https://t.co/UMWKLa0S0W for $10M+.

Here's what happened next:https://t.co/kl70eH5bPy

tl;dr: Sold it for a profit and am donating $250k+ to @khanacademy .

— dharmesh (@dharmesh) May 25, 2023

In a LinkedIn post, Shah added:

“2 months ago, I bought chat.com for $10M+. Here’s an update. I’m posting this because several folks have noticed that the chat.com domain no longer redirects to my post, and some are speculating that I might be getting ready to launch something big on it. Want to clear up any confusion.”

He went on to say that he wasn’t “launching something big on it” and that he sold chat.com form than he paid for it. “I am not launching anything on it. I have sold the domain name. I have sold it for more than I paid,” he added.

Founded in 2006 by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah, HotSpot is a fast-growing platform that provides software products for inbound marketing and sales, social media marketing, content management, web analytics, and search engine optimization. Its service portfolio includes social media publishing and monitoring, blogging, SEO, website content management, email marketing, marketing automation, and reporting and analytics. HubSpot’s sales application enables sales and service teams to have effective conversations with leads and prospects.

You can read the full LinkedIn post below.

“2 months ago, I bought chat.com for $10M+. Here’s an update.

I’m posting this because several folks have noticed that the chat.com domain no longer redirects to my post, and some are speculating that I might be getting ready to launch something big on it. Want to clear up any confusion.

I am not launching something big on it.
I am not launching anything on it.
I have sold the domain name.

I have sold it for more than I paid.

As promised, I have taken $250k of the gains and donated to Sal Khan and Khan Academy to support their efforts to use A.I. to create personalized education at scale for the world.

I passionately believe in Sal, Khan Academy and their mission.

If you have not yet seen Sal’s TED talk yet about how he’s using OpenAI’s GPT, you should, it’s amazing:

https://dharme.sh/salted

Let’s make this more interesting. For every comment that you leave on *this* post talking about what you thought of Sal’s TED Talk — or Khan Academy in general, I will donate an *additional* $10 (per comment). It’s an easy way to do your good deed for the day in support of a great cause.

tl;dr: Total donation will be $250k + ($10 * num_of_comments)

Thanks for your support.

Cheers,
Dharmesh
—
p.s. I’m not at liberty to disclose details on who the purchaser was or the price paid. Sorry.”