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Comment by rjvir | Hacker News Reader

> 100% of the top 20 YC companies by valuation have the .com of their name. 94% of the top 50 do. But only 66% of companies in the current batch have the .com of their name.

That's not a straight comparison. A better stat would be, what percentage of the top 20 YC companies had the .com while they were in the active YC batch?

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The correlation might be backward: the top 20 YC companies by valuation probably have enough cash to buy the domain name that matches their company name.

Exactly. Maybe it's because the top 20 stuck around in YC long enough to be badgered by Paul Graham into getting a .com?

That said, I don't disagree with him on .com, I just don't think this particular factoid adds anything to the argument.

And for at least some these, it's definitely come post-success.

Twitch.com redirects to twitch.tv, but was a music site as late as the end of 2014.

I think a lot of the comments here are missing the point.

If somebody is already using the <yourname>.com domain, then that name is already being used for something and creating a new business with the same name is a bad idea. I guess in the worst case scenario they could file a lawsuit claiming that you're infringing their trademark.

People can try to justify it by saying everybody just searches anyway, but if the .com name is already established it'll be a never-ending battle to keep your name in the top search results.

I mean, nobody would try to use ford.io or yahoo.tk for their startup, doing the same thing but with a smaller company is an equally bad idea.

Yea, I would agree that this is really the key point. If it's a fallow .com name (that you can't afford), then maybe you'll be lucky with an alternative TLD. But it's probably a poorer choice than changing your name.

In principle, agreed, but you are neglecting the huge role played by domain squatters.

It's also wrong because it implies that having the .com today is as important as when those companies got their .com. Anecdotally, many (most?) developer tools companies go for .io, so much so that a .com sounds strange these days.

Dropbox was GetDropbox.com < at least 1 counter example.

No, because his thesis is "change your name", not "start out with .com"

But he's implying that having a .com correlates to success - so % starting with a .com would be a more apt comparison.

Except for the spate of domain names that are .coms but are not the company's actual name, ala "Bootstrap" and "getbootstrap.com".

rjvir said the .com though. getdropbox.com doesn't count, but they managed to get dropbox.com after they raised enough money for lawsuits.

http://techcrunch.com/2009/10/13/dropbox-acquires-the-domain...

Change your name isn't enough you have to first find a name that you can afford. And so while it's true your current name isn't that important it doesn't mean that you can find any "good" .com names that are affordable.

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