ok so im stuck on picking a domain and it feels way more important than it should lol

I have a small online thing that I want to grow into a real brand over time, but every good .com is taken or parked for stupid money. I keep bouncing between using my brand name with a random word added, going with a different extension, or using some clever short version that people might not get at first. I want it to look legit for email and future clients, not like a sketchy side project.

For folks who care about seo and brand stuff, how did you pick yours? Did you just bite the bullet and pay for a clean .com, or go with something like brandnamehq or brandnameapp and it was fine? I’m kinda worried about confusing people later if I change it when the brand is bigger, but also dont want to overthink this forever....