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Pre-branded domain names for startups

stylate.com

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Re: Pre-branded domain names for startups

#51

Post by ed209 »

dotty wrote: post #41
iamben wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO, some of these domains are probably worth more than $250 anyway.

Huh? A domain is worth around £10, not $250, not £1000 and definitely not $15,000+.

I don't think you understand. By your logic, everything should be equally priced based on its constituent parts, totally ignoring availability, desirability, demand and countless other factors.

Are you seriously saying that if you owned the domain name coke.com and the domain name jkkjs7e98wesj.com that you'd sell them to me for £10 each?

Re: Pre-branded domain names for startups

#52

Post by pitdesi »

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 someone to build their product while still having a decent looking thing on their site.

We spent several WEEKS of all hands on deck and lots of $$$ (Well over $10k for the domain name, banners, stationery etc) as a company rebranding from Transparent Financial Services (http://transfs.com) to FeeFighters (http://feefighters.com). Had we started with something better than transfs from the beginning we wouldn't have had the problem (btw, it's still a pain in the ass because google apps doesn't let you change your name, so we still only have a duct tape solution where our google apps are still @transfs and I occasionally still send an email from @transfs - embarassing!). Plus, we lost all the google juice we'd built up over that time (which was considerable - TransFS was a PageRank 5 site and FeeFighters had none).

At that point (post-funding), our time and pagerank were a lot more important than the money.

More on our rebrand that might be useful to people (you now have to pay to see the video but can download the audio and read transcript for free): http://mixergy.com/sean-harper-feefighters-intervie/

Re: Pre-branded domain names for startups

#53

Post by acabal »

stylate wrote: post #30
acabal wrote: post #10

Looks like a great idea, very clever, but I'm not sure about the pricing. I would love to use something like this as a small developer, but $250 is a bit much for a domain and a logo given my small-time budget. On the other hand, companies with a larger budget would probably just have something like this done in-house. So I guess I'd ask: who do you see being the target market here?

We are testing different price points. What would you feel comfortable paying?

From a small-time perspective, $100-$150. That's small enough where if the project doesn't take off I won't be out too much cash, and big enough to justify a logotype from a font library, a simple vector logo, and the transfer of a not-unreasonable domain name.

Re: Pre-branded domain names for startups

#56

Post by ayb »

acabal wrote: post #10

Looks like a great idea, very clever, but I'm not sure about the pricing. I would love to use something like this as a small developer, but $250 is a bit much for a domain and a logo given my small-time budget. On the other hand, companies with a larger budget would probably just have something like this done in-house. So I guess I'd ask: who do you see being the target market here?

I think $250 for a decent domain AND a decent logo is a steal given the quality of both and the time savings they present.

Re: Pre-branded domain names for startups

#57

Post by its_so_on »

Now all we need is a place where you can put brandless but fully implemented tech solutions. e.g. "sms to e-mail technology".

That brings us to the final piece of the puzzle: a site where you can invest in a "team" that has no idea and no technology.

Then the guys who walk around with bags of money evaluating teams and business propositions will finally be able to just mix and match to whatever they want, thinking (as they already do) that they're the ones adding all the value. Which, to be fair, under capitalism they probably do.

Re: Pre-branded domain names for startups

#58

Post by ja27 »

acabal wrote: post #10

Looks like a great idea, very clever, but I'm not sure about the pricing. I would love to use something like this as a small developer, but $250 is a bit much for a domain and a logo given my small-time budget. On the other hand, companies with a larger budget would probably just have something like this done in-house. So I guess I'd ask: who do you see being the target market here?

The price can seem a little high but it's a fixed price. No guessing, no haggling, no uncertainty. Just pick one you like and go.

I wonder if you'd consider locking in the matching Twitter, YouTube, etc. names as well. I'm afraid that if you don't now unscrupulous people will start scanning the site and picking those up.

Re: Pre-branded domain names for startups

#59

Post by kunley »

That's a symptom that startups possibly became a new fashion.

Now the following is a bit offtopic, but the thoughts are what I have in mind for quite a time.

Look how many startups are there around whose only purpose is to connect or extract information from other startups whose again are build on the top some previous startups. Where is a stop for this? Where's the creativity? Where's the thinking of making things that people really need?

This looks like a rant but please think of it analytically:

1. People start to use product A because it fills some temporary niche.

2. The conditions of the niche vanish, but the product is still used, the user base grows because of inertia, marketing, whatever.

3. As the initial conditions dissolved the product A isn't exactly what people need at the moment, so there emerge products B & C built on the top of A with even more fragile conditions: only to support momentary lack of desired features in A.

Any similarity with existing startup scene?

Well, what if all these products were build based on some more unconditional needs of the users in the first place?

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