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Show HN: I'll help you name your next startup/product for $50
Hey HN. This is a weekend project of mine. It's an idea I had after seeing so many comments here about the lack of available .com names for startups.
As PG once said: "Take a luxury and make it into a commodity"[1]. So, I decided I'd try turning name consulting from something only large corporations could afford to something anyone could. I hope you'll take me up on it :)
If you'd like to see a few examples of my work, just check out the links in the footer. Thanks for your attention.
[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/ideas.html
- chaosmachine 16y agoThis is a weekend project of mine. It's an idea I had after seeing so many comments here about the lack of available .com names for startups. As PG once said: "Take a luxury and make it into a commodity"[1]. So, I decided I'd try turning name consulting from something only large corporations could afford to something anyone could. I hope you'll take me up on it :) If you'd like to see a few examples of my work, just check out the links in the site's footer. [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/ideas.html http://www.paulgraham.com/ideas.html
- middus 16y agoDid you take into account how much time it will take you to process a non-trivial order? $20 seems quite low to me when you want to achieve a good hourly rate. Maybe you should bump it up a bit (> $50). It would still be a commodity price. edit: By the way, I totally love the design!
- chaosmachine 16y agoThanks, you're right, I've increased the price to $50 for new orders.
- perlgeek 16y agoI was about to use your service for $20, but I wouldn't pay $50 for a hobby project of which I'm not sure yet how seriously I'll pursue it. I guess you just can't be everybody's darling...
- zoba 16y agoSame. $20 sounded worth the risk, but I'm not going to do it for $50, especially without seeing any evidence of past names generated. Perhaps a Hacker News special? Or perhaps a different price for those who don't mind sharing the outcomes of your service, and a more expensive price for those who do mind?
- middus 16y agoWhy don't you go and try? He offers a refund in case you are not happy. Does not sound too risky to me.
- zoba 16y agoAs a graduate student, $50 seems like a lot of money to spend on anything except rent... Plus figuring out the return process and if its not super simple just seems like quite a lot of hassle.
- pbreit 16y ago$20 sounds low. $50 is reasonable.
- tptacek 16y ago$50 is also too low. Price according to the value you generate. You generate obvious value in three ways: (1) Company operators waste tons of time coming up with names. SWAG the number of hours you think people typically take to settle on a name (it took us several days). Back that out to a dollar figure by dividing the typical yearly salary of a funded company operator by $2000 and multiplying by hours. (2) Companies frequently rename. Put a dollar figure on the cost of a company rename 6 months in, then multiple that by the percentage risk you think the typical company has of renaming (how many renames do you see? how many companies do you think there are in your market?). (3) Better names generate business (or, they ostensibly do). By the way, I'd probably use Mint vs. Wesabe as my primary example here, since both sides mentioned Mint's name as a key asset. There is no way these three factors add up to just $50. A side benefit of charging something closer to your value is, working with people who think $20 is OK but $50 is too much will absolutely inevitably cause you heartache. The people that think $50 is too much are going to be bad customers (as a group). For any business, be it outsourced order management for prop trading firms or hobby figurine sales, $50 is a rounding error. Geeks have a hard time remembering that pricing isn't just about optimizing customer acquisition vs. customer value. It's also a key component of your positioning. If you charge hobbyist rates, you will serve the hobbyist market. Look at graphic design. It is very possible to get good-looking illustration done near your price point, but impossible to get it done by anyone with a reputation. Designers that serve real companies charge multiple orders of magnitude more just for piecework. And real companies wouldn't dream of slumming with the $50-$100 illustrators, even when those people have more talent. Pick the market you want to serve, and then tailor the price point to that.
- sssparkkk 16y agoApparently you missed the part where he quoted PG saying: "Take a luxury and make it into a commodity" It's because he's charging a commodity price that I decided to give it a go and pony up. I would never ever pay the going rate for a 'professional' in this business.
- tptacek 16y agoNo, I got that part, and also the part of his positioning where he said "name consulting was previously only available to big companies and we want to make it available to smaller companies". Pricing isn't a binary decision between "cheap" and "nosebleed". This is another geek pricing pathology. I think $50 is too cheap. I think, if your market is "people that actually need names but are smaller than PepsiCo", there are very few three-figure prices that aren't rounding errors. Why would he want your business? How many entities are there like you, and how often do they pony up for names, and how much does it cost to support them?
