
![Choosing a domain name using Morphology and
Phonetics](/images/uploads/2011/02/Morphology-300x98.png "Choosing a domain name using Morphology and Phonetics")Anyone
buying a domain who is concerned about competitors or domain name
squatters sneaking in should consider:

​1. The homophones (i.e. same pronunciation) for the prefix (if any),
root and suffix (if any) of the domain name (e.g. fone and phone) 2. The
plural form or singular form for nouns (e.g. -tune and -tunes) 3. Other
tenses of verbs (e.g. -stack and -stacking (gerund) or -stacked (past
participle)) 3. The hyphenated form for compound words

I've paid 3x for a plural version of a domain that someone grabbed after
I'd just bought the singular form. Unfortunately consumers tended
towards the plural form when recalling the name which made the purchase
necessary. That's another strategy domain squatters may use against you
when you purchase a domain name - they see the registration change, know
that the name is worth something to someone and so they immediately grab
the plural form.

A good domain name finding tool would include phonetic and morphological
tools to help you find domains where all relevant forms are available
(startup idea for someone).


Domain Name buying tip: Know your phonetics and morphology


Last week I received a spam email. The interesting thing about it was
that it was sent to an email address that I used for only one purpose:
signing up to a local startup's service. By using a unique email address
for every site (and a catch-all to funnel them into one email box) I can
track each email that I hand out. I hadn't even used that particular
site since signing up and there was no recent email to or from them in
my inbox.

But since I received spam on that email address I can conclude one of
three things:

​1) My own computer has been compromised - unlikely since I would likely
receive spam on all my email addresses if that were so. 2) Someone at
that startup sold the customer database to someone else 3) That startup
has had their security compromised and someone has stolen their customer
database.

And so to the question:

> What measures do you put in place in your startup to protected your
> customer database? Do you seed your customer database with fake names
> and emails so you can track how it is being used?

Seeding customer lists to track usage has been standard operating
procedure for direct mailing lists for decades. Any list that you rent
to mail to will have seeds in it that the list owner uses to track each
mailing to ensure that it has been paid for.

**As a startup, if you aren't seeding your customer database in this
way, you should be.**


Protecting your customer database by including fake people!


Finding a good, short, memorable domain name is tough, not because
there's a shortage of short phrases in the English language but because
there are so many domain squatters sitting on millions of suitable
domain names.

Two services I've used that work quite well are:-

[http://www.nxdom.com](http://www.nxdom.com) This is a local startup
with a very simple one-page site that helps find available short domain
names.

[http://justdropped.com](http://justdropped.com) This one shows domain
names that have recently been cancelled and a therefore available
without having to pay any premium. At some point someone thought these
names were worth having so occasionally there's an interesting one
there.


Finding good, short domain names


Here are your hosting options:-

**Dedicated server in colo facility:** Highest up-front cost, you need
to be operations person too, Lowest latency, best performance per \$,
entire machine is yours so blazingly fast when lightly loaded, can run
virtual servers, cannot scale up or down rapidly based on demand.
Typically given 5+ IP addresses so you have lots of flexibility in
hosting multiple sites on the server.

**Dedicated server rented:** No up-front cost, higher cost per month
than dedicated, easier to upgrade to new hardware.  Someone else's
problem when it breaks. Typically come with a single IP address.

**Virtual Servers:** Can add new server instances / environments easily.
 You can run these on your own server or rent them from someone else.
 Great for load balancing to get the most out of your hardware.
Typically somewhat limited in how much RAM you get.

**Cloud Servers:** Just like having a virtual server but you can scale
up or down easily to add new instances.  Highest cost per CPU cycle.
 You get what you pay for but no more - even if the server you are on
has spare CPU cycles you are typically limited to the fraction you are
paying for.  Shared network, virtual disk, ... means it will never be as
fast as a dedicated server.

In the end after trying cloud servers, virtual servers and dedicated
servers I went with the first option: dedicated high performance servers
with SSD drives in them hosted in a colo-facility. This setup outperform
all the other options significantly providing lower latency (better
response times) and the ability to run multiple virtual server instances
on them for complete isolation between services, and in the long run it
will be cheaper also. Later when we need to scale up or down based on
time of day we will probably combine this approach with some extra cloud
servers but at the quietest times of day I would expect to have no cloud
instances running.


Startups: Here are your hosting options


[![A Good Approach to Email
Opt-out](/images/uploads/2010/04/AGoodOptOutApproach3-300x287.png "A Good Approach to Email Opt-out")](/images/uploads/2010/04/AGoodOptOutApproach3.png)I
came across this opt-out screen today.  It's one of the best examples
I've seen recently of an opt-out screen done right.

First, they try to fix one of the key reasons people opt out of email:
they are still interested but they want less email.

Then they give you the option to really just quit completely.

Then they give you the option to change your email address.

It really looks like they have done their homework, presenting these in
the order that most likely applied whilst also trying to keep you as a
recipient.

Anyone implementing email notifications for their startup should also
take a look at [CAN-SPAM](http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/business/ecommerce/bus61.shtm).


Email opt-out: Here is a great example of how to do it right


I was asked today how to go about defining "cost of sales" for a
software startup, here's what I wrote:

From the perspective of constructing a useful financial model for your
business the key issue is Fixed Costs vs. Variable Costs.  If you sell
more units / licenses does the cost scale accordingly (either linearly
or step-wise)?  Items like support, bandwidth, EC2 instance hours,
commissions, ... might all fall into this category.  But if you only
need just one email server ever then it's clearly a fixed cost.  As a
startup you *might* want to model cost of sales as zero - you've bought
a server, you have bandwidth to spare, nobody is on commission, ... but
eventually you'll get to the point where these things do scale with the
number of customers and should be modeled as variable costs.  "Cloud
computing" can also help move fixed costs to variable costs and can
reduce your *burn rate* early on.

Separating variable costs from fixed costs allows you to figure out
your *gross margin*, to understand how the business will scale and to
find your *break-even* point.  If you have a negative gross margin and
no way to make it positive later you will never make a profit (*net
margin*) so quit today!  If you have a positive gross margin, how large
do you need to scale your customer base to cover your fixed costs too
and thus reach break-even?   Of course nothing is ever that simple: you
will still have some 'fixed' costs that move up in steps as you grow
your sales making the break-even analysis slightly harder.

Constructing a financial model using "Variable Cost Accounting" like
this helps you understand the business and helps you compare it to other
businesses using standard ratios and terms.


The Blog of Ian Mercer.

Topic: startups

Domain Name buying tip: Know your phonetics and morphology

Protecting your customer database by including fake people!

Finding good, short domain names

Startups: Here are your hosting options

Email opt-out: Here is a great example of how to do it right

Defining Cost of Sales for a SaaS or Software business