Pre-branded domain names for startups

No! A $7.99 domain name and what looks like to me a $99 logo thrown is not a steal or a good deal. Let me come at this way: Can I get the domain off of you for %80 off the $250 price ? I presume that the answer is no, because it's a lipstick on pig product designed to glorify domain squatting.<p>All the power to you for finding a niche market, but suckers be warned that it's highway robbery!<p>edit: downvoted within 2 minutes of posting this without a reply. i guess you guys were looking for a AAA+++ , would buy again review. what a joke<p>edit2: Sorry for coming off as harsh, but this sort of domain related shit has been plaguing the net for a long time

I'm not sure I agree that this is such a 'superb idea' ...<p>As a founder, I want to personalise my domain, and design, and that means coming up with different concepts, and searching whois until I find a good match that's available ... The design then has to represent what the product is about in a non-generic way ... The designs on this site are far too generic for my taste<p>I can't imagine myself going to that page with a concept and saying 'AHA, that's exactly what I wanted' ... Possibly it could in reverse if someone is looking for inspiration for their next startup ...

I love it. It's like themeforest for startups. Don't listen to the haters.<p>I have a lot of ideas I put on the backburner 'cause I'm busy with other things. The value in this isn't just the domain, it's the "packaging" of the entire first part of the process. I do this on themeforest too.. browse landing pages for one startup, but maybe buy a landing page that happens to be suited to another random startup idea, if I saw it.<p>Good luck to you, sirs / madams.

You should seriously consider reserving handles on twitter and other services and providing it to the user of your service, else a squatter can easily register handles on these services for the domains you list on your website.<p>I am not too comfortable with this service though, i don't like the thought of you squatting away hundreds of good startup names. Partly because the price point of $250 sounds very expensive to me, at least as someone sitting in India.

I despise the blatant profiteering of domainers - they're sucking value out of a system that in some sense should "belong" to society, and providing nothing in return.<p>But these prices aren't completely unreasonable, they come with (generally quite decent) logos, and they would save a startup countless hours of faffing over domains.

This is domain squatting pure and simple. Just because it's dressed up with a pretty design doesn't change the fact that these guys are the exact sort of bottom feeders that we should be blackballing from our industry.<p>Flagged.

The amount of controversy here means that you must be on to something.<p>The absolute worst thing that can happen is that you show your idea to someone and they're totally indifferent.<p>That some people love this and others hate it, and that you've generated hundreds of comments, shows that this is worth pursuing.<p>Bookmarked for next time I get stuck thinking of names. My usual process is to think of an idea I think is great, spend 2-3 days thinking of names, set up a domain and landing page. Saving that 2-3 days for $250 is something I'd seriously consider.<p>Often these ideas are impulses that consume me for a week or two, then I get bored of them or find someone else who's already doing a great job of filling the need.<p>I would experiment with pricing - at $250 it's not an impulse buy. It is a fantastic price for someone who is seriously starting a company, but I have a hunch that people like me (who have a day job but regularly come up with ideas they love and obsess over for a week or two, that then fizzles out to nothing) is a larger market and has potential for repeat purchases. If you can tap into that you may find more revenue, cashing in on the empty dreams of dilettantes like me :)

I like the concept but I'm not a fan of the domains you have now. Can I suggest you open it up to consignment for anyone with a domain? So you increase the value of my domain mydomain.com by giving it a brand / landing page and for that I agree to give you $250 or some percentage of the sale.

This is a really great idea. One of the things which young startups often spend too much time on is picking a perfect name + brand. This is a great way to get started.<p>You can always iterate later if necessary, but this gives you something to use NOW, and put the discussion away and get back to real work.<p>Also, I love the layout. Very straightforward. I currently subscribe to the <a href="http://justdropped.com/" rel="nofollow">http://justdropped.com/</a> mailing list which has daily domain names that he buys as they expire.. I could see something similar for your site, but with logos attached.<p>Also, a NewsLetter would be a great way for me to keep up with the (weekly?) new designs you add to the store.<p>Keep it up!

The moravo logo[1] is a blatant copy of the Aperture Science logo[2] with a couple of segments coloured Portal orange and blue.<p>[1]: <a href="http://stylate.com/portfolio/moravo-com/" rel="nofollow">http://stylate.com/portfolio/moravo-com/</a><p>[2]: <a href="http://half-life.wikia.com/wiki/Aperture_Science" rel="nofollow">http://half-life.wikia.com/wiki/Aperture_Science</a>

This would presumably make a great party game for YC meetups. You deal out a card with the logo on it and then everyone in the circle has to describe what they think the company or product is.<p>I'm trying to figure out what "TweetBump" is. The obvious answer is: It's Twitter, plus Bump. You wander around a party bumping phones with folks, and every time you do that both of you automatically Tweet "I bumped into [X] at [Awesome Location Y]".<p>(No obvious business model, though. ;)<p>(And I'm not a Bump user, so I wouldn't exactly be surprised to learn that the app has already supported this for years. ;)

I like this a lot.<p>Sometimes you can spend 3-20 hours trying to figure out a name, domain, and branding. I'd pay a couple hundred bucks to skip that step. I wish this existed all those previous times I was stuck grinding on names!

