

Ask HN: Is .com address absolutely necessary to launch your company? - slowpoison

When all the good .com names are taken, is it OK to go for .net or .info etc.? Thoughts? Experiences?
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jpmc
If you want people to remember your domain name and type it into the browser
than you really need the .com extension. You have to market the hell out of
.net or any other type of domain for people to remember it. They might
remember your domain name but forget the extension and will likely try .com.
If you don't own it because somebody else does you are sending traffic you
worked for to them. Most people will shrug it off and forget about your site
or worse become engaged in their site leaving your long forgotten. Try to come
up with a different name or a multi-word domain to get that .com. The domains
are out there, you just have to be creative.

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amirmc
I think everyone simply assumes you have a dot com address.

One of the current YC batch decided to change their name from .me to a .com.
You can find their reasoning at: [http://blog.imoveyou.com/announcing-our-new-
name-getupandmov...](http://blog.imoveyou.com/announcing-our-new-name-
getupandmoveme-is-now)

If most of your users are going to find you by putting the company/brand name
in google, perhaps good SEO might be enough? I've come across quite a few
companies with a .ly domain (can't say how they're doing though).

As a user I probably wouldn't take a .info domain very seriously but .net
would be ok.

my 2cents

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tiffani
Seems like it depends on your audience in some instances. If you have users
that don't easily remember one of these more obscure domain extensions,
they'll type in .com and be surprised if they don't get you (even if you told
them exactly what your address is). Some of them won't have the wherewithal to
drop your name into Google either, so it'd be helpful to have the .com.

I once had an email address during college that ended in .at and I'd put it in
presentations for classes. People swore I had a typo in my email address. .me,
.in., .at, etc. still seem to be a niche sort of thing.

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slowpoison
Thanks all for your comments. I have been able to put my goals in perspective
because of your replies.

My understanding after this post is that for a web startup, it's absolutely
necessary to get a .com. My app, however, is a mobile app first and a web-app
second. I'm thinking it's probably OK to go with a non .com address for now.
If the app takes off, I'll consider getting a .com. Right now I should spend
my time in getting the app off ground. That should be my focus right now.

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davidw
Craigslist is a .org, but they seem to have the .com as well.

I definitely would stick with one of the long-time three-letter ones: .org,
.com or .net. Nothings says spammer like .biz or .info.

But... when it comes down to it, better to have a 'creative' .com than a .net
where the .com is taken.

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paulgb
The trend seems to be build the brand around a less ideal domain and then buy
the .com when you can afford to. Facebook (thefacebook.com), Dropbox
(getdropbox.com), Delicious (del.icio.us), and Groupon (getyourgroupon.com)
did this.

