Rebranding Your Startup | Hacker News Reader

Rebranding Your Startup

robertlaing.com

43 pointsrobertlaing14 comments

Nice write up. Just curious, was renaming during the rebrand an option? Seems like the money used to purchase the domain could have been used elsewhere.

Was always an option but we wanted Gengo.

Probably relevant to mention that "Gengo" is the Japanese word for "language". So it makes a lot of sense for us.

What a fantastic write up and outcome. Branding isn't everything, but it's not far from that either. It defines the entire UX from the moment a person first hears your name to the moment that person becomes a paying user.

I really like the new branding + logo. Good call on the change. One negative point of feedback (nothing to do with the name or logo): the split image on the home page is poorly done in my opinion. It looks freakish.

Huge step up! Love the green color palette with the orange button. I agree with the comment by adventured about the split image on the homepage. Out of curiosity, was this A/B tested thoroughly or just "chosen"?

Chosen... will keep trying a few things though. So gradual A/B.

How much did you pay for gengo.com and how much did you pay the broker to act as the go between?

I can't disclose exactly. Roughly a junior developer's salary.

It was owned by someone who's name is actually Gengo, and had a business predicated on the name. So he was reluctant to sell.

The broker got between 10-15%.

If the broker gets 10-15% how are your interests aligned? They couldn't possibly be motivated to get you the best deal on the domain.

(I've been doing this since 1996...)

As I recall we did something like... if price < x, commission = y% price > x, commission = y-5%

Regardless, hard to have a perfect transaction in this kind of thing from a buyer's point of view because by default you have imperfect information. Such is life.

That's good.

I've done something similar. Base rate plus anything under "x" I get a percentage of the "savings". But for me it's less of an issue as I do this mainly for fun. I did it for free in the beginning but it ended up taking to much time so I started to charge to slow things down. I just had a deal where I bought a domain for $3000 less after my buyer already had agreed to the sellers price and the deal was done. I smelled blood in the water so I got the seller (w/o the buyers knowledge) to lower the price more just for the fun of it.

In general I will see what the budget is for the purchase and if not reasonable won't take the assignment at all.

You guys have a great product, good to see the brand coming to the table. Looks great.

+1 for Cuban Council!

just like how the Thefacebook changed to Facebook.

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