Instead of leaving the godaddy parked page, maybe you should put the logo on the page, with a "This domain is for sale at stylate.com" link

My goodness! A startup with a purpose, a product, an interesting business model... and no ads. Is this a freakin' mirage?<p>Love the fixed $250 price.<p>Great work guys.

It's a bit more expensive but there's also <a href="http://brandbucket.com" rel="nofollow">http://brandbucket.com</a>.

I picked one domain, parabis.com and typed that domain name into the address bar of my browser. It is for sale, but the asking price is $2,000. Odd that it's going for $250 at stylate.com.

There are some lovely domains in here. Very cheap in comparison to their worth! It sucks that when this post becomes more popular, most of them (if not all) will be taken.<p>Serves me right for having worked almost 4 years for a very large mobile games developer here in Argentina and having seen 40% of my paycheck being eaten away by inflation in the last few years.<p>I simply can't afford these domains, I would have loved to have them turned into full blown sites, just for fun!<p>Congratulations to the people that purchase them... please treat them nice :)

I misread the price when I looked the first time. I thought it said $2,500. I didn't bat an eye.<p>$250 it too cheap.

Most of these domains are names of types you can easily find using tools like nametoolkit, and purchase for $10.<p>Nonetheless, this is a superb idea, which can become easily profitable.

Looks like a great idea, very clever, but I'm not sure about the pricing. I would love to use something like this as a small developer, but $250 is a bit much for a domain and a logo given my small-time budget. On the other hand, companies with a larger budget would probably just have something like this done in-house. So I guess I'd ask: who do you see being the target market here?

That's a symptom that startups possibly became a new fashion.<p>Now the following is a bit offtopic, but the thoughts are what I have in mind for quite a time.<p>Look how many startups are there around whose only purpose is to connect or extract information from other startups whose again are build on the top some previous startups. Where is a stop for this? Where's the creativity? Where's the thinking of making things that people <i>really</i> need?<p>This looks like a rant but please think of it analytically:<p>1. People start to use product A because it fills some temporary niche.<p>2. The conditions of the niche vanish, but the product is still used, the user base grows because of inertia, marketing, whatever.<p>3. As the initial conditions dissolved the product A isn't exactly what people need at the moment, so there emerge products B &#38; C built on the top of A with even more fragile conditions: only to support momentary lack of desired features in A.<p>Any similarity with existing startup scene?<p>Well, what if all these products were build based on some more <i>unconditional</i> needs of the users in the first place?

I'm so-so on this concept.<p>I'm sure it'll be a reasonable success and generate you some cash, but on the other hand, seeing someone holding a creative grab bag of interesting domains and concepts that they're only hoping to flip for a profit makes me uneasy.<p>There are a lot of clever, interesting names here though, and I can definitely see someone who has a concept without a a title seeing a lot of value in paying $250 for something like this. It's more than likely a hell of a lot cheaper than most domain squatters (which isn't exactly what i'd call this) would charge for the domain alone.<p>My major fear - the owner of this content might find someone who uses a similar name as one of their concepts-for-sale, and attempt to sue them without being able to properly verify if said person actually ripped them off, or just themselves came up with the idea coincidentally. It's one of those slippery slope endeavors.<p>I'm torn over whether I like "Feastable", "WhamBox", or "PixelKeg" the most. Definitely some great names here.

I'm just impressed to see a decent sounding, 5 letter .com domain for $250 (Vueta) - tempted to snap that one up myself.

Yes, you are paying a premium. Yes, they are making a profit on this. But hey, they are solving a pain point, why not charge?<p>I just paid $1650 for a domain. That was a ton of money for me, but when someone already has it, you don't have a lot of leverage.<p>If I was starting another company, I would use this in a second. fueza.com anyone?

This could be an interesting tool - along with Unbouce, LaunchRock or KickoffLabs - when doing MVP web sites.

This is quite a good idea, and the site itself is very nice and easy to navigate. Congratulations.<p>Seeing a domain name with an MVL (Minimum Viable Logo, haha) is really much better for imagining how strong it could be than just seeing it listed in text.<p>However, I found the selection too limited. So I think an interesting model for you would become a marketplace: 1- invite squatters with domains to sell to post their names on your site 2- invite designers to freely create logos to un-logoed domains 3- sell this wider selection to your audience, sharing the revenue with both squatters and designers.<p>Good luck - with more selection, I would easily find the service worthwhile at that price point.

