Ask HN: Literal domain names

2 points

16 years ago

We are in the process of naming our new company, and it's been frustrating. All of the usual tropes apply: names aren't cool until they are associated with success vs. the only people who say names aren't important are people who weren't able to secure a good name.

Of course, .com availability is a huge part of the equation. Luckily, we're not limiting ourselves to available domains; we're frugal but in my mind ten or twenty grand on a domain that helps with brand establishment and potential leverage with investors seems like a defensible expense in the grand scheme of things.

As it happens, we have the opportunity to buy the literal domain for our product category for $15k. For hopefully obvious reasons, I'm dodging mentioning the specific domain here.

My question to all of you is whether having a literal domain name is great, neutral, or negative?

Obviously there's a history of start-ups like pets.com being huge flameouts, but there are also newer companies like diapers.com and soap.com that are doing really well.

Some people love it and other people think it's boring, like we lack creativity. Let's say you're selling eggs, and you have the ability to register eggs.com or omeletto.com - which is the basis of a stronger brand?

I know naming shouldn't consume this many CPU cycles, but it's kind of driving us mental.

3 comments