I have the untapped market locally and the money to get the ball rolling. I have the experience and creativity. I have the confidence.
I also have a word _________ that has a wonderful ring to it for a company name. I've been set on this word for months. It came to me in one of those moments and I saw the light. As a startup one should strive to name and brand themselves with something intelligent and forward thinking. I have no doubt that I've accomplished that part.
However, it's not much of a surprise that the domain for the absolute word is taken. Not only is .com gone but so are a lot of popular domain extensions. Slight variants of the word go for $8000 - $65000. In my domain search I appended "go" to the front of the word. Still no luck. Greek origin - gone. French translation - also gone.
But I've found a few things that I would potentially settle on:
get_________.com
_________360.com
_________online.com
Then there's the intentional misspelling. Companies like Flickr, Reddit and Digg have all catapulted eccentric misspellings into the mainstream. KwikTrip is another example. We still read "quick" and don't think twice about it when stopping to buy gas.
I found a very short domain with a slightly misspelled version of the word. It follows suit to the digital media companies I listed above. I will never be as big as those online companies so my initial fear is putting that name on a business card and then losing people because of the misspelled word.
For instance, if I sat down with someone my dad's age, had their ear for 30 seconds and handed them my card they might look at the misspelling and immediately not take me seriously. I could win them over if they actually visited my domain but getting that response is a huge barrier.
I'm on the other side of the table handing you my card. Which would you take more seriously - full word company name + prefix/suffix in domain or an all around intentional misspelling with matching company name and domain?