I think this is really good for people in certain situations, e.g., you're going to pitch an important event with a new idea and you don't have a name or a logo. The design is nice and clean. My only suggestion would be adding share buttons.

Until these pre-branded domains are actually bought and used, it seems like such a waste. There have been so many domains I would have loved to purchase that are blocked by some "value-adding" gimmick.<p>At first, it's interesting. But think about it. Pre-purchasing domains throwing a brand on top is really as bad as implementing a software/web application without doing any market research. Chances are it's really not what people want. Unlike dead software/web apps, however, these domain names become worse than useless by block others from making something great.

I think this is cool, and if I saw one that suited a project I was doing, I'd drop $250 for it no problem. You can't please everyone, but some people will think this is cool, and that's all you need.

I like this idea. I think for smaller companies that can't afford a graphic design artist and a whole kit for their company, this is an attractive, fairly inexpensive option. It also has a kick start element to it. At the beginning lots of companies spend time and effort on their branding when they should be concentrating on their product, marketing and growth. Pre-branded domains give them a starting point to jump off from and is a timesaver.

These are not branded domain names. They are brandable domain names with a sample logo. A logo is not a brand.<p>The title here is misleading but the site does a good job explaining what they are offering. And I think that they are providing good value. When you are starting out the last thing you need to do is waste a lot of time and money on a name and logo. With this service, you just pick one and forget about it then move onto more important matters.

There's definitely a market for this, and it saddens me.<p>Choosing a name is supposed to be difficult. You're supposed to brainstorm for hours, bounce ideas off your friends and second guess yourself. Having to go through this pain to get to the right name adds character to the business through authenticity.<p>Choosing a name from a list of pre-created brands, clever or not, is a cop out.<p>Best of luck, though. I'm sure you'll do well.

I think it's a very genuine idea. I don't think your intention is to squat on domains, I think it is to help people with the non-trivial process of finding names and logos. If nothing else, yours is just a great place for people to get ideas of their own. $250 is very reasonable.

Just in case someone wants one of your names but doesn't know of your site, it would be a great idea to have some quick info (link and price) under the 'get info' section of domain registrars like godaddy (since thats where the majority of people will be looking).

The names of the domains are more creative then the logos.Most names sound like a mid size start up website but the logos very high quality clipart.<p>I think they should create a tool that does this name and custom logo creation then doing it themselves. Dont see how they sell much

The vuaro logo is amusing. Nothing communicates usability and ease of mind as well as a labyrinth :-)<p>Other than that I am not that impressed, the logos look pretty generic/standard. Maybe that kind of thing could work for small businesses (like restaurants), though.

I don't think it's good for startups. A startup is something that you spend time on, launch, test, connect... It needs more than a $250 logo, but a complete strategy for launching.<p>But what about small web apps? This should work very well for them.

If a hypothetical person (not a HN user) thinks of a domain name and find that these guys are squatting it, is not interested in the design, he'll be thinking they're domain squatting assholes. He'll be right.

A lot of people are talking about domain squatting.<p>I own LunchMeet.com and paid 5 figures for it when at the time I intended to develop a startup.<p>Now I want to sell it. Is it squatting if I am just trying to get my money back?

They should make sure to grab the twitter user name too, that's an important part of branding. I noticed that some of the twitter user names for the brands are free - how long will that last?

This is a terrific idea.<p>Feature request: I'd love to subscribe to categories and get updates when you add new domains. E.g. "Please email me when you have a new domain related to health or hardware."

It looks like someone might have already nabbed unhacker.com: <a href="http://stylate.com/portfolio/unhacker-com/" rel="nofollow">http://stylate.com/portfolio/unhacker-com/</a>

Clever. Do you scale the prices with number of clicks?

This is an okay option but there are other ways to get good cheap domains. The main problem with these domains is that they have no history.

I'll visit the site if not to buy a logo, but a great place to start when thinking about a name for a startup. Good food for thought.

I think this is great, if only because it shows you don't need to name your startup something that ends in -li, -ly, and -r.

Would love to see the Twitter name included as well. That's a must-have for some businesses. Otherwise, very nice site.

Is anyone else looking at the names/logos and coming up with business ideas to fit? This is great!

Quick question: why tags with no listings? ie. Health and Jobs. Did you create the tag list first?

Cool idea. Sometimes you would be willing to pay $250 to just get started.<p>If you have free time, do it yourself.

Had a similar idea with startup branding in a box.<p>Currently not using HeyBTW with Heybtw.com, heyb.tw, @heybtw

Curious, how many domain names did you sell since posting on HN? (If you dont mind answering)

This epitomizes what packaging and convenience to provide to a simple concept. Bravo!

