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Show HN: I'll help you name your next startup/product for $50 (startupgods.com)

98 points by chaosmachine ↗ HN
Hey HN. This is a weekend project of mine. It's an idea I had after seeing so many comments here about the lack of available .com names for startups.

As PG once said: "Take a luxury and make it into a commodity"[1]. So, I decided I'd try turning name consulting from something only large corporations could afford to something anyone could. I hope you'll take me up on it :)

If you'd like to see a few examples of my work, just check out the links in the footer. Thanks for your attention.

[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/ideas.html

95 comments

[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 151 ms ] thread
chaosmachine
This is a weekend project of mine. It's an idea I had after seeing so many comments here about the lack of available .com names for startups.

As PG once said: "Take a luxury and make it into a commodity"[1]. So, I decided I'd try turning name consulting from something only large corporations could afford to something anyone could. I hope you'll take me up on it :)

If you'd like to see a few examples of my work, just check out the links in the site's footer.

[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/ideas.html

middus
Did you take into account how much time it will take you to process a non-trivial order? $20 seems quite low to me when you want to achieve a good hourly rate.

Maybe you should bump it up a bit (> $50). It would still be a commodity price.

edit: By the way, I totally love the design!

chaosmachine
Thanks, you're right, I've increased the price to $50 for new orders.
perlgeek
I was about to use your service for $20, but I wouldn't pay $50 for a hobby project of which I'm not sure yet how seriously I'll pursue it.

I guess you just can't be everybody's darling...

zoba
Same. $20 sounded worth the risk, but I'm not going to do it for $50, especially without seeing any evidence of past names generated.

Perhaps a Hacker News special? Or perhaps a different price for those who don't mind sharing the outcomes of your service, and a more expensive price for those who do mind?

middus
Why don't you go and try? He offers a refund in case you are not happy. Does not sound too risky to me.
zoba
As a graduate student, $50 seems like a lot of money to spend on anything except rent... Plus figuring out the return process and if its not super simple just seems like quite a lot of hassle.
pbreit
$20 sounds low. $50 is reasonable.
tptacek
$50 is also too low. Price according to the value you generate. You generate obvious value in three ways:

(1) Company operators waste tons of time coming up with names. SWAG the number of hours you think people typically take to settle on a name (it took us several days). Back that out to a dollar figure by dividing the typical yearly salary of a funded company operator by $2000 and multiplying by hours.

(2) Companies frequently rename. Put a dollar figure on the cost of a company rename 6 months in, then multiple that by the percentage risk you think the typical company has of renaming (how many renames do you see? how many companies do you think there are in your market?).

(3) Better names generate business (or, they ostensibly do). By the way, I'd probably use Mint vs. Wesabe as my primary example here, since both sides mentioned Mint's name as a key asset.

There is no way these three factors add up to just $50.

A side benefit of charging something closer to your value is, working with people who think $20 is OK but $50 is too much will absolutely inevitably cause you heartache. The people that think $50 is too much are going to be bad customers (as a group). For any business, be it outsourced order management for prop trading firms or hobby figurine sales, $50 is a rounding error.

Geeks have a hard time remembering that pricing isn't just about optimizing customer acquisition vs. customer value. It's also a key component of your positioning. If you charge hobbyist rates, you will serve the hobbyist market. Look at graphic design. It is very possible to get good-looking illustration done near your price point, but impossible to get it done by anyone with a reputation. Designers that serve real companies charge multiple orders of magnitude more just for piecework. And real companies wouldn't dream of slumming with the $50-$100 illustrators, even when those people have more talent. Pick the market you want to serve, and then tailor the price point to that.

sssparkkk
Apparently you missed the part where he quoted PG saying: "Take a luxury and make it into a commodity"

It's because he's charging a commodity price that I decided to give it a go and pony up. I would never ever pay the going rate for a 'professional' in this business.

tptacek
No, I got that part, and also the part of his positioning where he said "name consulting was previously only available to big companies and we want to make it available to smaller companies".

Pricing isn't a binary decision between "cheap" and "nosebleed". This is another geek pricing pathology.

