Yesterday, you may have read the Inside Interview with Rob Rawson, the founder of Staff.com - a domain name that he acquired for $430,000. Within that interview, Rob described a test that he performed before the acquisition of staff.com, which he now carries out on every domain name purchase.
I wanted to share this method with you all in more detail as I think it's a unique and ingenious way of finding a brand name or domain name. Here's what Rob said during my interview:
Why not try it yourself? Here's how:
(1) Choose at least 15 domain names.
(2) Create a video where you read them aloud twice in a random order each time.
(3) Send the video to friends and family or use Amazon Mechanical Turk.
(4) Review the results to find the most memorable and easy to spell names for your business.
Watch Rob's original video in which he takes us through his Domain Test in full detail:
After following Rob's instructions on this video I managed to remember:
The Domain Test is an invaluable process that allows entrepreneurs to choose a brand name and domain name for their new venture. By getting a number of people to watch your video just once, you can gauge which one out of your list is the most memorable domain name. You can also check that your preferred name can be easily spelled after someone hears it spoken (often referred to as the radio test).
A good domain name can often give you leverage when starting a new company, as has been proven by Rob Rawson of Staff.com and many other company founders I've interviewed recently. I often take a look at recently funded companies and their domain names, and I believe that if many of those startups performed Rob's simple domain test, they would arrive at another name as many of the names that I come across are either not memorable, or worse, are difficult to spell or pronounce.
Thanks to Rob for allowing us to share the video with you all.
I wanted to share this method with you all in more detail as I think it's a unique and ingenious way of finding a brand name or domain name. Here's what Rob said during my interview:
I also did a test that I now do for all domain names which is that I made a video of 15 different domain names and repeated them two times in different orders in the video. Then I got 50 people to watch the videos and wait 1 minute and then report which domains they can remember and write them down. This is very interesting as it gives you information on how memorable the domain is in comparison with similar value domains (you can get the comparison domains from recent domain name sale history). Also you can see how often people will misspell the domain name.
Why not try it yourself? Here's how:
(1) Choose at least 15 domain names.
(2) Create a video where you read them aloud twice in a random order each time.
(3) Send the video to friends and family or use Amazon Mechanical Turk.
(4) Review the results to find the most memorable and easy to spell names for your business.
Watch Rob's original video in which he takes us through his Domain Test in full detail:
After following Rob's instructions on this video I managed to remember:
- MyStaff.com
- TimeManagement.com
- Data.me
- GlobalWorkforce.com
The Domain Test is an invaluable process that allows entrepreneurs to choose a brand name and domain name for their new venture. By getting a number of people to watch your video just once, you can gauge which one out of your list is the most memorable domain name. You can also check that your preferred name can be easily spelled after someone hears it spoken (often referred to as the radio test).
A good domain name can often give you leverage when starting a new company, as has been proven by Rob Rawson of Staff.com and many other company founders I've interviewed recently. I often take a look at recently funded companies and their domain names, and I believe that if many of those startups performed Rob's simple domain test, they would arrive at another name as many of the names that I come across are either not memorable, or worse, are difficult to spell or pronounce.
Thanks to Rob for allowing us to share the video with you all.
