Hey all, I'd love some marketing / growth people to comment on this:<p>I can't seem to get any one of the .com domain that I want, mostly because of squatters. The .co domains seem to be available. How much of a disadvantage is it to not own the .com domain?
IMHO you're at a disadvantage if you spend too much time on non-core elements of a product.<p>So, if the name/domain/brand is crucial to the success of the company (if it's a clothing line for example), then maybe it's worth spending a lot of time brainstorming until you find a .com that works.<p>But, if the core value-proposition of your product has little to do with the public-facing branding, then your time is probably best spent elsewhere, and you should just buy whatever domain is available ASAP and move on to other things.
I depends.
But as others have said I would try to get creative with the name to find a .com for it. PG recently wrote a post on changing your name but I don't agree with it 100%. <a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/name.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.paulgraham.com/name.html</a><p>However if your product is a mainly accessible via a mobile app then I would use the .co or other clean TLDs. For example, Vine is still using .co and it's a massive success.
I would look at alternative names that you can get the .com for. A .com is like the "The" badge on Amazon or a "Verified" check on Twitter: it also gives you much better odds of not having to deal with trademark disputes.<p>For some tips on naming, see my Trello board of notes on naming and domains: <a href="https://trello.com/b/TekvQe5x/naming-and-domains" rel="nofollow">https://trello.com/b/TekvQe5x/naming-and-domains</a>
Unless you own a super common word or group of words as .com; it doesn't make too much of a difference. Only enthusiasts will use a smaller service, regardless of its usefulness and will be ok googling for a domain or entering a less common TLD. Wait to see if it develops and if it does, use your profits to buy the right domain for more casual consumers.<p>I'd say best you can do is make your site https and responsive and make sure you have all relevant SEO data to increase its indexing performance.