I think $50 is too cheap. I think, if your market is "people that actually need names but are smaller than PepsiCo", there are very few three-figure prices that aren't rounding errors. Why would he want your business? How many entities are there like you, and how often do they pony up for names, and how much does it cost to support them?

sssparkkk
Well, in our case we would normally just come up with a name ourselves. But because 50 dollars is worth a shot we're giving him some business. And something tells me there might just be more people in the same situation as we are. But I guess we won't know until he lets us know how many from HN decided to give it a go.
tptacek
If DHH went with HN's take on what Basecamp should cost, he'd be racing Honda Civics instead of supercars. Is my point.
jorgem
I had this same service a few years ago, and even at $99 it is a money loser. And kinda boring after a while -- even if you autopick the names, you still have to review them before giving them to the client.
sagacity
Cool!

At this price, I'm sure many will go for it.

One quick question:

Do you check/ensure the .com domain availability of the names you find?

chaosmachine
I do. Dot com availability is one of the major items on my checklist.
sagacity
Double cool!

One suggestion, though: A quick look through your home page did not reveal this. You might want to revise the copy to mention this (prominently).

HTH

edanm
Don't know if it's already been changed, but it's pretty prominent right now. It's the 3rd sentence of the "What do I get" section (and it's in bold).
kingofspain
This sounds like a great idea. I find shortish domains all the time and try and squeeze an idea into them, but I have real trouble finding something properly appropriate (for .com anyway). I've signed the forms :)
sheats
Great idea! I was just racking my brain last night for a good name so this is a great service to have available!
jwomers
This is super cool. I haven't signed up yet, and obviously haven't seen the quality of the results, but it's a great idea, and definitely something I would pay for for my next project. (Naming is definitely one of my weak points)
AndrewS
I agree, although I'd love to see some results or examples (and I must admit I'm a little pessimistic). I hope to see some on the website soon :)
jwomers
That's true.. When anyone gets some results page from this, would be great to post them here for the rest of us to see.
perlgeek
It would help if you showed some project descriptions, and the names you have found for them (of course with consent from the customers), as a kind of portfolio.
shazow
Wish you were around when Jen and I were wrecking our brain coming up with imoveyou.com (from getupandmove.me).

We kept asking ourselves "surely there are people who are good at naming things, WHERE ARE THEY?!"

shrikant
Was it always $20 as the HN headline says? The website says $50 now...
derrida
... and he just changed the HN headline to $50!

I did the same double take, thinking the price changed. They changed the price! Sneaky!

Maakuth
You have to appreciate though, that $50 is still a modest price if the service is as good as it claims. Just look at domain squatter prices, you get pretty much nothing with $50.
chaosmachine
It was $20 for the first 7 customers, I've bumped it up to a more realistic $50 now.
edw519
startupgods.com? I dunno, you look like a plumber with a leaky faucet. I'd have a little more confidence if you had a name more like "PerfectNameFinder.com" or something like that.
chaosmachine
I own PerfectAlias.com as well, but I felt StartupGods.com was more brandable, and would capture the attention of my target audience.
xutopia
StartupGods > PerfectAlias. Perhaps it is because my first language isn't English but French. To me alias means second name.
Dobbs
It means the same to those of us with English as a first language.
kingsidharth
IMO, None of them are good for branding. The best one is which has nothing to do with your business. (Example: Apple has nothing to do with computers, Adidas has nothing to do with sports equipments)

It gives you leverage to take business in any direction. For example, if your naming business becomes huge success and you want to start naming more things - like OpenSource Projects or simple apps - the word "Startup" in your name is gonna make you think twice.

I wonder what names you'd give out when you yourself have a bad name, IMO. Any sample names you've created?

adrianwaj
I prefer bangnames.com and it's unregistered.

