The domain owner initially asked for $30k. We negotiated him down to $12.5k up front and another $12.5k a year later. As an early-stage startup, this structure was a huge win, since we expected we'd either raise money or no longer exist within the next year.

That was 2010 right ? I'm going to throw this out there...The 2015 price point for a dictionary .com name of that caliber is double that at least.