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Competitor to namecheap here. [1] [2] We don't offer .io domains. Nor do we offer any of the TLD's that seem to be popular with some startups. Even though we

by larrys 13y ago

Competitor to namecheap here. [1] [2] We don't offer .io domains. Nor do we offer any of the TLD's that seem to be popular with some startups. Even though we could make money selling them. Like our competitors do. Although popular (with startups) they aren't mainstream with the public. If you become successful you will just end up buying (at a much higher price) the .com equivalent. Or end up having misdirected mail and/or users or investors or bloggers or reporters etc. Whatever .com you can buy now will be much more expensive once the .com owner sees you have funding and a business model and a website. I've been doing domains since the mid 90's. My strong advice is to stay away from anything but .com for your startup. Despite what you may think there are plenty of .com's you can register (try leandomainsearch.com for ideas (I have no affiliation to that at all but use it from time to time). And not all people holding domain names are vultures, cybersquatters whatever you want to call them. Some are actually fairly reasonable (I do some consulting on the side where I help people buy domain names). [1] No we are not looking to get HN business if we were I'd have who we are in my sig. [2] We aren't cheap.

radiusq 13y ago
So you're saying you don't offer .io's because you're looking out for people who might want to buy the .com equivalent (even though you "could make money selling them")? You sound like a hellava businessman...
hugofirth 13y ago
Am I the only one that thought that [2] from above was a clever reference to being "name.com" until I realised that name sell .io domains? So much for me being all clever haha.
- TheSwordsman 13y ago
  Probably NetworkSolutions...
  - larrys 13y ago
    Nope.
    - mbesto 13y ago
      I'd guess MarkMonitor and/or something equivalent.
alphakappa 13y ago
>> [2] We aren't cheap. Could you explain why you aren't cheap? (as in, what would justify a higher cost compared to someone like Namecheap?)
- larrys 13y ago
  Not the market we choose to be in. Selling cheaply requires more customer service as you generate volume. Just because you can sell something cheaply doesn't mean you want to sell it cheaply. It's just a different business model. Nothing wrong with the other business model but not what we do. (Same as Rackspace doesn't compete really with Digital Ocean).
  - truthlaidbear 13y ago
    So you're also not really a competitor to Namecheap, despite your declaration to the contrary. You're actually in the business of selling <$10 parcels of cyberland to whatever sucker will pay $30 for them.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
tpaul 13y ago
One of my old school friends is a domain broker, and he gets annoyed by .io domains as well. He said he would have a second car if it wasn't for alternative TLDs. For his birthday, I bought him a few programming books. To his credit, he read them, and now enjoys programming as a hobby. Given some time, he'll probably end up half decent.
- omni_ 13y ago
  That makes me really happy. I hope the new wave of gTLDs further devastates domain squatters/brokers.
pbreit 13y ago
Better to pay a lot for a domain name when you can than when you cannot.
- larrys 13y ago
  What I sometimes suggest to people is to get an option on a name before they become so successful that the prices increases. So you hedge. That way they pay an amount of money to be able to buy the domain later at a reasonable price from the owner. Other variations of this are renting the domain and likewise which has it's advantages and disadvantages. What is that amount? All depends on the domain, the owner of the domain and a host of other factors.
slimbods 13y ago
Might be true in the US but for the rest of the world, local tld's are fine. Amazon.co.uk, bbc.co.uk, etc.
- larrys 13y ago
  Agree that in certain cases that is fine. But most people reading HN (I'm guessing) are doing a product or service where having a country specific TLD would limit their market.
buckbova 13y ago
> Whatever .com you can buy now will be much more expensive once the .com owner sees you have funding and a business model and a website. This is why I buy the .com and .net along with something like an .io all at the same time.
crisnoble 13y ago
>My strong advice is to stay away from anything but .com for your startup. If you make it big enough to have to buy the .com from the current owner, then you are probably going to be able to buy it. When I discovered that new domains cost about 2 packs of cigarettes, I became a compulsive domain buyer. If the .com for my crazy idea isn't available, then I try .co, then basically whatever I can find. I use a combination of http://domai.nr http://domai.nr and https://iwantmyname.com/ https://iwantmyname.com/ to see weird combinations. I think you would be hard pressed to find a startup can attribute its failure to the fact that it had a fancy TLD. Odd tlds that hit it big: del.icio.us, bit.ly Odd tlds that I visit often: github.io, any.do, 500.co, domai.nr I think in a world where non-technical people use google as their address bar, we should fee free to use exotic TLDs. Not to mention with the upcoming release of new TLDs .com is about to be as important / common as www.
- larrys 13y ago
  "If you make it big enough to have to buy the .com from the current owner, then you are probably going to be able to buy it. " Let me address that specifically. First, you get people who are unreasonable and perhaps would think that because you are valued at a billion you will pay them 500 million or something stupid like that. They are wrong but their irrationality is not going to make it easy for you to get the domain when you want it. I have a case right now where a startup is willing to pay, say, $100,000 for a domain. But the domain (not being used) is owned by a company in Europe. And they aren't interested in selling at any price near that. And the domain is not worth $100,000. Second, your thoughts assume either "make it or don't". There is an in between state. Where you appear successful and profitable but you don't have unlimited google resources. And actually I think it's quite obvious that there are a few companies that fall into this category. Since of course most people are not going to be "big enough" to buy what they want "at any price".
  - crisnoble 13y ago
    I agree that squatters can be unreasonable or downright insane. I think that my main argument is that owning a ".com" neither helps nor hinders a startup and its quest for eyes. I could never remember how to spell del.icio.us, but it didn't matter, I bookmarked it. If I was on another computer, I googled it.
cmalpeli 13y ago
I launched JobBoard.io any so far haven't encountered too many issues with "normals" being confused. Some ask what it stands for, but that's about the extent of it. I felt it was a better option than buying super-awesome-hyphenated-job-board-software.com
tlrobinson 13y ago
Challenge accepted. domainregistry.com - not cheap ($30/year), no .io (.com .net .org and .info only), run by a guy name Larry.
- username223 13y ago
  Is your startup really so pathetic that $30/yr is relevant?
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - tlrobinson 13y ago
    I probably shouldn't feed the trolls, but I never said anything to that effect. $30/year is not "cheap" compared to budget registrars which usually charge $10/year.

