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MenuShould I change my startups name, making it more memorable, less generic & better fits future services, but domain will be a .me vs our current .com?
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I'm not a .COM purist. In fact I own quite a few .ME domains and have sold half a dozen of them or so. However, building a business or brand on a non-.COM extension like .ME requires some additional analysis.
It's impossible to advise you on which name / domain to choose in the absence of the name itself.
As for the strategy of partnering with someone else just because you want their name ... that sounds excessively complicated, prone to misunderstanding, potentially expensive, and (since you haven't even approached them) a bit pie-in-the-sky. Trademark overlaps might also invite litigation.
I think you could use some professional advice. Let's schedule a call.
When push comes to shove, it is not about the domain at all. It is about the trademark... and he who owns the trademark wins legally. Doesn't even have to be same products or services - if they are in same industry they may be covered by same registered or even unregistered common law rights. And no one can register or own a generic name anyway. Get yourself a unique name and build your own brand, on a .com or .net or .org or .biz or soon .hotel or .travel or .xyz or .corp or .shop or .web.... all of these will be here within a year... so unless it is about you (me) don't go there.
I think you may be looking too deeply into the issue. I would just keep whatever name you currently have and move on, focus on growth and sales. I've rebranded small start-ups and it becomes a.) costly and b.) a headache that's seldom worth it. Rebranding/renaming usually is being driven by someone's ego (I'm not saying that about you, I'm generalizing) and at the end of the day the market/consumer simply does not care. By the way, if you want to see the most extreme example of 'rebranding wasn't worth it', buy a used DVD of the documentary "Startup.Com"
It is very possible to build a site on an extension other than .com and have it be successful. Just know that in the future if you're startup get's lots of traffic the owner of the .com will receive some of the traffic and it may confuse your current customers. On top of that if you do decide to buy the .com at a later time the owner will know the value and have risen the price substantially. It's best to try and acquire the .com asap if you plan to buy it in the future.
Related Questions
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Can someone suggest a website where I can pay to have a good domain name created?
I'd recommend that you check out https://leandomainsearch.com for names. Perhaps look at two-word .com names or even look at purchasing industry-specific names with newer domain extensions like builder.io or builder.to then offering these directly to builders etcRich PetersonRP
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If there are no quality .com available domains suited for my travel startup, is it too bad to use a .org or .travel gtld?
That one question entails several separate answers. .TRAVEL is little used and practically unknown to the general public, even though it has been around for 7 or 8 years. Partly that's because the .TRAVEL registry mandates a special application process that confines use of the extension to particular kinds of entities. Have you ever visited a .TRAVEL website? Most people have never seen one. And so, with negligible public adoption of .TRAVEL, you'd find yourself almost entirely alone explaining your name / web address over and over again. Names that require long explanations are cumbersome and forgettable. There's an added burden with vanity extensions such as .TRAVEL. Suppose you name your company or website "Exotic Travel". If you use Exotic.Travel because ExoticTravel.com is too expensive or else in use already, then you will either face a competitor who uses ExoticTravel.com or else you will need to purchase and maintain both domains. Owning a vanity extension without a matching .COM is almost always a bad idea. Some major websites have learned that the hard way -- often paying 5 or 6 figures to acquire the .COM domain they hoped to circumvent. I'm not a .COM purist. In fact, I'm fond of some domains in vanity extensions. But they should be used as a pair with the .COM most of the time. .ORG can be ideal for certain kinds of projects. But it's impossible for me to give an answer without knowing the name in question. If .ORG is part of the brand identity -- meaning that you're proud to display the .ORG -- then it can work. Nonprofits are especially well suited to .ORG for this reason, as are some other websites. However, if using the .ORG is merely a cheap knockoff of your first-choice domain, then people will perceive it rightly as just a cheap knockoff. We'd have to discuss the name specifically for me to give any meaningful feedback, though. Of course, you began by saying "there are no quality .COMs available". Frankly, that's probably not true. Availability comes in all shapes and sizes. It's certainly the case that most of the good .COM domains already belong to somebody. After all, the internet has been around for a few decades. Just as with the North American continent, every vacant lot has an owner by now. But many good .COMs, though owned, are nevertheless not in use -- and therefore available, depending on your budget. It's dangerous to settle for the first .COM you find that's available for $10. Almost by definition, those are precisely the domains that have interested nobody alive at all for 20+ years. However, I've been exploring the name space every single day full time for some years now -- often for myself but frequently for clients. And a small percentage of good domains do remain available. However, it takes experience to find them and tell the difference between fool's gold and the genuine article. With my last naming client, I'd say that less than 1% of my name ideas were unregistered. That's a long answer. Since it's now 1:17 a.m., I'd better cut things off at this point!Joseph PetersonJP
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What name should I give to my product? (rebranding)
I like the name "Melissa" — but I wouldn't use a website URL like www.melissahome.com because it just doesn't feel "natural" — I would choose something that implies what Melissa means to us... For example: "Ask Melissa" or something like that. Good luck!Kent Gustavson, PhDKG
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Will adding "app" or "try" to our domain name (.com given that we target non-tech consumers) mean losing meaningful traffic to our website?
I'd argue that adding "app" to your domain name *strengthens* your brand by making it more transparent and honest. It's accepted practice; see, for example, bufferapp.com and umergencyapp.com. "Try__.com," on the other hand, is less advisable: it sounds tentative and uncertain. For other URL options--slogans, extensions, puns--see my blog post: http://nancyfriedman.typepad.com/away_with_words/2014/02/a-pure-dot-com-domain-you-dont-need-it.htmlNancy FriedmanNF
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Why would Clarity use .FM for its domain?
Because other, more common domains were not available. FM is not exclusive to music, and is some times used to mean "for me"J SJS
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