news WIRED: Why .Com is the Venture Capital Community’s Power Player

[Doron Vermaat]

THE VENTURE CAPITAL (VC) community is well aware of the value of a great domain name. In a recent essay, Paul Graham, venture capitalist and co-founder of the Y Combinator seed capital firm said, “The problem with not having the .com of your name is that it signals weakness.” It’s no wonder that 100 percent of the top 20 Y Combinator companies by valuation have the .com of their name.

Recent data shows that .com is the most popular domain extension for funded startups. That’s because its global recognition and unmatched security, stability and reliability lends instant credibility to brands associated with a .com domain name.

>>> READ MORE

 

[campout]

“The problem with not having the .com of your name is that it signals weakness.”

That's it exactly.

There are also issues of memorability and non-familiarity, but the most fundamental issue is that non-.com's signal weakness.

 

[Doron Vermaat]

That's it exactly.

There are also issues of memorability and non-familiarity, but the most fundamental issue is that non-.com's signal weakness.

I mostly agree except for when you're a B2B company targeting the tech sector you can get away with a short, one word .io or .co domain and for NGO's a .org should also do just fine. Edit, let's not forget the ccTLDs

 

[equity78]

It should be noted this was sponsored content. I agree with the article but it was paid for by Verisign.

 

[Doron Vermaat]

It should be noted this was sponsored content. I agree with the article but it was paid for by Verisign.

Thanks for pointing that out Ray.

 

[Rhaegarys]

Too bad the BC firms don't micro invest on the domain development industry. If an idea is good enough to blow their mind but if you are a domainer you have two choice s spend your time marketing or work freelance until you drop dead of frustration. The internet has morphed from an equalizing platform to a race to the money competition few of us can win. Gratz vc firms u just killed an industry. Who are the opinion makers in the internet domain space?

 

[dordomai]

It should be noted this was sponsored content. I agree with the article but it was paid for by Verisign.

Good that you pointed that out.

What I don't understand why no one mentions this when it comes to .vip and many other recent nGTLD news in the media.

We have a lot of VIP hype in the forum because of a recent masterclass about VIP in China sponsored by Minds and Machines.

They take the information at face value and base their investment decisions on that.

 

[Alessandro Couteau]

That's it exactly.

There are also issues of memorability and non-familiarity, but the most fundamental issue is that non-.com's signal weakness.

That or someone is trying to change the way the world thinks ... In some cases it's working wether investors want to believe it or not ...

It doesn't work like magic. No one ever said in the forums here you would make a hundred thousand dollars much less a million dollars in one year ... It takes time. Patience.

 

[campout]

That or someone is trying to change the way the world thinks ... In some cases it's working wether investors want to believe it or not ...

It doesn't work like magic. No one ever said in the forums here you would make a hundred thousand dollars much less a million dollars in one year ... It takes time. Patience.

Graham's point (I think) is not about what will be in the future, but what is now. And right now today, a non-.com still tends to signal weakness.

Will new gTLD's eventually win by death by a thousand cuts? I think they might, because there's nothing really inherent (and eternal) in .com. But to talk of "patience" is only relevant for someone who is invested in new G's and is hoping for them to stick in the future rather than someone who's just trying to tell the truth about how things actually are right now.

 

[Joe Styler]

This comment gets quoted a lot in the industry in various forms and while I will not disagree that com is a very important extension Jeff Sass at .club will always point out that Y Combinator's biggest exit ever was not a .com but a .tv twitch.tv look it up 970 million according to the Wall Street Journal, http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital...witch-gives-y-combinator-its-biggest-ma-exit/

 

[GoKaizen]

You left out the part about Twitch.Com forwarding to Twitch.TV Joe.

 

[Joe Styler]

You left out the part about Twitch.Com forwarding to Twitch.TV Joe.

Amazon bought the .com after the acquisition of twitch.tv so they paid y-cominator for the .tv domain as the main domain and then after that purchase they acquired the .com. As I said I am not saying in my reply that the .com is not a very important extension, obviously amazon thought enough of it to buy it as well.

 

[168]

good points Joe I have seen different versions of this info in the past.

"DNGeek.com analyzed 2,195 newly funded startups that raised a combined $10 billion in funding in the first two quarters of 2016, and reported that .com was used by 73.7 percent of those startups."
Could also be stated in this way, in the first half of 2016 26% or 3 billion in funding went to something other than .com New Trend?!!!