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Change Your Name

paulgraham.com

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Re: Change Your Name

#171

Post by TeMPOraL »

ThomPete wrote: post #13

Great names are made not found. I think Paul for once have it the wrong way around. If you become big enough and happen to have enough of a market you might need to .com name to optimize your numbers. If you happen to find a good name you can afford that you still think represents you and is .com you should most probably change your name. But for most people just like their logo it's it's not that important until you…

> Great names are made not found.

> But for most people just like their logo it's it's not that important until you become big

Exactly this. If you look at the most successful companies in all sectors out there, most of them have logos that range from plain to just ugly, and many of them feel like they were initially created as a formatted company name on top of some document, back when the company's secretary first discovered Microsoft Word.

The more I see things and think about them, the more I believe that this whole talk of logos being "very important since it's what your customer looks at all the time" is a big scam perpetuated by graphics designers, because they make (a lot of) money on you believing you need the slick, $expensive new brand image.

Re: Change Your Name

#172

Post by chromaton »

sivers wrote: post #14

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.

The name "lemon pie" makes a clear image in your head. This makes it easier to remember. This is why "peg" mnemonic systems work.

It's how I came up with the name "Big Blue Saw".

Re: Change Your Name

#173

Post by jules »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #90
bigtunacan wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can "simply pay for the top spot". This is why the results at the very top of the Google search are paid ad placements.

I was referring to search results not advertisements. You can pay one fee, like a domain TLD or AOL Keyword, and get that spot. With those advertisements you have to constantly put money in to stay at that spot.

Sadly my parents don't know that the top yellow box is an ad, they think it's the top search result. I expect most people are the same.

Re: Change Your Name

#174

Post by stickfigure »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #139
jsprogrammer wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DNS is already centralized.

Yes, and that is a problem. But that's not nearly as bad as having Google and Bing have the same role. DNS goes through a highly decentralised network of name servers, many of which aren't at all controlled by the ICANN. Each country based top level domain has its own set of servers, and there name requests are generally cached on other servers still. But when you type "company name" in a search engine, you give away…

I don't see the problem with G and B in this role; at least they answer to the end user. Who does ICANN answer to? What is your alternative if you get crappy service from the .com operator? If what PG says is correct, you don't really have an alternative.

Re: Change Your Name

#175

Post by TeMPOraL »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #170

> The problem with not having the .com of your name is that it signals weakness. Note to anyone who disagrees with Paul Graham on this one: he's not talking about the genuine importance of the domain name. He's talking about its perceived importance by important people —namely the investor community. That's the way it is with most status signals: they're not very important by themselves, but how they influence the pe…

It also suggests that any investor willing not to believe in such signals can stand to make a lot of money.

I sometimes wonder how much bullshit do people at the top of the foodchain believe and act on, given the material targeted towards executives (like magazine articles or presentations of software development methodologies) are so full of it.

Re: Change Your Name

#176

Post by brudgers »

booruguru wrote: post #117

If the .com name you want is already registered, you can always buy it later once you business is successful enough to justify the investment (much like betali.st and getdropbox.com). There's no point in buying an expensive domain name for a company that may not survive past the startup stage. Note: a large swath of web users don't even understand the concept of a domain name or address bar...instead they google term…

My reading was that at an early stage it's just better to come up with another name and be done with it...if airmatressbreadandbreakfast.com is taken, just buy airBnB.com. Consumers won't care. In cases like Stripe, where the target is B2B and the businesses are mostly small businesses, then a good name matters because it's marketing and its cost is just a cost of doing business.

To push it further a .io domain is signalling and that's what makes it attractive.

Re: Change Your Name

#177

Post by pc »

nostrademons wrote: post #124

"It turns out almost any word or word pair that is not an obviously bad name is a sufficiently good one, and the number of such domains is so large that you can find plenty that are cheap or even untaken." So, after reading this advice, I decided I'd actually try it out - it's easy enough to download a word list and write a script that pings a WHOIS API to check every single word or word pair. Turns out most such API…

So were Stripe and Parse, as it happens. We reached out to the owners of domains that looked unused / potentially for sale.

Re: Change Your Name

#178

Post by CydeWeys »

squiggy22 wrote: post #136
ThomPete wrote: post #13

Great names are made not found. I think Paul for once have it the wrong way around. If you become big enough and happen to have enough of a market you might need to .com name to optimize your numbers. If you happen to find a good name you can afford that you still think represents you and is .com you should most probably change your name. But for most people just like their logo it's it's not that important until you…

Couldn't agree more. Google, Yahoo, Twitter. Three global brands that aren't dictionary names, and don't have to be. You don't need a dictionary word .com to survive either.

Twitter and Yahoo are dictionary words, and Google is just a misspelling (intentional or accidental, it's unclear) of a dictionary word.

All three did own their .com domain names from the very beginning.

Re: Change Your Name

#179

Post by electic »

cpeterso wrote: post #133
electic wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

or tesla.com

I've always wondered how long will domain squatters wait before they negotiate. Surely Tesla Motors has approached tesla.com and apparently been turned down. Telsa Motors has shown they don't need that domain name to succeed. So when will the squatter, if ever, cave to Tesla Motors' offer?

Nissan.com is a great example. I am sure Nissan offered them a lot of cash for the domain name before going hostile on them.

Re: Change Your Name

#180

Post by jxm262 »

After reading this, I'm a bit perplexed and sad at the same time. My current strategy was to not use a .com since it was up for sale more than I'm willing to pay. Instead, I decided to go with something similar but different and hopefully change it once the idea/company got traction.

Whether or not I agree with this, PG is a source of authority, which makes me think about my current strategy. Sort of sucks, do I listen to my gut and what many others here are saying, or fork over the money into a domain that could be used for other areas in the business?

I'm going with option#1 btw, just sucks to hear this from someone I respect, because it makes me believe it's true.

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