4 ms·

Hate to be a cynic but this article could've easily been titled 'how naming our startup "easypost" turned into a 15k mistake'. I just can't imagine that the na

by wesleyy 12y ago

Hate to be a cynic but this article could've easily been titled 'how naming our startup "easypost" turned into a 15k mistake'. I just can't imagine that the name easypost was 15k better than alternative names. I get that the company already had traction and it'd be cheaper to buy the domain than change the name of the company but I guess what I'm trying to say is domain name availability should probably be the number 1 criteria when picking a new startup name.

joncalhoun 12y ago
Easypost launched roughly 2 weeks before a competitor did. The competitor received 16 upvotes on HN. Easypost's Show HN had 157. Perhaps if Jarrett had waited until he found that perfect .com name he wouldn't have launched first, and as a result would have had less initial exposure. Less initial exposure means less initial traction, and that might have lead to easypost not raising their first round, or raising on much worse terms, both of which could easily be worth more than $15k. On top of that, finding an available .com isn't easy. You essentially end up using a non-english word, mashing several words together, or use something like geteasypost.com (which easypost owned prior to making this purchase). Non-english words are harder to say and recall, and could ultimately affect word of mouth growth. Mashing words together puts you in a similar situation, and nearly every company who owned get<company>.com or try<company>.com ultimately ended up buying <company>.com if they were successful. Dropbox did it. Facebook did it. Easypost just opted to get theirs earlier in the company's lifetime.
- burnte 12y ago
  Indeed, sometimes a good name is worth the cost.
  - jstreebin 12y ago
    We could have used difficultpost.com. We bought that one for $9.
- PMan74 12y ago
  > The competitor received 16 upvotes on HN. Easypost's Show HN had 157. This is important how? Are these ~150 extra up votes really worth $100 each? Really worth 7.5% of your funding round. Yeah, yeah, yeah, visibility on HN is good but outside the HN bubble I think I'd rather have the 15k.
  - RobAley 12y ago
    They could be worth it. If 1 in 10 of those voters directly becomes a customer (or mentions it to someone else who does), and the LTV of a customer is > $1k (which is very possible for a b2b relationship), then it is. And that doesn't factor in any customers (or investors) bought in by having greater visibility on the post (more votes = more time on front page = more people see it = probably a few more customers).
    - big_maybe 12y ago
      In fact I became a customer of EasyPost's soon after reading that HN post.
moeamaya 12y ago
Brand development is a non-trivial matter, especially in startups. Getting your company's value prop out in two sentences is amazing, but they were able to succinctly describe it in TWO WORDS. "easypostage" and "easypostapi" neglect the value of clean, concise naming conventions as a marketing advantage to what at the time ended up being a competitive market. EasyPost was ahead of the curve in terms of acknowledging company representation. As an early pseudo-developer at Teespring, I felt very comfortable in their docs and deploying against their API. This was based on both their technical (seems consistent across YC co) and branding capacity. Over a year and a half later, I'm not surprised by their success.
Kiro 12y ago
It's not easy when everything you can imagine is taken. All possible combinations of words that are in a dictionary are taken.
- Kiro 12y ago
  To clarify: I mean all possible 2-word combinations. Domain squatters are using dictionaries and just registering anything available.

by wesleyy 12y ago

joncalhoun 12y ago

Easypost launched roughly 2 weeks before a competitor did. The competitor received 16 upvotes on HN. Easypost's Show HN had 157. Perhaps if Jarrett had waited until he found that perfect .com name he wouldn't have launched first, and as a result would have had less initial exposure. Less initial exposure means less initial traction, and that might have lead to easypost not raising their first round, or raising on much worse terms, both of which could easily be worth more than $15k. On top of that, finding an available .com isn't easy. You essentially end up using a non-english word, mashing several words together, or use something like geteasypost.com (which easypost owned prior to making this purchase). Non-english words are harder to say and recall, and could ultimately affect word of mouth growth. Mashing words together puts you in a similar situation, and nearly every company who owned get<company>.com or try<company>.com ultimately ended up buying <company>.com if they were successful. Dropbox did it. Facebook did it. Easypost just opted to get theirs earlier in the company's lifetime.

burnte 12y ago
Indeed, sometimes a good name is worth the cost.
- jstreebin 12y ago
  We could have used difficultpost.com. We bought that one for $9.
PMan74 12y ago
> The competitor received 16 upvotes on HN. Easypost's Show HN had 157. This is important how? Are these ~150 extra up votes really worth $100 each? Really worth 7.5% of your funding round. Yeah, yeah, yeah, visibility on HN is good but outside the HN bubble I think I'd rather have the 15k.
- RobAley 12y ago
  They could be worth it. If 1 in 10 of those voters directly becomes a customer (or mentions it to someone else who does), and the LTV of a customer is > $1k (which is very possible for a b2b relationship), then it is. And that doesn't factor in any customers (or investors) bought in by having greater visibility on the post (more votes = more time on front page = more people see it = probably a few more customers).
  - big_maybe 12y ago
    In fact I became a customer of EasyPost's soon after reading that HN post.

moeamaya 12y ago

Brand development is a non-trivial matter, especially in startups. Getting your company's value prop out in two sentences is amazing, but they were able to succinctly describe it in TWO WORDS. "easypostage" and "easypostapi" neglect the value of clean, concise naming conventions as a marketing advantage to what at the time ended up being a competitive market. EasyPost was ahead of the curve in terms of acknowledging company representation. As an early pseudo-developer at Teespring, I felt very comfortable in their docs and deploying against their API. This was based on both their technical (seems consistent across YC co) and branding capacity. Over a year and a half later, I'm not surprised by their success.

Kiro 12y ago

It's not easy when everything you can imagine is taken. All possible combinations of words that are in a dictionary are taken.

Kiro 12y ago
To clarify: I mean all possible 2-word combinations. Domain squatters are using dictionaries and just registering anything available.