

Ask HN: Daily Available Startup Domain Names... Interested? - nbrochu

It may sound totally ridiculous but coming up with a name that has an available .com domain name is the part I despise the most about new projects. There is just something wrong with trying every single permutation at a domain registrar only to end up with a crappy, "settled for" name hours later. Naming tools kind of suck too in my opinion.<p>So, a month or two ago, I got fed up of this and decided to use my programming skills to tackle this problem. Using drop lists, algorithms and quite a few metrics, I finally managed to produce something that gives interesting and available .com domain names as results!<p>The daily quantity of both suitable and available domain names varies, but I generally get 20-40 without a problem.<p>To give you an idea, here is the list I generated yesterday:<p>arcticpack.com
basetable.com
bashtracker.com
bulletstocks.com
campusrally.com
carbongenie.com
chilltree.com
codesmell.com
crowdcome.com
earthunit.com
extrasmiles.com
fiberoasis.com
filmshout.com
foxyflyer.com
gatorhire.com
geekimpact.com
goodprog.com
mailshaker.com
metafollow.com
ownerfind.com
phonemama.com
calltap.com
racerapp.com
rubycoach.com
snappyapp.com
sourcefully.com
stripspots.com
targeteyes.com
topicbased.com
writerslate.com<p>Not the best I've seen (there are good and bad days!) but it sure beats looking at the 86000 domains expiring everyday, or even worse, trying your hand at coming up with something that isn't already taken. All of them where available yesterday and could still be right now... As a bonus, the names generally also give startup ideas! ;)<p>I'm imagining I was not alone having [domain] naming issues and am simply wondering if this is useful and/or interesting to anybody else. I can easily do it everyday if I get a good response. The important thing for me is to keep it in the startup/hacker community. I don't want the domainers/squatters on these too. I would also like ideas on how to potentially monetize this a bit if you have any. I was thinking of making a daily newsletter with the names and maybe sell 1-5 at a very reasonable price like 30-50$ or not selling names but charging a small yearly fee to get on the newsletter.<p>Anyhow, I'm waiting for your comments and ideas. Bonus points if you register a name from the list!
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rada
Sounds exactly like Dan Rubin's mailer from justdropped.com. His is free, you
pay when you buy a domain name (usually in the $60-$200 range, sometimes
more). The email comes out daily, with about a couple dozen domains, quality
very similar to your list.

My observation from being on that list for the last couple years: it seems
like a great idea but nothing ever pans out. Just so you get an idea, a few
examples of my targets: personal domain for a generic computer consultancy,
budget around $300; publishing company e-reader, budget around $20k, friends'
projects from yoga studio to nightclub to astronomy, budget around $100, etc.
Criteria: relevant, easy to remember, easy to pronounce, no competitors in the
same space... the usual.

Try it for yourself. Make a quick list of 10 real-world businesses. Then take
a week's worth of your mailers, put yourself in a prospective owner's shoes,
and try to match them up. I suspect you would see that it doesn't add much
value. There are kinda sorta cool names on your list for sure, but nothing
that a few friends over beers (or thesaurus.com) couldn't come up with in 15
minutes.

Sorry to be a downer... I very much agree that domain generators suck. A
better offering would be killer.

Perhaps it's just not a "computer problem" (i.e. a repetitive task with well-
defined parameters). I'd love to be wrong on this one.

~~~
nbrochu
I'm actually on Dan's newsletter too and though he seems to be doing quite
good, I personally find his domains are overpriced for the quality. It feels
to me like he is targeting the domainer market with the quality, but at prices
that exclude bulk buyers like them.

I agree with your observation and realize I probably worded my post wrong. The
idea is not for you to periodically watch the lists waiting for your perfect
domain. That won't work. It is more to just casually browse it, and if one
just screams at you, you get it at a reasonable price (< $50) or even at reg
fee.

And about the quality of the names on my list, everything is relative. I try
to focus more on a niche (startup/service/product/blog names) even though I
have quite a few good names available in other markets too. If you are looking
for something outside of what I'm listing, of course quality seems a little
lower. Five names on my little sampler got registered in a few hours so I
believe there is some sort of interest.

In my opinion, most domain name related problems truly cannot be solved with a
programming approach. One that can, however, is extracting gems out of dropped
and available domains. I'm not saying it's easy, but I plan on working on it!

