100% of the top 20 by valuation have their .com What proportion had it at their founding or shortly after? Surely a well funded and successful company had the means and motivation to purchase their .com
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Change Your Name
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Re: Change Your Name
#22> 100% of the top 20 YC companies by valuation have the .com of their name. 94% of the top 50 do. But only 66% of companies in the current batch have the .com of their name. Which suggests there are lessons ahead for most of the rest, one way or another.
I wonder how much of that is due to the fact that landscape has changed in past 8 years and top 20 YC companies are all at least a few years (5-ish?) old. I appreciate the rest of the sentiment of the post, but I don't think the numbers he chose to share clearly support the assertions. Correlation isn't causation.
Re: Change Your Name
#23If 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.
Re: Change Your Name
#24100% of the top 20 by valuation have their .com What proportion had it at their founding or shortly after? Surely a well funded and successful company had the means and motivation to purchase their .com
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.
Re: Change Your Name
#25>100% of the top 20 YC companies by valuation have the .com of their name. 94% of the top 50 do. But only 66% of companies in the current batch have the .com of their name. Which suggests there are lessons ahead for most of the rest, one way or another.
How much of that is due to the pressure that he admittedly puts on them to change names? (And that higher valued ones are likely to be older and have had this pressure for longer?)
Re: Change Your Name
#26> 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.
and regularly scraped by bots to squat domains? You can hold a lot of domains for two years when you can sell a few for 5k
True. I hate domain sharking.
Re: Change Your Name
#27We'll buy it when we raise series A. We'll use our hipster version until then. Thanks.
Re: Change Your Name
#28I knew I needed to change our company's name but this article really sealed the deal. The problem is I don't have the skill of naming. If you do, I'd love your help (email me at lalalee at hotmail.com).
If you're ready to pay, try http://www.pickydomains.com/
Re: Change Your Name
#29Best 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?
Re: Change Your Name
#30> 100% of the top 20 YC companies by valuation have the .com of their name. 94% of the top 50 do. But only 66% of companies in the current batch have the .com of their name. Which suggests there are lessons ahead for most of the rest, one way or another. I wonder how much of that is due to the fact that landscape has changed in past 8 years and top 20 YC companies are all at least a few years (5-ish?) old. I apprecia…
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