Show HN: I'll help you name your next startup/product for $50

[chaosmachine]

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

[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!

[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.

[jdp23]

Agreed. Eventually you want to get to something like http://www.thenameinspector.com/portfolio/

[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.

[huhtenberg]

> Finding a good name is hard. Finding an available domain name is even harder. Fortunately, we do both. Really well.

and then you probably meant to say...

> Here are the examples of the names we created:

followed by a list of really good names.

[dbro]

You could do more to get the potential customer comfortable with your product. 7 days and $50 is a lot to request of people, when there is competition for this service. It looks like one of those competing tools was created by you, http://impossibility.org . And for full disclosure, I am working on a domain name suggestion tool too: http://domainjig.com

During testing, I learned that many different opinions exist about what makes a good domain name. So while you may have settled the matter in your own head, you should take care to set expectations for your customers. A quick list of domains you think are good (perhaps also domains you think are not good) would help people see if they agree with your priorities.

For instance, I've heard differing opinions about the importance of these characteristics:

.com only vs other Top Level Domains

fewer characters vs simpler concepts

distribution mechanisms: SEO, ads, word of mouth

misspellings, or non-obvious spellings

similar style to recent successful startups

country-specific registrar risk

combine TLD letters into the word

non-english languages

adjective + noun

rhyming / puns

describes the product and/or a tone

As an example, this article describes priorities baked-in to the domain name suggestion tool at domainjig.com : http://domainjig.com/ideas/great-domain-names.html

btw, I like the eyebrow raise on mouseover.

[Ygor]

Did you read the naming philosophy section? This bit is interesting:

"Think about this scenario: You're at a party and someone asks you where you work. If you say "I work for shoes.com," it's pretty obvious that you work for a website that sells shoes.

But, if you say "I work for shoe.ly," then you have to go on to explain it to them: "It's a website that sells shoes." If you owned the .com, everyone would already know that."

[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.

[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.

[jwomers]

I much prefer Startupgods.com, it's interesting and memorable.

[chaosmachine]

I own PerfectAlias.com as well, but I felt StartupGods.com was more brandable, and would capture the attention of my target audience.

[wlievens]

I'm not sure. I would associate PerfectNameFinder.com somehow with "shady dating site" and that's no good.

[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...

[subbu]

Looks like the negative feedback about the name didn't stop someone from registering it. Any other good names?

[goombastic]

What's with the downvotes?! :)

[Charuru]

You have two vowels next to each other. Not good

[fezzl]

Have you heard of http://www.pickydomains.com?

[kgtm]

Thank you for this post, as it inspired me to charge myself $50 and come up with a name for a venture of mine. Just bought instarchive.com, neat!

[tomeric]

We were John's first customer. It was mostly an impulse buy because it was so cheap.

We have a restaurant guide in The Netherlands with a dutch name (eet.nu, translates to eat.now) with a big community of reviewers. We want to expand, so a international name is required.

If we brainstorm about names, it takes up a lot of time and we're never completely satisfied with the results. Naming stuff is hard, and it's even harder if English is not your first language.

After 4-5 hours of waiting, John gave us a list of 14 names (we got 7 bonus names!), and we picked the name HungryJury.com. Registered the .com and twitter account a few minutes ago.

We're pretty satisfied with the service and will probably use it again in the future!

[cnu]

You should also try to do twitter handle availability.

I think I saw a website long time back which checked a username availability across many websites and social networks. Can't remember it. Can someone help me out here.

[thehodge]

http://www.usernamecheck.com :)

[keiferski]

http://www.NameChk.com works well too.

[illdave]

http://knowem.com/ ?

[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...

[chaosmachine]

It was $20 for the first 7 customers, I've bumped it up to a more realistic $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!

[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.

[acabal]

I'd like to use this--I have a site I soft-launched recently that I'd like to rebrand--but without examples of names you've come up with in the past, it's a hard sell for me.

I know I can get my money back, but I really would rather not do that... I'd rather only make the buy if I can be reasonably sure I'll be happy, instead of having to make you work and then ask for my money back if it turns out we have separate styles.

[mise]

I spent $900 naming on a non-profit startup. Fk.

[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.

[hucker]

Will you be publishing any names you come up with, so potential customers can see for themselves if they like your "style" or not?