~~~
rada
His pricing appears to be fairly random. I recall seeing aftersixty.com which
I thought was a potential goldmine, 60+ being a well-monied yet underserved
community, and it was priced under $100. A couple months later, it was listed
again, this time for over $1k if I remember. So he doesn't appear to use a
pricing formula.

Anyway, best of luck with your project... hope to see a follow up post from
you on here.

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nbrochu
Alright so I read the feedback and it seems there is at least a little bit of
interest in this. Here is how I will proceed: I'll make a FREE daily
newsletter you can sign up to using MailChimp (or some other good
alternative... feel free to suggest) where I list the domains. I will most
likely experiment with putting a small percentage of the names on the list for
sale everyday and I guarantee prices will always be $50 and lower.

I will post a link to the signup form on this page and maybe also submit it as
a new entry. Be on the lookout for it if you want in.

Oh and some more available names for you all :) Enjoy!

arcadehud.com backmaker.com barkmap.com beaminfo.com booktakers.com
bubbleless.com cablezap.com clicksir.com clothi.com codecollect.com
condovia.com connectmix.com coopsquad.com crowdlead.com discodeep.com
duelpit.com echocoach.com flatside.com fluxplay.com gametrex.com gatespell.com
hipstatus.com jamshell.com liveways.com mailslide.com marketsensor.com
metastyles.com meterclicks.com patterndeck.com picacast.com pitchlove.com
playsync.com presshack.com pushcamp.com reptable.com sheetstrip.com
shieldset.com sleepmeter.com smartscaling.com springsites.com tagsmash.com
talentlever.com torquefive.com travelgage.com wordables.com

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juanito
This is something that I would definitely subscribe to. The available names
that you shared are pretty nice.

I do think that it would be hard to find people willing to pay for a list of
available domain names, unless it were a very small amount, but even then you
wouldn't likely have very many subscribers (and I think most would be
domainers).

I think a way to monetize a free service/list like this would be to charge a
fee for specific requests. Once you had established yourself as someone who
could definitely come up with good names, I expect people would come to you,
and you could charge to come up with a private list of available names for
whatever their topic is.

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antichaos
I usually hunt for domain names _after_ an idea strikes my mind. So the signal
noise ratio of your mailing list will probably be too low for my taste. Thanks
for posting a sample of your findings, though!

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nbrochu
OK it has been a while but the newsletter is finally ready along with the
website! I'll be surprised if anybody sees this comment but I did say I was
going to post an update here.

You can subscribe and learn more at <http://domainwhirl.com> and can read the
Show HN post here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1761541>

Enjoy!

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callmeed
It's a pretty good idea though I usually am able to find a decent name using
bust a name.

I'd consider doing it woot/groupon style and just selling one a day. Based on
your examples maybe categorize/tag them ("green" "travel" "hacky/geek" "mail"
etc).

I personally wouldn't pay to be on a mailing list but I'd probably try and
jump on a good one here and there.

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imp
Count me as interested. Whatever business model you end up with, it sounds
like you can find decent names, which I would gladly pay a small premium for.

Since this post will fade away soon, you should set up a basic email list so
that people here can at least follow what you plan to do.

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skowmunk
>>the names generally also give startup ideas! ;)

That was a good one!

The newsletter can work well as a brainstorming tool in coming up with names
for ideas one may have.

It sure was tough to come up with names for some ideas that popped up a while
ago.

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patd
I liked sourcefully.com and grabbed it to use as a place for my friend and I
to deploy app ideas. Visit it in a couple of months, we may have something
good on it :)

The list is really nice, I'm not sure if people would be willing to pay for
this though.

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harpastum
I probably spend too much time picking up domain names and not enough creating
the services to run on them already. That said, I'm working on getting
codesmell.com :)

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jleader
I'm curious; what do you call people who are willing to pay for lists of
potential domain names they could buy, if they're not "domainers"?

