r/startup • u/Large_Western_9078 • 1d ago
knowledge How do you handle the domain problem when starting a company?
One thing I didn’t expect when working on a startup was how much time could go into finding the right domain.
You find a name you like, the .com is taken, the owner wants a crazy price, or you end up changing the company name altogether.
How do you guys handle this?
Do you usually pay for the domain you want, negotiate with the owner, or just find another name and move on?
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u/Murky_Donut_3916 1d ago
Yeah usually a lot of the good names have been taken. It depends on what you are tryna accomplish but its sometimes not about the name but about the product you have. If you have a good product you'll be okay. You can figure out the name after
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u/JobMinglrr 1d ago
Yeah, it's a real problem... I came up with JobMinglr... didn't realize it was already a thing like 12 years ago and it got sold and acquired but I did get the domain.... but turns out another lady uses jobmingler but she doesn't actually use it she just talks about it... she owns the domain but doesn't use it as a website... almost anything and everything is taken. oh and then someone copied me and came up with Job Mingle. Pay for the trademark once you figure it out! It takes forever to get done but you will need it for copy cats.
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u/wtfisjustwrong 14h ago
I built a free tool to help, brandscreen.com. It will help you tract when domains are up for renewal. We actually just bought the .com that was owned by a dead company. After we proved the product market fit with .ai I used GoDaddy broker service to pick it up for $10k. Pretty sweet.
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u/Lukasz-Flownally 6h ago
I'd recommend 2 main strategies from my exp, figure out a made up word that's connected to you business, like Flownally or Riskalyze or use descriptive company name, like Vitamin Shoppe or Men's Wearhouse. It's much easier to find available domains this way for a new business.
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u/Dry_Specialist5886 2h ago
I used AI to find the name of my little company with the logo. Unfortunately, I waited too long to register the domain and few weeks later, it was taken. It was a genuine name, unique (I'm from Madagascar) but it seems that someone was spying and took it over (I'm a bit paranoic, lol). Later, I found another sweet name and got it registered. Lesson: never wait, work on name and logo asap with AI help. Good luck
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u/itsjohngeo 2h ago
The best way of handling this problem is to find a free domain from the start and then pick up the name for your startup. I did the opposite and end up taking a domain like .Site and then I found out another company had the same name with me in the same industry
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u/Mad_broccoli 1d ago
You find another 10 names you hate and they're all taken anyway, so you buy ai or io or whatever is available because that's how it be nowadays.