While I don't like those 'ly' names myself either, I wouldn't necessarily say it's bad. There are still a lot of startups with 'ly' names appearing and getting funded. We (people on HN) aren't typical users, and sometimes we're not the best people to advise on how to build a site that will get millions of users (I mean, how many people here would have thought instagram would be worth a billion dollars, or even USE instagram :)
Take it is easy, the name of the product/company doesn't matter too much.
Our software currently has a crappy name (wrpme) and as it's being successful we're simply in the process of rebranding it.
The crappy name didn't prevent us from making a couple of successful sales...
Focus on value.
That's what we're hoping, too. Mythly is at least unique and haven't run into too many people forgetting it.
"Focus on value" is great advice and very much inline with YC's mantra of "build something people want". Thankfully, our prototypes have had some consistently positive reactions. Now we just need to build something that is strong enough to be released on the app store or showcase our talent in a more scalable fashion.
Re:Why I Left Microsoft
by PommeDeTerre on Thursday September 20, 2012 @09:26PM
(#4551732)
To me, it feels like something out of the 2008-2010 period, when .ly domain hacks were widely hyped. It gives me the impression that it's a laggard website, rather than being cutting-edge and innovative.
Re:Why I Left Microsoft
by googoobaby on Thursday September 20, 2012 @09:37PM
(#4551767)
Nothing at all wrong with the 'myth' part/trope, but sorry to say it, the ly thing seemed douche-y when it 1st appeared and hasn't aged well.
We spent quite a long time trying to come up with an original name. We had a few principles: * The name should be two syllables or at most three syllables.
* Something unique enough that we could easily win the top spot on search engines.
* Be able to register the .com
* Something to do with our mission/team/future brand (e.g. "myth" is about story telling)
Unfortunately, a lot of names we wanted were already taken, or the domain names were taken. We had another name, but it was morphed from a previous venture that had some issues with the other people involved so we didn't want to get into a legal dispute over it. We had been showing around some prototypes for quite some time and potential clients/partners really wanted a name they could refer to us by so we sat down for hours and finally pulled the trigger with Mythly.