alexjawad

Gee, who would've guessed this would turn into a philosophical discussion.

"People have to realise that an idea is worth nothing. A good idea with great execution has value, but without this execution, it’s worthless. Getting an estimate for execution of an idea in 2009 does not grant you ownership of it."

Bang on target!!

Yeah, you may have a point there. I for sure won't repeat that mistake again. Having my .com domains snapped away from under my nose is definitely the most annoying part of branding.

I just bought a domain through said service and today received an email asking me to scan a copy of my passport or similar, or they may cancel the order. Is this common practice?

It took me a couple of weeks before mine disappeared, and during that time I had run searches to double check the availability. The domain name was totally random so it feels extremely far-fetched that someone happened to register it just before I was about to purchase it.

This recently happened me and I posted a thread about it here on HN. Godaddy responded to an angry tweet of mine, saying that they don't pursue this practice and asked if the domain was listed with their "privacy service". When they didn't respond to my reply to that, I emailed them. Customer relations replied that the domain is protected by their "privacy service" and they can't reveal who bought it, speculating it was an "individual".

Same goes for www.whois.sc that links to www.cheap-registrar.com - a reseller of GoDaddy domains.

Nice article. How are you doing today with users and feedback?

Thanks for the link!

Since a huge chunk of the identity of businesses is their homepage, coming up with a great name (or several, so you can test them) that also has an available .com-address is probably the biggest headache in branding in my opinion.

Shouldn't this be controlled better? Shouldn't it even be illegal?

That's good advice. Thanks very much!

In that case, it's outrageous! What provider should one use to securely search for available domain names?

Being in Shanghai, I got this SMS from several sources. It's going to be interesting to see what people choose to do when it starts raining.

I was about to write the same as above. I totally agree.

Cool idea and you seem to have gotten some traction to it too. Looks pretty similar to http://www.wanelo.com/. Offhand difference I can see is that you allow your users to earn money on their recommendations, but I must say I personally prefer the Wanelo UI more. It seems, though, that Wanelo has been idle for some time.

The demo page is primarily for potential users to provide feedback on the features before building, and it's a bit sloppy but should illustrate what it's all about. Feedback is very welcome!

OK, cool. So in other words like the "like" button that Facebook has, right? If so, I think the wording "Recommend this" may be a bit confusing.

Interested in seeing more.

Interesting. I like the idea about condensing the accomplishments to bite size chunks. How does the "Recommend this" function work?

Kayak, likely still feeling some pressure from the ITA-Google deal and increasingly upcoming competition, has to come up with something new so it makes perfect sense. Besides, hotel bookings make much more money than just referrals.

As an "experienced startuper" I strongly agree. Then again, the more experience that is gained from failed startups will hopefully end up with more finish-ups in the end so the result should still be positive.

True, banking fees really do take up a significant post in the P/L, and the smaller you are, the more you're paying, why it's not optimal for startups. A startup bank would be a cool idea.

Excellent and highly topical article! I especially like this statement "The features and product evolution are the fun part of the startup, and thinking about possible ways to make money can be soul numbing."

It's indeed a dilemma, choosing between the product-centric and business-model thinking. The coolest imaginable features may not always be easy to cash on, why a second (or even a third..) best version oftentimes ends up being launched.

Managing to merge both the your best version product and best way to monetize is critical, and in the end what entrepreneurial creativity is all about.