AKA .com's are too expensive. Next.
Aren't some of the newer TLDN's pretty good alternatives, such as ".shop", ".store", ".social", ".insurance", ".save", ".software", ".search", ".game", ".travel" etc?
More than half of YC startups don't have a dot com
21–30 of 109 posts
Re: More than half of YC startups don't have a dot com
#22When I started my YC company, we used the .io (which we found on HN, actually! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6397526 ). A few years later, once we could afford it, we bought the .com for $170k. I imagine that if you filtered based on only companies that make it to (for example) a Series B, the % goes way up.
> A few years later, once we could afford it, we bought the .com for $170k. How are these bigger ones sold? Do you sell it back or to someone else later?
I might be misinterpreting the question, but the way to buy an expensive domain is to go through a broker.
We bought it outright (sent money to escrow), but a lot of people will do rent-to-own. For example, we would have paid $10k/mo for it, and then when we hit $170k it would be ours. But in the meantime, if we missed a payment, the rights would revert back to the original owner.
Re: More than half of YC startups don't have a dot com
#23Related, PG’s “Change Your Name” http://www.paulgraham.com/name.html
That post said, in 2015:
> 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.
Compared to the article:
> Today, only 42% of Y Combinator startups in the winter 2023 batch use a .com domain, while only 40% of the most popular Product Hunt startups used a .com in 2022.
which supports the assertions in the article. It's still true that there are only 3 YC companies in the top 50 that don't have a .com, so maybe the lesson is "just plan to buy the .com later"!
Re: More than half of YC startups don't have a dot com
#24In addition to the price issue folks have mentioned, I also think it's less important to have a .com if your product isn't consumer end-user focused. E.g. if you're selling to developers or other businesses things like .io or .ai are fine. My guess is that .com is still important if you are selling something direct to consumer.
Re: More than half of YC startups don't have a dot com
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Meanwhile my four letter domain, lwei.com, gets no offers and is appraised at like $1000. There’s still stuff available for reasonable prices but it’s just a lot of work so it’s easier to get some random tld.
Well sure you can also run a random string generator and get a short .com TLD, but that's not the point.
Pretty sure all 4 and 5 letter .com domains have been taken since at least a decade.
Re: More than half of YC startups don't have a dot com
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Meanwhile my four letter domain, lwei.com, gets no offers and is appraised at like $1000. There’s still stuff available for reasonable prices but it’s just a lot of work so it’s easier to get some random tld.
That's Iwei robbery!
"our company is called Iwei, and you can reach us at Lwei dot com"
Re: More than half of YC startups don't have a dot com
#27Re: More than half of YC startups don't have a dot com
#28I think this is honestly less about the notoriety of .com, and more about the lack of affordable and available domains for startups to purchase. Got a five letter named startup? That’ll cost you tens of thousands of dollars, IF you can even get it. Meanwhile there’s hundreds of gTLDs that you can buy a domain on for $10-$30/yr.
this, .com domains are an ego thing more than anything at this point. Why waste valuable money on a vanity thing rather than trying to fuel growth? I guess in the worst case somebody could try to trick potential customers but otherwise as an early startup you have bigger things to worry about than a domain name
Re: More than half of YC startups don't have a dot com
#29IMO the biggest problem with anything that's not a .com is the registry owners. As a registrant I want low (or at least consistent) prices, minimal price increases, and an assurance the TLD is going to be around long term.
The registries constantly adjust pricing and the new registrant agreements aren't as good as the old ones (ex: no price caps). The registry operators probably think they're geniuses that are maximizing profits via price discrimination, but I think they're fools that don't understand their product or the target audience.
I don't care too much about premium pricing. It's the *fluctuating* pricing without any limits that turns me off. If shortsighted management ruins a TLD and it collapses, I don't want to be collateral damage. I know there's a bond to cover operations for a period of time, but that's not forever.
Re: More than half of YC startups don't have a dot com
#30When I started my YC company, we used the .io (which we found on HN, actually! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6397526 ). A few years later, once we could afford it, we bought the .com for $170k. I imagine that if you filtered based on only companies that make it to (for example) a Series B, the % goes way up.
I'm honestly shocked you decided to pay that for a domain name. I guess I can kinda understand as a percentage of your company revenue, but morally that is so hard for me to justify feeding a squatter, let alone in a sum of that amount.