There was an interesting article by Christopher Steiner on Forbes. The article titled, “Most Startups Still Believe They Need A Dot-Com Domain, But That Is Changing.”
Steiner seems to be a bit all over the place with both data supporting securing a non com and some reasons why to stick with .com.
He also seems to be a bit mistaken when he describes domain owners.
From the article:
Is this wise—would it be better to leave the desired dot-com domain to the squatter who is sitting on it and simply go with desiredname.io or some variation thereof?
Squatter ? You mean the rightful owner of the domain name who may have owned it for years before you sat in a garage and thought no one else would had ever thought of the name you just thought of ?
Steiner notes that Paul Graham, co – founder of Y Combinator believes in sticking with .com.
Not having a dot-com, he wrote back in August 2015, “signals weakness.”
He re-endorsed that point of view to me, via Twitter, recently. He added that a dot-com domain is probably even more important for SaaS and b2b companies because their mission is to look as legitimate as possible in a business setting, which is harder to do from an alternative domain.
Lastly Steiner presented data that .com is less represented by the last several classes at Y Combinator.
That said, the percentage of companies with dot-com domains during the last several years of classes at YC has been decreasing. For this most recent class, which finished up in March 2017, only 68% of the startups had dot-com URLs.
I read it.
Looks more like promotion for the .io and .co cctLDs, doesn’t it?
Now there’s a guy that knows absolutely nothing about domains writing an article just because he’s a techie. Being a techie and domain expert are two totally different fields of study.
I don’t ask painters to change my transmission.
Well said.. Domain Name Consulting a special skill itself 🙂
Whether you like the conclusion of this piece, or not, the bottom line is that he used lots of objective data throughout, which there’s no way to argue with.
Why do domainers think that everyone in the world thinks the way they do? And how do you explain that there a lots of startup raising millions WITHOUT a dot-com? Do you think that the VCs who write those checks KNOWING that they don’t have a dot-com in their IP portfolio are just ignorant, or downright stupid?
If you can get a great dot-com, you should ….for a million reasons. But to try to shoehorn a brand into a lousy dot-com, instead of a GREAT gTLD is foolish – both in the short and long term.
this is about using short ccTLDs without meaning as an alternative .io, .co not new TLDs.
“This reporting was brought to you by Forbes, a news outlet proudly hosted on a dotcom domain”.
Plus, Steve Forbes attended one of the Traffic conferences in Fla. a few years ago.
Very nice guy.
If I recall correctly, he was a big proponent of domain names.
If I wasn’t watching to see what .com’s sell for everyday, more than most end users are willing to pay, I might buy it, but since I spend 2-3 hours a day watching, bidding, and reviewing this is total nonsense, and headline grabbing.
GTLD sales have totally flatlined, the offers are not even coming in, I am not spreading gtld hate, I will follow the money regardless of extension, and it has just gone cold.
Startups may think they are cool using a .IO or a .CO but when they grow up they will move to a .COM
I agree. How can you deal with the public using a .io domain when most people don’t know what “io” means and will thus find it hard to remember the domain? And using a .co can so easily result not only in people going to the .com by mistake, but more importantly, sending emails to the .com by mistake.
I think it’s ok to have an .io, .ai, .me, but you better have an amazing product, strong IP, and rock star developers and programmers (preferably from MIT, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, etc) and world-class designers. And even then, I’d suggest, after securing that Series A funding round, do what you can to get the .com, if possible. In some cases, this will not be possible: for example: Enterprise.com, Hotels.com, FreeCreditScore.com, Cruise.com, Jet.com, etc — in cases like these where the .com is owned by a powerhouse, it might be better to opt for different branding.
Many companies have been successful without having the .com — and I commend them. Tech-centric companies that focus on building products and positioning their companies for early exits, perhaps the .com is not essential.
There’s always going to be little rumblings here and there about such ideas, nothing new. Just like how email was dead and dying not that long ago. Yada, yada, yada…
It’s misinformation like this that make it 10x harder for new investors to break ground. Sadly, many investors take what they read on reputable sites like Forbes at face value and structure their business plans around it. Maybe better vetting of guest/paid writers is in order to help keep things accurate. But then, as someone else mentioned, the article may have been motivated by paid contextual ad placement to push an extensions agenda.
