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Comment by river_styx | Hacker News Reader

If you can't muster the creativity to come up with one name (or the nerve put one you've created out there), things already do not bode well for your startup. Just think over your vision, what makes it clever, unique, etc, and try to distill all of that to one or two words.

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Wow, strong words. I do have a couple of OK domain names that I own. I'm trying to find a better one. Getting the name right is super important. I have plenty of time.

If you've tried to register a domain name recently, you'll find that short, good domains all are taken. The only 5 letter .com domains still available are things like xyzys.com.

Let's see if this blog post ends up working - I didn't think it would make it high up on news.yc.

I didn't mean to word it strongly, and I apologize if you took offense. I just meant to convey that you're probably overanalyzing and giving up too early.

None taken. :-)

I'd just love to have a short, compelling .com domain. Let's see if this post works.

I hope it works out for you, I mailed you a couple of domain ideas for names which might have some value to you and are currently unregistered.

In particular there was one I quite liked that was 6 letters long, so hope you like it too :)

(I actually might end up grabbing that 6 letter one if you don't end up using it, it's kind of growing on me.)

Actually, I'll give him props for asking. As evidenced by all the technically sound start-ups out there with names so dumb and hard to spell that I'd have to TRY to come up with something worse, being smart and being able to build a good product doesn't mean you can pick a good name. He's putting some thought into the process, which is a lot more than I can say for a lot of other companies out there. If he can't come up with the name on his own, I don't see what the big deal is.

> He's putting some thought into the process

Were I being cynical (it's a hobby:-), I would say that he's asking you to put some thought into the process. He should offer some kind of prize, even if it's not really a big deal... a blurb on the new site, a t-shirt, a bottle of wine... something like that.

I tried offering prizes, paying $50 to a name-choosing service, asking everyone I could, spending many hours myself. All results sucked.

For my latest startup I spent just a few minutes on it will resist all urges spend more. I'm not allowing myself to get pulled into that time-sink black hole again.

Want it to be easy? Simple. Have $2000 to $10000 to blow on some squatter scum. Or just choose an uncommon topic area. Probably both are unreasonable for most of us.

Thanks!

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