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by brudgers 3962 days ago
My reading was that at an early stage it's just better to come up with another name and be done with it...if airmatressbreadandbreakfast.com is taken, just buy airBnB.com. Consumers won't care. In cases like Stripe, where the target is B2B and the businesses are mostly small businesses, then a good name matters because it's marketing and its cost is just a cost of doing business.

To push it further a .io domain is signalling and that's what makes it attractive.
1 comments
GuiA 3962 days ago
That's a bad example though. If airbnb.com is taken, should you take airbnb.io or airmatressandbreakfast.com? Paul's argument is: neither, get a different short name for which you can get the .com.
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brudgers 3962 days ago
I take it that the article is aimed at early stage startups and is premised on the idea that choosing a name is worth about 20 minutes of time by a founding team and an experienced investor. I find Airbnb useful because "air" has nothing to do with the current company. Any connotations to air mattresses are probably non-positive at this point and the company's success came after pivoting away from low quality low cost accommodations.
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nostromo 3962 days ago
Airbnb.com actually did come later.

It was originally airbedandbreakfast.com.

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