Hey if you are looking for updates on Stylate.com, we just put up a twitter account---&#62;<p>@stylater

Risky business model since they aren't generic now.<p>Though a reverse hijacking costs more than $250

I think it's a great idea. They need way more domain names though (100x).

unfortunately a logo and 2-syllable odd-sounding name don't make a brand. however, as a cost-effective way to get a name and image, it's relatively pragmatic, especially for those who need it NOW.

Domain speculators selling at a fixed 'low' price.

To me, this is idea is akin to having a 3rd year creative writing student write a love poem for your bride-to-be.<p>Nicely designed site, though. Looks great.

Genius

Count me in the group that finds $250 to be a steal for this sort of thing. Your mission page is spot on.<p>The amount of time/headache it takes to brand a startup should not be underestimated. I think that the logos are fine to get started quickly but probably would all need to be changed in the long run, but no big deal, you've provided a decent enough starting point where it doesn't look shitty atleast and can allow someone to build their product while still having a decent looking thing on their site.<p>We spent several WEEKS of all hands on deck and lots of $$$ (Well over $10k for the domain name, banners, stationery etc) as a company rebranding from Transparent Financial Services (<a href="http://transfs.com" rel="nofollow">http://transfs.com</a>) to FeeFighters (<a href="http://feefighters.com" rel="nofollow">http://feefighters.com</a>). Had we started with something better than transfs from the beginning we wouldn't have had the problem (btw, it's still a pain in the ass because google apps doesn't let you change your name, so we still only have a duct tape solution where our google apps are still @transfs and I occasionally still send an email from @transfs - embarassing!). Plus, we lost all the google juice we'd built up over that time (which was considerable - TransFS was a PageRank 5 site and FeeFighters had none).<p>At that point (post-funding), our time and pagerank were a lot more important than the money.<p>More on our rebrand that might be useful to people (you now have to pay to see the video but can download the audio and read transcript for free): <a href="http://mixergy.com/sean-harper-feefighters-intervie/" rel="nofollow">http://mixergy.com/sean-harper-feefighters-intervie/</a>

FYI: Brandstack.com has better logos. Speaking as a designer &#38; a person who's hired logo designers, as well as somebody who bought a logotype off Brandstack.com. I didn't use the name/identity but used it for my next SaaS, Charm.<p>That said - most people put too much weight on a name, but it's really important to be sure the name is A) memorable (this doesn't mean weird or unique), B) easy to spell and C) easy to Google.<p>Names that are weird spellings or made-up words are NOT memorable, basically because they don't fit into a ready-made slot in the readers' head. (Plus if they are hard to spell, you're SOL.)<p>It's far better to have a memorable name like "Charm" and then append crap to the end of the domain (e.g. CharmHQ.com) to ensure you can grab the domain, than it is to have a short, unique name where you get the regular name.com.<p>This conclusion is based on my extensive reading of cogsci research about memory, word association, etc.

while I am sure that someone out there can use the service, taking the time to come up with your own name and design should not be given up lightly. I do take issue with the "branding" implication that these domains purportedly have. Before starting my own company I spent years in an ad agency, and I can tell you that unless there is an unusual amount of serendipity involved you probably won't find a name and image that fits perfectly with your company goals and vision. A brand is a promise to the public which conveys your intent your services and your commitment to your product. Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Disney all do this very well for example. If you're not a designer I can see gaining design inspiration from this site. But in my opinion, take a little time try to come up with your own ideas to implement.

Ugh! These are just glorified domain sitters disguised as a trendy start-up. Please don't give these people your money - they ruin innovation by taking up massive amounts of domains then selling them for huge amounts. These people RUIN the internet.

Now all we need is a place where you can put brandless but fully implemented tech solutions. e.g. "sms to e-mail technology".<p>That brings us to the final piece of the puzzle: a site where you can invest in a "team" that has no idea and no technology.<p>Then the guys who walk around with bags of money evaluating teams and business propositions will finally be able to just mix and match to whatever they want, thinking (as they already do) that they're the ones adding all the value. Which, to be fair, under capitalism they probably do.

I tried 5 of your domains and they all point to Godaddy parked pages. You should really place a lander on them - which shows the logo and either a link to purchase the domain or a contact form to get in touch. Personally, I would add something like <a href="http://themeforest.net/item/hanbai-multilanguage-domain-for-sale/151728" rel="nofollow">http://themeforest.net/item/hanbai-multilanguage-domain-for-...</a> which only costs $5 but even a logo and a link would be better than a Godaddy parked page which your domains currently have.

Now combine this with some programmably generated content with a landing page, just change out variables like "social", "local", "recommendations", and "analytics". And then fire off auto-generated submissions to Y-Combinator, TechStars, and a slide deck to Sequoia.<p>You could condense the entire Silicon Valley startup funding scene into a single transaction.

Needs more choices :)

WineCoffer sounds like Wank Offer