141–150 of 212 posts
Clever. Do you scale the prices with number of clicks?
It's flat pricing.
I guess some people may see it as exploitative, but I would consider increasing the price of domains that a lot of people have clicked on and reducing the price of others.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the kind of pricing philosophy that plagues HN (and I'll admit, I'm guilty of it as often as not). The value of a product is usually not cost of labor + cost of materials, it's the value it brings to the buyer. $106.99 won't get me the same value, because I have to spend long frustrating hours trying to find a decent available domain name, then a few more hours going back and forth with a designer for a logo…
The best tool I've found for screwing around with domain names is wordoid which I'll link below While it seems the database hasn't been updated in awhile, it definitely gives very good/quick results without hours of work. http://www.wordoid.com
Even with those tools, I still hate looking for domain names :)
Count me in the group that finds $250 to be a steal for this sort of thing. Your mission page is spot on. The amount of time/headache it takes to brand a startup should not be underestimated. I think that the logos are fine to get started quickly but probably would all need to be changed in the long run, but no big deal, you've provided a decent enough starting point where it doesn't look shitty atleast and can allow…
Agreed. The time and money you can waste doing domain search and logo design far exceeds the $250 price they're charging. Having done this a number of times myself, $250 is a major bargain for something that is vetted and pretty much ready-to-promote. Looking through the brands, nothing really fits any of my current projects but I would definitely consider coming back to check again and again.
Looking at the list of domains on offer, half of them are 'empty vessel' nonsense words which could quite easily be generated with the same amount of personal effort using something like Wordoid[1]. The other half are nothing more than Monkey Tennis[2], i.e. word pairings thrown out there in the hope that someone else will build a product around it[3].
[1] http://www.wordoid.com/ [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_tennis [3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rS1le_8ZhOU&t=1m30s
That said - most people put too much weight on a name, but it's really important to be sure the name is A) memorable (this doesn't mean weird or unique), B) easy to spell and C) easy to Google.
Names that are weird spellings or made-up words are NOT memorable, basically because they don't fit into a ready-made slot in the readers' head. (Plus if they are hard to spell, you're SOL.)
It's far better to have a memorable name like "Charm" and then append crap to the end of the domain (e.g. CharmHQ.com) to ensure you can grab the domain, than it is to have a short, unique name where you get the regular name.com.
This conclusion is based on my extensive reading of cogsci research about memory, word association, etc.
No! A $7.99 domain name and what looks like to me a $99 logo thrown is not a steal or a good deal. Let me come at this way: Can I get the domain off of you for %80 off the $250 price ? I presume that the answer is no, because it's a lipstick on pig product designed to glorify domain squatting. All the power to you for finding a niche market, but suckers be warned that it's highway robbery! edit: downvoted within 2 mi…
Have you ever spent months of manpower and thousands of dollars coming up with a name for your company? I suspect not, otherwise it would be crystal clear what the value of this service is, and what an absolute steal $250 is. Nobody expects $7 for a domain these days. You might as well complain about how land is so expensive, considering it was all claimed for pennies per acre less than 200 years ago.
I don't even care for the logo -- to me it simply provides a demonstration that it's possible to create a decent sounding/looking brand from the name.
As for highway robbery -- well, that's fine if you think that. Again I wonder if you've ever been told that the minimum offer for a domain is 5 figures. You can go ahead and insist on your non-existent right to a $7 registration if you please, but pragmatic people who need to get things done ASAP will recognize this as an incredible offer.
If you do ever offer a product or service, what will you say when your customer insists that your price solely reflect the cost of materials and labor?
EDIT: updated
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>First, it's a logotype. Some of the world's most recognizable logos are, like this, logotypes. I'm willing to accept this. Point to your favour. >Third, why would you want the font used for this particular logo? Because I might want to tweak it, resize it, use it on letterheads, put it on my business card, create sub products that follow the "brand style", etc. A vector drawing at the minimum is essential. That said…
Why is it moot? It's a simple logo and you can use it right away. Naming and branding has been a huge headache and/or cost on almost every project I've worked on. Picking something off the shelf that lets you get back to the more important work of building your product is a godsend. It's not for every project, but for smaller projects it's perfect.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the kind of pricing philosophy that plagues HN (and I'll admit, I'm guilty of it as often as not). The value of a product is usually not cost of labor + cost of materials, it's the value it brings to the buyer. $106.99 won't get me the same value, because I have to spend long frustrating hours trying to find a decent available domain name, then a few more hours going back and forth with a designer for a logo…
In the free market, anything goes. In the domain market, there's a finite space within which we have to work in. If you want to buy a domain at a ( 250/8 = 31.25 ) 3100% markup, so be it.
This is domain squatting pure and simple. Just because it's dressed up with a pretty design doesn't change the fact that these guys are the exact sort of bottom feeders that we should be blackballing from our industry. Flagged.
There are domainers that own hundreds of thousands and even millions of domains. Those are the guys making life suck. These guys are actually helping, by doing the hard work of sifting through the relatively few good ones still available and charging a fair price for the effort. Save all your outrage for the real scumbags and the ICANN organization that makes them possible.
As far as blackballing, I can think of one super well known tech figure who came from the domain industry - Michael Arrington.
No! A $7.99 domain name and what looks like to me a $99 logo thrown is not a steal or a good deal. Let me come at this way: Can I get the domain off of you for %80 off the $250 price ? I presume that the answer is no, because it's a lipstick on pig product designed to glorify domain squatting. All the power to you for finding a niche market, but suckers be warned that it's highway robbery! edit: downvoted within 2 mi…
Any tips on finding a good place for a custom $99 logo?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is it moot? It's a simple logo and you can use it right away. Naming and branding has been a huge headache and/or cost on almost every project I've worked on. Picking something off the shelf that lets you get back to the more important work of building your product is a godsend. It's not for every project, but for smaller projects it's perfect.
Yes, and there's something to be said for "launch now, iterate later". A "good enough" domain/logotype is sufficient for an MVP.