Ask HN: What to do when the .com is too expensive?
We have found a new name for our company, the .com is parked (I mean do you know any good .com that's not?).
We have exchanged maybe 10 emails with the domain broker and he is asking us almost $20,000. We have make a proposal for $1,400 (Similar domains sell for this price), and the broker told us that our offer is too low to even be taken to the actual owner. Sic.
We try to find an alternative of the .com, like alternative domains as .io, .net, .ly ... or to add a prefix (my, your, get, the...) or a suffix (app, service, hq...)
I wonder what's the best practices?
PS: We are a web-based SaaS for businesses.
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Is the domain worth 20k for you? If it is, and you think in the long run it will add 20k to your bottom line, then buy it.
If for any reason the startup won't succeed (knock on wood), if that is an appetizing enough .com, it will still be worth its asking price.
I recently read the examine.com guys bought it for 42k. I thought that was a very big risk for a starting blog. But in fairness, i think a domain name like examine.com could be re-sold for a very similar amount in short time.
If you think the .com is not worth 20k for you, or if you don't have 20k - then go for a prefix/suffix.
Buy cheap brand PPC campaigns on Googlee for your brand (I assume the parked domain isn't doing it) so that when people Google the name, they get to you. And eventually if you have constant Ads on top, and your site has a content as opposed to a parked domain,it will rank better in google too.
But from my experience, a domain name is a domain name and it's usually not worth that much of the money. 20k can be spent in a marketing campaign that will out weigth the benefits of having the "pure" .com
Having "Examine.com" as our brand brought us weight - the domain is easy to remember, easy to understand, has a link to what we're selling, and so forth.
BUT - that 42k was never all we had. It was maybe ~25% of what we had. We decided that the brandability of the domain was more important than buying ads.
As you have a SaaS business, buying ads may work out. On the other hand, having a non-.com may backfire.
YMMV.
Since you are rebranding, you might be better off finding a name where the .com is available just to avoid the hassle of being shaken down if you get big later. Companies that just ponied up the money when they got big are dropbox (formerly getdropbox.com) and facebook (formerly thefacebook.com). It seems like recently you don't even need the .com (e.g. famo.us and socket.io), so you could go that route if your name is short and easy to remember.
Keep in mind that these examples are websites that target developers, which at least in the past were more willing than others to go to non-.coms.
As a developer or businesses SaaS, i dont think tld matters. Because you target audience are unlikely to give a damn about it. However if it was a public facing website then I think .com matters a lot. A lot of people still think of everything in .com on the Internet.
The broker doesn't want to take your offer because he won't make much commission. He'd rather hold out for a bigger offer later on.
Circumvent the broker. Owner may be more likely to take your offer.
I can double check whois history or website history on archive.org but I don't think I will find anything of value.
Don't get fixated on things. A business must evolve and adapt in order to succeed. If you are stubborn about a simple name, the web domain is the least of your worries.
But, the odds that the other ideas we can have in a .com are still already taken are pretty high. I will be thinking that's a common issue.