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In the world of domaining, typo is usually seen in a negative light. While a lot of companies start off by getting a cheaper option of the domain name available, because they do not have the kind of investment required for getting the perfect domain name, they soon upgrade to a better name as and when funding arrives or when the business takes off.
Similar is the case with Housing.com which started with some other name, and later, went on to purchase the category-killer, their future defining highly brandable name Housing.com for a whopping $500,000.
Now, Housing.com is one-off examples of startups starting with something and upgrading to a better name. Even if they are brandable. There is no parallel that can be drawn to the natural spelling of an appealing domain (no matter what kind of tweak you may). For example, someone may not have the budget to buy ledger.com and maybe go for Ledgerz.com or Ledgerr.com but then, ledger.com has its own appeal (won't you agree?).
This brings us to the topic for this post - One of the most popular websites for freelancers and for people to get anything done (from finding cheap domain names, to SEO to getting birthday videos developed, Fiverr has carved out a niche for itself and I suppose, it is a multi-million dollar monthly revenue business.
While Fiverr is a brandable name and I can't deny it, it never chose to rebrand or upgrade the business to Fiver.com, removing at extra 'r' at the end of the word, thereby giving it a greater appeal, sounding more natural and maybe avoiding a lot of typos that may happen as a result of people typing in Fiver instead of the rr at the end.
Now, when I check for Fiver.com, I see that it forwards to Fiverr.com, which brings me to the question for today:
Why did Fiverr never choose to rebrand to Fiver even though it has the domain name?
I see a sale of $70,000 for Fiver(dot)com on Namebio in 2011, which means that they have had this domain for pretty long.
I believe that this has a lesson for all of us as to how the marketing department thinks, when branding or planning the positioning of their product/services or the company itself! Understanding this may help us make better decisions as an investor, and maybe reach out to the right people/pitch in a better way and close better sales.
Thoughts are invited!
Inviting veterans like @AbdulBasit.com @Bob Hawkes @Nikul Sanghvi and others to share their thought process on this.
Similar is the case with Housing.com which started with some other name, and later, went on to purchase the category-killer, their future defining highly brandable name Housing.com for a whopping $500,000.
Now, Housing.com is one-off examples of startups starting with something and upgrading to a better name. Even if they are brandable. There is no parallel that can be drawn to the natural spelling of an appealing domain (no matter what kind of tweak you may). For example, someone may not have the budget to buy ledger.com and maybe go for Ledgerz.com or Ledgerr.com but then, ledger.com has its own appeal (won't you agree?).
This brings us to the topic for this post - One of the most popular websites for freelancers and for people to get anything done (from finding cheap domain names, to SEO to getting birthday videos developed, Fiverr has carved out a niche for itself and I suppose, it is a multi-million dollar monthly revenue business.
While Fiverr is a brandable name and I can't deny it, it never chose to rebrand or upgrade the business to Fiver.com, removing at extra 'r' at the end of the word, thereby giving it a greater appeal, sounding more natural and maybe avoiding a lot of typos that may happen as a result of people typing in Fiver instead of the rr at the end.
Now, when I check for Fiver.com, I see that it forwards to Fiverr.com, which brings me to the question for today:
Why did Fiverr never choose to rebrand to Fiver even though it has the domain name?
I see a sale of $70,000 for Fiver(dot)com on Namebio in 2011, which means that they have had this domain for pretty long.
I believe that this has a lesson for all of us as to how the marketing department thinks, when branding or planning the positioning of their product/services or the company itself! Understanding this may help us make better decisions as an investor, and maybe reach out to the right people/pitch in a better way and close better sales.
Thoughts are invited!
Inviting veterans like @AbdulBasit.com @Bob Hawkes @Nikul Sanghvi and others to share their thought process on this.
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