Lean Domain Search Launches New Business Name Generator

http://www.leandomainsearch.com/blog/15-lean-domain-search-launches-new-business-name-generator

by matt1 • 14 years ago

43 10 14 years ago

matt14• 14 years ago

Hey guys,

I launched Lean Domain Search on HackerNews earlier this year [1] and a lot of folks have found it extremely helpful for finding names for their startups. This new tool is geared towards helping offline businesses find a professional business name that also has an available exact-match .com domain name (that way they don't have to pay thousands to procure it after they settle on a name). The tool is behind a paywall, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on the concept, the landing page, and the pricing page.

Thanks!

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3470977

namella• 14 years ago

Your price point is far too high for the service it performs (and the competing tools).

Bustaname.com is free, and if you know how to use it, it does the same thing. Namestation.com charges $10/mo and has 18 name generators. All of which are very powerful.

I like that you're trying to monetize, and maybe you have the traffic to get a nice bit of side income, but I don't see how the service stands apart from the competition.

kaizendc• 14 years ago

You may be able to get away with that high price point if you let people try your service for free first. That way you can really prove your USP.

Most entrepreneurs start multiple businesses, so they may likely pay large sums of money for your service in the future if they were given a chance to try it once for free.

matt14• 14 years ago

Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated.

This tool is much better at generating professional company names than the other services out there. For example, Bustaname asks you to type in a list of words and then it will test the availability of all those word combinations. You have to be creative in order to benefit from it and even if you are, you might miss out on a lot of good domain names because you don't think of them.

I hand-picked over 4,000 business names that are used throughout multiple industries in order to generate the list that this business name generator uses to help you come up with a business name for your industry. If you want to name an actual business, no other tool comes close to being this good (imho). You're paying for the quality of the results and the speed compared to other methods of coming up with company names.

larrys• 14 years ago

"but I'd love to hear your thoughts on the concept"

Here is what I would do.

This is a product that (as your site says) is priced for people (agencies etc.) that specialize in this type of thing. Not the people who are probably reading HN. So by asking HN for comments (note the guy who says "crap" below in his comment) you are doing yourself a disservice.

I would post this site on a linkedin group which relates to what you do and get comments that way. Or, dig up some addresses of people in the business and take the time and expense to mail them a postal letter announcing this and inviting their feedback in exchange for possibly some swag or a Starbucks giftcard. Send out 100 postal letters +- to start and see what happens. Not sales letters but "I'd like to know what you think" letters.

If you do this let me know how you make out with this approach.

j45• 14 years ago

Sweet, I've registered a bunch of domains from you and Lean Domain Search is by far a procrastination killer for those times you really want to find a good name.

Glad you're continuing to build it out and it doesn't fade away like other tools have.

melicerte2• 14 years ago

99$/month for that piece of crap ? Is this some kind of joke or something? I mean the web name generator is just a generator based on a small dictionary mixing the name you provide and each of the entries in the dictionary. Great ! (the whois check to see if the domain is available is just anecdotic) And you can't even give the business name generator a try. Good lick, guys.

matt14• 14 years ago

A few points:

- The website name generator is free. If you're a startup founder, this is probably the tool you'll want to use.

- The business name generator is the paid version. It helps you generate business names for offline businesses. Compared with the time it takes to brainstorm + check domain availability on your own or use a tool like CrowdSpring (and even then you'd have to buy the domain name for thousands after you find the name you like) this is actually pretty cheap.

- The website name generator pairs your search term with 2,500 other keywords and shows you only those that are available; the business name generator pairs your search term with 4,000 other business names. The point of the WHOIS check is to confirm that the domain name is still available.

Hope this helps clarify things. I'll see what I can do to make it clearer on the site as well.

melicerte2• 14 years ago

If the only thing that this service does is to pair a name I provide with 2500 keywords (or 4000 in the business version), I can do that by script for myself in less than a day or two (the longest time will be to generate the keywords list). Furthermore, if you suggest me 2000+ possibilities, you don't help, you just confuse me. There is no smartness in the in the tool that could really help me. Finally, why a 99$/Month whereas I will probably not use the tool to find more than one name. I mean who is starting a new business every month?

Lean Domain Search Launches New Business Name Generator

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