- jorgem 16y agoI had this same service a few years ago, and even at $99 it is a money loser. And kinda boring after a while -- even if you autopick the names, you still have to review them before giving them to the client.
- sagacity 16y agoCool! At this price, I'm sure many will go for it. One quick question: Do you check/ensure the .com domain availability of the names you find?
- chaosmachine 16y agoI do. Dot com availability is one of the major items on my checklist.
- sagacity 16y agoDouble cool! One suggestion, though: A quick look through your home page did not reveal this. You might want to revise the copy to mention this (prominently). HTH
- edanm 16y agoDon't know if it's already been changed, but it's pretty prominent right now. It's the 3rd sentence of the "What do I get" section (and it's in bold).
- kingofspain 16y agoThis sounds like a great idea. I find shortish domains all the time and try and squeeze an idea into them, but I have real trouble finding something properly appropriate (for .com anyway). I've signed the forms :)
- cnu 16y agoYou should also try to do twitter handle availability. I think I saw a website long time back which checked a username availability across many websites and social networks. Can't remember it. Can someone help me out here.
- sheats 16y agoGreat idea! I was just racking my brain last night for a good name so this is a great service to have available!
- jwomers 16y agoThis is super cool. I haven't signed up yet, and obviously haven't seen the quality of the results, but it's a great idea, and definitely something I would pay for for my next project. (Naming is definitely one of my weak points)
- perlgeek 16y agoIt would help if you showed some project descriptions, and the names you have found for them (of course with consent from the customers), as a kind of portfolio.
- jdp23 16y agoAgreed. Eventually you want to get to something like http://www.thenameinspector.com/portfolio/ http://www.thenameinspector.com/portfolio/
- shazow 16y agoWish you were around when Jen and I were wrecking our brain coming up with imoveyou.com (from getupandmove.me). We kept asking ourselves "surely there are people who are good at naming things, WHERE ARE THEY?!"
- shrikant 16y agoWas it always $20 as the HN headline says? The website says $50 now...
- derrida 16y ago... and he just changed the HN headline to $50! I did the same double take, thinking the price changed. They changed the price! Sneaky!
- Maakuth 16y agoYou have to appreciate though, that $50 is still a modest price if the service is as good as it claims. Just look at domain squatter prices, you get pretty much nothing with $50.
- chaosmachine 16y agoIt was $20 for the first 7 customers, I've bumped it up to a more realistic $50 now.
- fezzl 16y agoHave you heard of http://www.pickydomains.com http://www.pickydomains.com?
- RyanONeill1970 16y agoI was so impressed, I bought one!
- edw519 16y agostartupgods.com? I dunno, you look like a plumber with a leaky faucet. I'd have a little more confidence if you had a name more like "PerfectNameFinder.com" or something like that.
- chaosmachine 16y agoI own PerfectAlias.com as well, but I felt StartupGods.com was more brandable, and would capture the attention of my target audience.
- xutopia 16y agoStartupGods > PerfectAlias. Perhaps it is because my first language isn't English but French. To me alias means second name.
- Dobbs 16y agoIt means the same to those of us with English as a first language.
- kingsidharth 16y agoIMO, None of them are good for branding. The best one is which has nothing to do with your business. (Example: Apple has nothing to do with computers, Adidas has nothing to do with sports equipments) It gives you leverage to take business in any direction. For example, if your naming business becomes huge success and you want to start naming more things - like OpenSource Projects or simple apps - the word "Startup" in your name is gonna make you think twice. I wonder what names you'd give out when you yourself have a bad name, IMO. Any sample names you've created?
- adrianwaj 16y agoI prefer bangnames.com and it's unregistered. Once you have monotheistic power, you'll be better at naming The Name.
- 16y ago
- someguy777 16y agolol... you do know people pay branding companies $10,000 per name to do this right?
- AdamTReineke 16y agoHence his comment about making a luxury a commodity. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2257574 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2257574
- ZoFreX 16y agoSo what happens if I pay, say I don't like the name you come up with, and then buy the domain and launch with it anyway?
- minus1 16y agoI presume you get a free name and an unpleasant nagging feeling from your conscience. It's probably not worth the effort to try to prevent this in the beginning.
