Ask HN: Name my e-commerce startup

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2106946

by B-Scan • 16 years ago

5 15 16 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

HNers, Today is very hard with domain names :) I searched for hundreds of variations without success. So I will be grateful if you could help.

About startup: In short - SaaS e-commerce platform. Mix between Shopify, Chargify (great names!) and PayPal with social and mobile components.

Domain name wishes: short & cute (like those 2 above). Requirement for domain: .com extension, domain is available or cheap :)

Thanks, B-Scan

christophe971• 16 years ago

Having searched for mine (zookshop.com) for weeks, I sincerely wish you good luck.

Also, you will notice at some point that 99% of \d{1,4}shop.com is registered in China and parked. What's up with that?

B-Scan6• 16 years ago

Yeah, I already saw many parked domains like that :(

Thx. Btw ZookShop looks nice!

weirdcat2• 16 years ago

Have you tried http://wordoid.com?

B-Scan6• 16 years ago

I didn't. Nice find. Thank you. Will try something.

weirdcat2• 16 years ago

Let us know when you decide on something. :)

patrickk2• 16 years ago

Try using http://impossibility.org/ - a domain name generator.

It was posted on HN a few weeks ago. There's some surprisingly good domains available from it.

B-Scan6• 16 years ago

Tnx. Will do. That + Wordoid looks promising!

patrickk2• 16 years ago

You're welcome. Best of luck!

Jinyoung• 16 years ago

It's a little more complex but more powerful. http://lingzini.com/

adrianwaj2• 16 years ago

transactt.com pockettrip.com cashmatt.com wellwallet.com popwol.com (popular wallet) dolwol.com groovepay.com stashfit.com traypay.com cashelli.com cashpoke.com paypoke.com cashspoke.com pocketpoke.com wolstreet.com

B-Scan6• 16 years ago

Thank you for concrete names! It's appreciated. My favs from here are groovepay.com and cashelli.com. But main focus of my startup are shops (sorry, you couldn't know that).

printerjam• 16 years ago

I named my company on the first day that I sat down to write an outline of the business plan. Having written my thoughts about what the business would be in Microsoft Word, I had to save the file to my desktop and name it. I gave no thought of the business name, I just named the doc with the first thing that came to me - a working title that I intended to change later. But the name never changed because it was unique and top of mind. It stuck.

Try tapping into a stream of consciousness (meaning, don't over think things) and write a list of words. Or, ask some relative who is not tech savvy to tell you the first words that come to their mind (my mom is good for this).

Lastly, in my second startup (circa 1999), we hired a naming consultant for big $$ and the one take away was: Brand names pretty much don't matter. Nike may have sounded dumb the first time people heard it, but folks remembered it AFTER they tried their shoes. Intel sounds like a spy organization. Microsoft sounds like something for scientists, yet it is a consumer brand now. The bottom line: Don't freak out to much on the name.

B-Scan6• 16 years ago

I made something like that also, but the problem is my name is local. I have e-commerce.ccTLD/e-store.ccTLD meaning in my language. That is great, but I looking at global name for my biz.

I like the bottom line, the product and all around it (sales, marketing) is what is important.

Thanks, B-Scan

B-Scan6• 16 years ago

UPDATE:

Thank you all for your comments. I tried all the methods/services.

Biggest luck I had with Wordoid. After few thousands of variations I came with 50 .com names.

When I tried they real availability it was about 30 free names. I guess that Wordoid just pings domains or have some long cache for whois. However, in sign of appreciation I used affiliate link.

So final name is: shopeful.com. I hope that "e" in the middle will be ok.

adrianwaj2• 16 years ago

I prefer shopinella (or shoppinella) - or shopinelli

Ask HN: Name my e-commerce startup

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