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Review my startup - Lean Domain Search: The fastest way to find a domain name

leandomainsearch.com

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Re: Review my startup - Lean Domain Search: The fastest way to find a domain name

#2
Hey guys,

About three years ago I built and launched Domain Pigeon, a web app that listed available web 2.0-style domain names each day [1]. The site did fairly well, but it was my first foray into web apps and I lacked the experience to grow it into something bigger. Eventually I moved on to other projects and closed Domain Pigeon down, which has been one of my biggest regrets.

My original vision for Domain Pigeon is what Lean Domain Search now is: you type in a search phrase and the app would pair it with hundreds (in this case 1,000) keywords to generate domain names and show you which were available. I lacked the technical skills back then to do bulk domain search quickly, which is why I settled on simply generating web 2.0-style domain names. Fast forward a few years and I've picked up those skills so I decided to take some time off my other apps and finally build this tool.

Hope you guys like it. Let me know how I can make it better.

[1] http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=domain+pige...

Re: Review my startup - Lean Domain Search: The fastest way to find a domain name

#3
post #2

Hey guys, About three years ago I built and launched Domain Pigeon, a web app that listed available web 2.0-style domain names each day [1]. The site did fairly well, but it was my first foray into web apps and I lacked the experience to grow it into something bigger. Eventually I moved on to other projects and closed Domain Pigeon down, which has been one of my biggest regrets. My original vision for Domain Pigeon i…

How are you bulk checking now? I've been in the industry a long time and it's always been a pain in the ass to do anything in bulk. I've had lists so big registrars didn't want to run them for me :( Using APIs really isn't an option when you have a million names and 1 per second limit. Automating a bulk checker, most of them disable/play with it after a certain number of times (so even at let's say 500, i might be able to get 20 tries in there before they mess with it).

The best solution I've found is checking against the zone file, but I am curious what you're doing.

Re: Review my startup - Lean Domain Search: The fastest way to find a domain name

#5
Overall, nice execution. I tested a couple nouns and I could definitely see myself using this in the feature.

I do think the mass of green at the top of the results is a little... too stunning. Do you think the same thing could be achieved with colored text and/or colored borders for each div and/or something else along those lines?

Re: Review my startup - Lean Domain Search: The fastest way to find a domain name

#6

Overall, nice execution. I tested a couple nouns and I could definitely see myself using this in the feature. I do think the mass of green at the top of the results is a little... too stunning. Do you think the same thing could be achieved with colored text and/or colored borders for each div and/or something else along those lines?

I agree the black on bright green text is intense and not very readable. I like the idea but I think you need to tweak the design a little. The layout is pretty good just need to play around with the colors a little bit.

Re: Review my startup - Lean Domain Search: The fastest way to find a domain name

#9
I'm afraid this doesn't stack up well to the existing tools our there. Here's a comparison of your results with the tool I use most often when searching for a domain:

http://www.leandomainsearch.com/search?q=big+daddy http://www.domaintools.com/buy/domain-suggestions/?q=big+dad...

Domaintools' name spinner just gives better results, and immediately tells me about availability for all the .tlds as well.

So I guess step one would be to get your tool at least as good as that.

Good luck!

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