- dagw 16y agoI suppose they could take $10 of the $50 you paid them and register the name before sending it to you, and if you like it they'll transfer it to you. If you don't they'll give you your money back and try to sell the name to someone else. But, yea I guess the hassle of doing this probably isn't worth it in the beginning.
- goombastic 16y agoHow about an India price? I'll do it for 20$. As a starter, here is a free name for anyone to register: nameonic.com: rhymes with mnemonic and is a great name for a names company. Let's see how long the name lasts. UPDATE: The name was just registered. Thanks Guys. wow that was fast. 32 minutes standing.
- barefoot 16y agoConfusingly similar (cringe) to "namesonic", a company that already exists and has been around since 2001. Interestingly, they claim a trademark on the word but I couldn't locate any filings in the US. There Was a trademark on "nameonics" in the early 1980's, however: http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=73354518 http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=7...
- Charuru 16y agoYou have two vowels next to each other. Not good
- goombastic 16y agoWhat's with the downvotes?! :)
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- subbu 16y agoLooks like the negative feedback about the name didn't stop someone from registering it. Any other good names?
- goombastic 16y agoLots. Just ask. Having registered serial sites with clever names, this is a hobby.
- redstar504 16y agoI think startupgods.com is a cool name for this business. Nice layout also. If I had a new business in mind I wouldn't hesitate to try your service. The money back guarantee makes me feel comfortable, but I am just curious on the amount of refunds you will be processing - I guess it depends on how creative you are at naming. Please report back with results.
- PanMan 16y agoMaybe I'm cynical, but because you emphasis the "money back" part, it feels more like a scam. I was sort-of half expecting an auto-name-generator: "$randomstring.com is still available!" If only 10% don't ask their money back, you make a profit. I once heard about a "baby gender predictor", with money back guarantee, which just always emailed you "Congrats, it will be a boy!". About 50% right :).
- shou4577 16y agoMaybe a bit off-topic, but this scam has always intrigued me. You can, in fact, do better than just "Money back guarantee!" You can do as much as, say, "We'll give you your money back, plus an extra 50% of the fee!" So your "customers" pay $50, and if you are wrong you give them back $75. You still make $12.50 on average per customer by guessing randomly, so long as you scam sufficiently many people.
- waterside81 16y agoThis is precisely how sports handicapping services work. Every week, 50% of your customers are happy and return, the other 50% are unhappy and might not return.
- jmacd 16y agoTried to order. Not working. Got an error and now I get "state not valid" when I try to place the order again.
- Tyrant505 16y agoI will too!
- sjaakkkkk 16y agook, anyone actually got a good name? Would like to do this if it ain't a scam and i can verify someone got their money back when not satisfied..
- mise 16y agoI spent $900 naming on a non-profit startup. Fk.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- xutopia 16y agoAlright I'm testing you out. 50$ for a great name is an awesome price point imo. It's just enough that I find it expensive but small enough that I'd pay for it. With a money back guarantee I'm glad to test the waters.
- xutopia 16y agoI'm replying to myself to give you some feedback. After the checkout process it would be nice to be given a time frame that I can expect an answer by.
- chaosmachine 16y agoYou should have received an email within a few minutes of your order with timeframe information, can you let me know if you got it?
- jorkos 16y agopoint me to a few happy customers and i'd be happy to try it
- Jun8 16y agoThis is a very cool idea, but I would lose the whole Zeus thing, it gives an air of adolescence to the site. Also, * Saying you'll find the perfect name is a bit of a stretch, what does "perfect" mean in this context? Is google a perfect name? * When you say results are guaranteed, you mean the customer will like it. However, in most cases, the founders liking the name has little bearing on how good the name resonates with customers, that's what's important (read pg's discussion about their initial agony when their cool name for their startup was taken, their original choice sounds horrible) . I think you should provide a methodology, even a simplistic one, to help people decide which one is better. * If you don't have a portfolio yet, which I assume since you say this was a weekend project, do analysis on 5-10 company names (if YC the better), and explain why they are good using your methodology. This will give you credibility. Show that you are the expert in this field. Right now, it looks like another name guessing site.
- hucker 16y agoWill you be publishing any names you come up with, so potential customers can see for themselves if they like your "style" or not?
- kgtm 16y agoThank you for this post, as it inspired me to charge myself $50 and come up with a name for a venture of mine. Just bought instarchive.com, neat!
