31–40 of 355 posts
> How do you find them? One answer is the default way to solve problems you're bad at: find someone else who can think of names. Imagine a website where startups could describe what they do and users could propose and vote on ideas for names. It's been on my list of potentially decent project ideas.
Or are there other considerations such as SEO uniqueness, easy-to-pronounce (especially critical for enterprise software), length of url.
Is kuickkoder.com a better domain than quickcoder.io ?
That's not a straight comparison. A better stat would be, what percentage of the top 20 YC companies had the .com while they were in the active YC batch?
> How do you find them? One answer is the default way to solve problems you're bad at: find someone else who can think of names. Imagine a website where startups could describe what they do and users could propose and vote on ideas for names. It's been on my list of potentially decent project ideas.
Already done, see http://www.pickydomains.com/
(1) Do users really pay attention to the extension, COM or anything else?
(2) IMHO, now users mostly just click on links while paying little or no attention to the actual URL or domain name. Of course, the HTML link element (tag) doesn't have to expose anything about the extension.
So, why do 1+ billion users know or care about COM?
For PG's point about the most successful YC companies use COM, that was then, when COM didn't cost so much, not now.
I'd rather have a memorable name with a sub-par TLD, than I would have a confusing / hard to remember name with a .com.
Obviously, the ideal is memorable + .com, but most of those will cost 50-100k+, which is not feasible for seed-stage budget.
Sounds like a series A problem.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A great example: how long did it take Square to get their hands on square.com? Even now it's just a redirect to squareup.com.
Another example: Dropbox originally had getdropbox.com, and didn't obtain dropbox.com until more than 2 years after founding. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dropbox_(service)#2007-2011
For earlier companies, you can buy a lot of engineers, product, and marketing for $1 million.
[0] http://www.cnet.com/news/how-box-net-became-box-com-for-just...
Best advice I've ever seen on naming a business is from this old Seth Godin gem: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2003/06/naming_a_bus... I read that in 2003, and have never forgotten the "Lemon Pie" example since.
I've done some scuba and I don't get the Lemon Pie name in that context. Care to explain?
> The LESS it has to do with your category, the better.
If your numbers are going up and to the right, what does it mean to "signal weakness" with your name?
I think the essay is missing crucial elaboration on the central point. That is, the idea that .com is associated with strength, and lack of .com with weakness.
.com is love
.com is life
Surrender your soul unto VeriSign
Best advice I've ever seen on naming a business is from this old Seth Godin gem: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2003/06/naming_a_bus... I read that in 2003, and have never forgotten the "Lemon Pie" example since.
I've done some scuba and I don't get the Lemon Pie name in that context. Care to explain?
More like it's a simple and easy name that you can build your scuba tour business around.
In other words - pick a good and easy English name or two and go from there. Avoid hard to pronounce words or smash two words together to make up a new word that means nothing.
At least that's how I see it.