entrepreneurship & tech

How to tell if you’re a CEO (Domain Name Junkyard)

One thing I’ve noticed across the board in the tech world is that friends who gravitate to the CEO/Founder role get jazzed about Domain Names. We spend our time on Domai.nr, Dotster, 101Domains (or whatevs) searching for the perfect matches and cursing the squatters. We stay up late into the night or hop out of the shower in the morning dripping wet to check if these domains are available… and we have a junkyard of crappy domain purchases to show for it. @joshu opened a whole new world for us, as did the .io and .ly domains as the space got more crowded. I got into an auction over mar.co a few months ago until some friends talked me off the ledge. I went out for drinks with a friend and we laughed about (and lamented) the inbox walk of shame when all those domains start expiring a year later, reminding you of your feverish stupor. I know plenty of devs with domain yards, but there’s something particularly CEOish about them. I think it’s the vision thing - the possibility that’s implied by a name, the way it can invoke not just a placeholder but stand in for a whole concept. For me it’s also thinking about how it’ll look designed, colors, type, logos, sites, icons, email addresses etc, etc… and one more thing… getting there first.