- jsatok 16y agoJust signed up for a project of mine, excited to see what you come up with.
- Ygor 16y agoDid you read the naming philosophy section? This bit is interesting: "Think about this scenario: You're at a party and someone asks you where you work. If you say "I work for shoes.com," it's pretty obvious that you work for a website that sells shoes. But, if you say "I work for shoe.ly," then you have to go on to explain it to them: "It's a website that sells shoes." If you owned the .com, everyone would already know that."
- Mankhool 16y agoWhy not just crowdsource names on HN?
- tomotomo 16y agoThere's a site for that: http://www.needanym.com/ http://www.needanym.com/
- listrophy 16y agohttp://www.namingthingsishard.com http://www.namingthingsishard.com
- dbro 16y agoYou could do more to get the potential customer comfortable with your product. 7 days and $50 is a lot to request of people, when there is competition for this service. It looks like one of those competing tools was created by you, http://impossibility.org http://impossibility.org . And for full disclosure, I am working on a domain name suggestion tool too: http://domainjig.com http://domainjig.com During testing, I learned that many different opinions exist about what makes a good domain name. So while you may have settled the matter in your own head, you should take care to set expectations for your customers. A quick list of domains you think are good (perhaps also domains you think are not good) would help people see if they agree with your priorities. For instance, I've heard differing opinions about the importance of these characteristics: .com only vs other Top Level Domains fewer characters vs simpler concepts distribution mechanisms: SEO, ads, word of mouth misspellings, or non-obvious spellings similar style to recent successful startups country-specific registrar risk combine TLD letters into the word non-english languages adjective + noun rhyming / puns describes the product and/or a tone As an example, this article describes priorities baked-in to the domain name suggestion tool at domainjig.com : http://domainjig.com/ideas/great-domain-names.html http://domainjig.com/ideas/great-domain-names.html btw, I like the eyebrow raise on mouseover.
- jules 16y agoYou should give some example names you came up with. This is like going to a designer without a portfolio.
- paradox95 16y agoSeems to me like a good way to farm start up ideas. Willing to sign an NDA before I give you my idea?
- thesis 16y agoJust submitted our order. Should be interesting to see the results.
- acabal 16y agoI'd like to use this--I have a site I soft-launched recently that I'd like to rebrand--but without examples of names you've come up with in the past, it's a hard sell for me. I know I can get my money back, but I really would rather not do that... I'd rather only make the buy if I can be reasonably sure I'll be happy, instead of having to make you work and then ask for my money back if it turns out we have separate styles.
- reason 16y agoI'll do it for $40, and have a few who can attest to the awesomene-ness of the domains I suggest. Email is in profile.
- roel_v 16y agoI don't see your email in your profile?
- huhtenberg 16y ago> Finding a good name is hard. Finding an available domain name is even harder. Fortunately, we do both. Really well. and then you probably meant to say... > Here are the examples of the names we created: followed by a list of really good names.
- mindcrime 16y agoSounds cool. I have a company name already, but I may need (a|some) product name(s) later... when I get to that point, I may give you a shot. I mean, it's $50, with a money-back guarantee, what's the harm?
- VladimirGolovin 16y agoDo you check candidate names for possible trademark conflicts? (I understand that you are not a lawyer, but at least some preliminary checking would be nice.)
- kevruger 16y agoWow, ok $100 now? Must be getting some pretty serious orders to jump from $20 to $50 and now to $100? Good for you. I'm with the rest of them though, I'd like to see some results/examples!
- tomeric 16y agoWe were John's first customer. It was mostly an impulse buy because it was so cheap. We have a restaurant guide in The Netherlands with a dutch name (eet.nu, translates to eat.now) with a big community of reviewers. We want to expand, so a international name is required. If we brainstorm about names, it takes up a lot of time and we're never completely satisfied with the results. Naming stuff is hard, and it's even harder if English is not your first language. After 4-5 hours of waiting, John gave us a list of 14 names (we got 7 bonus names!), and we picked the name HungryJury.com. Registered the .com and twitter account a few minutes ago. We're pretty satisfied with the service and will probably use it again in the future!
- anthonys 16y agoI was about to give this one a try but it seems the price has gone up to $100 now!! I hope thats as a result of demand because $50 was at a level that I didn't think twice, but $100 has made me reconsider. Hopefully for your sake I am the minority then!