The only reason why some start up companies don’t use dot com, is because they can’t afford for the very expensive price. Most of good dot com are registered, and offered by domainers at very high prices. I believe that they choose non dot com domains just for a cheaper alternative of dot com. So I believe that New GTLDs will not success to beat dot com as long as they offered as premium domains too. No one wants to use New GTLDs if they are as expensive as dot com.
I agree with you. Not .com more expensive, even the made-up names are less likely to be unavailable as domainers snatches up 4 letter, 5 letter, and 6 letter names. Startups also know once they got more funding, they can always buy .com at a later time and they are in no rush.
Just last month, one of my good friends sold a domain with an installment plan.
Both parties are very happy.
.COM and ccTLDs holds ground. ccTLDs is absolutely ok for a country wide business, if they have global ambitions better to go with .com , its proven concept.. domainers wishful thinking alone is not good enough.. avg Joe on the streets to understand the brand factor.. I firmly .com share likely to be impacted by ccTLDS. but any global organisation certainly deserve a .COM name
Most startups cannot have their cake and eat it too. Funding or own a valuable .com, not both.
Once a company gets bigger and more established, they usually upgrade to a .com or if they already have a 2 or 3 word .com or misspelled .com, they buy a 1 word .com.
More startups and small businesses are starting to realize that a good .com domain can be bought with a down payment and a payment plan, without having to pay the full cost of the .com domain name up front.
Just had a startup using .io state basically a no-thanks to upgrading to .com. They believe it’s enough that they own their search terms and the brand value itself isn’t worth it to them. If it has a lot of traffic bleed, then they’re interested. To me it’s more than that which makes this name valuable.
When this name is sold to another company (and it will be) and the new owner start selling things completely unrelated to the .io company, who do you think wins on search then ? Even if the .com don’t win, what happens to their branding if “the new brand owner” sells something completely unrelated or maybe completely inappropriate or unattractive or cheap or some other way that dilutes their brand ?
Noah Kagan talked about this effect when he bought Sumo.com for a million.
It’s not just about traffic leaks. It’s about protecting your brand and the equity. You’d start out and pour all this money and time into your brand and you’re willing to just let someone else set up shop in another category and benefit/dilute it ? Get your name locked up early start-ups. Cover your bases. Lots of ways to do it right. Many more ways to do it wrong.
To be a domain investor takes hard work, thinking out the sand box, focus, have a daily routine no matter what, special love for words and many other procedures domainers do.
Conclusion, not too many people can handle that. Those lazy couch potatoes persons watching four hours of TV a day, could have a degree in any profitable field. Anyhow, they’re the first ones to scream cybersquatting even if there was no trademark violation.
I’m not saying anything new because it’s applicable to any business. Just ignore them and smile if you see them at the bank. I bet your check has more zeros after the comma…
Have a perfect example of going with the wrong name.rootstock.io great company developing an excellent blockchain protocol could become a billion dollar company.
Oops,rootstock.com is owned by a computer programming company very similar business same name and if I’m not mistaken rootstock.io will be open source meaning their competition (rootstock.cim may even be able to use rootstocks program you can see the potential pitfalls.rootstock.io should have chosen a different name a dot com domain.
I am surprised there were actually 2 startups with new GTLDs (.live and .global), I didn’t think any startups actually used new GTLDs.
Having just returned from a large StartUp and VC conference, I encountered countless StartUps in alpha, beta and pre-funding status operating on less than ideal domains for their brands. Overwhelmingly the founders believe they should gravitate to the .com for their brand; where possible. They also recognize the importance of ensuring their business has the chance to be successful (refinement of the product/service or early traction in their business vertical) before entertaining the expense of domain upgrades. By and large the initial domain selected is viewed as a placeholder until the business shows merit. My two pennies…
DNGeek provides weekly lists(?) ‘startups and their domains’.
From the last list (not much different from prior reports):
” Almost 69% of them launched with a .com domain name followed by the ccTLD with a strong showing of just under 23%.
There’s NOT a SINGLE startup this week that went with a new domain name extension”
dngeek.com/2017/05/74-newly-funded-startups-and-their-domain-names-dave-com-me-me-worktoday-com/
Numbers don’t Fu**ing Lie.
The writing is on the wall, not matter how you spin it.