by larrys 13y ago

radiusq 13y ago

So you're saying you don't offer .io's because you're looking out for people who might want to buy the .com equivalent (even though you "could make money selling them")? You sound like a hellava businessman...

hugofirth 13y ago

Am I the only one that thought that [2] from above was a clever reference to being "name.com" until I realised that name sell .io domains? So much for me being all clever haha.

TheSwordsman 13y ago
Probably NetworkSolutions...
- larrys 13y ago
  Nope.
  - mbesto 13y ago
    I'd guess MarkMonitor and/or something equivalent.

alphakappa 13y ago

>> [2] We aren't cheap. Could you explain why you aren't cheap? (as in, what would justify a higher cost compared to someone like Namecheap?)

larrys 13y ago
Not the market we choose to be in. Selling cheaply requires more customer service as you generate volume. Just because you can sell something cheaply doesn't mean you want to sell it cheaply. It's just a different business model. Nothing wrong with the other business model but not what we do. (Same as Rackspace doesn't compete really with Digital Ocean).
- truthlaidbear 13y ago
  So you're also not really a competitor to Namecheap, despite your declaration to the contrary. You're actually in the business of selling <$10 parcels of cyberland to whatever sucker will pay $30 for them.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]

tpaul 13y ago

One of my old school friends is a domain broker, and he gets annoyed by .io domains as well. He said he would have a second car if it wasn't for alternative TLDs. For his birthday, I bought him a few programming books. To his credit, he read them, and now enjoys programming as a hobby. Given some time, he'll probably end up half decent.

omni_ 13y ago
That makes me really happy. I hope the new wave of gTLDs further devastates domain squatters/brokers.

pbreit 13y ago

Better to pay a lot for a domain name when you can than when you cannot.

larrys 13y ago
What I sometimes suggest to people is to get an option on a name before they become so successful that the prices increases. So you hedge. That way they pay an amount of money to be able to buy the domain later at a reasonable price from the owner. Other variations of this are renting the domain and likewise which has it's advantages and disadvantages. What is that amount? All depends on the domain, the owner of the domain and a host of other factors.

slimbods 13y ago

Might be true in the US but for the rest of the world, local tld's are fine. Amazon.co.uk, bbc.co.uk, etc.

larrys 13y ago
Agree that in certain cases that is fine. But most people reading HN (I'm guessing) are doing a product or service where having a country specific TLD would limit their market.

buckbova 13y ago

> Whatever .com you can buy now will be much more expensive once the .com owner sees you have funding and a business model and a website. This is why I buy the .com and .net along with something like an .io all at the same time.

crisnoble 13y ago

>My strong advice is to stay away from anything but .com for your startup. If you make it big enough to have to buy the .com from the current owner, then you are probably going to be able to buy it. When I discovered that new domains cost about 2 packs of cigarettes, I became a compulsive domain buyer. If the .com for my crazy idea isn't available, then I try .co, then basically whatever I can find. I use a combination of http://domai.nr http://domai.nr and https://iwantmyname.com/ https://iwantmyname.com/ to see weird combinations. I think you would be hard pressed to find a startup can attribute its failure to the fact that it had a fancy TLD. Odd tlds that hit it big: del.icio.us, bit.ly Odd tlds that I visit often: github.io, any.do, 500.co, domai.nr I think in a world where non-technical people use google as their address bar, we should fee free to use exotic TLDs. Not to mention with the upcoming release of new TLDs .com is about to be as important / common as www.

larrys 13y ago
"If you make it big enough to have to buy the .com from the current owner, then you are probably going to be able to buy it. " Let me address that specifically. First, you get people who are unreasonable and perhaps would think that because you are valued at a billion you will pay them 500 million or something stupid like that. They are wrong but their irrationality is not going to make it easy for you to get the domain when you want it. I have a case right now where a startup is willing to pay, say, $100,000 for a domain. But the domain (not being used) is owned by a company in Europe. And they aren't interested in selling at any price near that. And the domain is not worth $100,000. Second, your thoughts assume either "make it or don't". There is an in between state. Where you appear successful and profitable but you don't have unlimited google resources. And actually I think it's quite obvious that there are a few companies that fall into this category. Since of course most people are not going to be "big enough" to buy what they want "at any price".
- crisnoble 13y ago
  I agree that squatters can be unreasonable or downright insane. I think that my main argument is that owning a ".com" neither helps nor hinders a startup and its quest for eyes. I could never remember how to spell del.icio.us, but it didn't matter, I bookmarked it. If I was on another computer, I googled it.

cmalpeli 13y ago

I launched JobBoard.io any so far haven't encountered too many issues with "normals" being confused. Some ask what it stands for, but that's about the extent of it. I felt it was a better option than buying super-awesome-hyphenated-job-board-software.com

tlrobinson 13y ago

Challenge accepted. domainregistry.com - not cheap ($30/year), no .io (.com .net .org and .info only), run by a guy name Larry.

username223 13y ago
Is your startup really so pathetic that $30/yr is relevant?
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- tlrobinson 13y ago
  I probably shouldn't feed the trolls, but I never said anything to that effect. $30/year is not "cheap" compared to budget registrars which usually charge $10/year.