Once you have monotheistic power, you'll be better at naming The Name.

demoo
That sounds more like a Porn-name-generator type of site.
stcredzero
You could make money off of drunk people with that. Add automated fake DVD box or site creation.
jwomers
I much prefer Startupgods.com, it's interesting and memorable.
huhtenberg
It is still off. It should really be StartupNamingGods.com or LetMeNameYourStartup.com or something else that indicates it is about naming. StartupGods is more like a cocky alias for YC :)
wlievens
I'm not sure. I would associate PerfectNameFinder.com somehow with "shady dating site" and that's no good.
ZoFreX
So what happens if I pay, say I don't like the name you come up with, and then buy the domain and launch with it anyway?
minus1
I presume you get a free name and an unpleasant nagging feeling from your conscience. It's probably not worth the effort to try to prevent this in the beginning.
dagw
I suppose they could take $10 of the $50 you paid them and register the name before sending it to you, and if you like it they'll transfer it to you. If you don't they'll give you your money back and try to sell the name to someone else. But, yea I guess the hassle of doing this probably isn't worth it in the beginning.
goombastic
How about an India price? I'll do it for 20$. As a starter, here is a free name for anyone to register:

nameonic.com: rhymes with mnemonic and is a great name for a names company.

Let's see how long the name lasts.

UPDATE: The name was just registered. Thanks Guys. wow that was fast. 32 minutes standing.

barefoot
Confusingly similar (cringe) to "namesonic", a company that already exists and has been around since 2001. Interestingly, they claim a trademark on the word but I couldn't locate any filings in the US.

There Was a trademark on "nameonics" in the early 1980's, however:

http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=7...

Charuru
You have two vowels next to each other. Not good
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subbu
Looks like the negative feedback about the name didn't stop someone from registering it. Any other good names?
goombastic
Lots. Just ask. Having registered serial sites with clever names, this is a hobby.
redstar504
I think startupgods.com is a cool name for this business. Nice layout also. If I had a new business in mind I wouldn't hesitate to try your service. The money back guarantee makes me feel comfortable, but I am just curious on the amount of refunds you will be processing - I guess it depends on how creative you are at naming. Please report back with results.
PanMan
Maybe I'm cynical, but because you emphasis the "money back" part, it feels more like a scam. I was sort-of half expecting an auto-name-generator: "$randomstring.com is still available!" If only 10% don't ask their money back, you make a profit. I once heard about a "baby gender predictor", with money back guarantee, which just always emailed you "Congrats, it will be a boy!". About 50% right :).
shou4577
Maybe a bit off-topic, but this scam has always intrigued me. You can, in fact, do better than just "Money back guarantee!" You can do as much as, say, "We'll give you your money back, plus an extra 50% of the fee!" So your "customers" pay $50, and if you are wrong you give them back $75. You still make $12.50 on average per customer by guessing randomly, so long as you scam sufficiently many people.
waterside81
This is precisely how sports handicapping services work. Every week, 50% of your customers are happy and return, the other 50% are unhappy and might not return.
sjaakkkkk
ok, anyone actually got a good name? Would like to do this if it ain't a scam and i can verify someone got their money back when not satisfied..
mise
I spent $900 naming on a non-profit startup. Fk.
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xutopia
Alright I'm testing you out. 50$ for a great name is an awesome price point imo. It's just enough that I find it expensive but small enough that I'd pay for it. With a money back guarantee I'm glad to test the waters.
xutopia
I'm replying to myself to give you some feedback. After the checkout process it would be nice to be given a time frame that I can expect an answer by.
chaosmachine
You should have received an email within a few minutes of your order with timeframe information, can you let me know if you got it?
jmacd
Tried to order. Not working. Got an error and now I get "state not valid" when I try to place the order again.
jorkos
point me to a few happy customers and i'd be happy to try it
Jun8
This is a very cool idea, but I would lose the whole Zeus thing, it gives an air of adolescence to the site. Also,

* Saying you'll find the perfect name is a bit of a stretch, what does "perfect" mean in this context? Is google a perfect name?

* When you say results are guaranteed, you mean the customer will like it. However, in most cases, the founders liking the name has little bearing on how good the name resonates with customers, that's what's important (read pg's discussion about their initial agony when their cool name for their startup was taken, their original choice sounds horrible) . I think you should provide a methodology, even a simplistic one, to help people decide which one is better.

* If you don't have a portfolio yet, which I assume since you say this was a weekend project, do analysis on 5-10 company names (if YC the better), and explain why they are good using your methodology. This will give you credibility. Show that you are the expert in this field. Right now, it looks like another name guessing site.