Dangers of Coffee Shop Entrepreneurism

Haha, I don't doubt it. If they're not here, they should be!

What kind of lesson, that his friends like to see him distressed? If he was confident in a 0% chance of anyone buying it, it's probably pretty obscure and he was likely right that no one would register it (except for you, apparently).

Anyways, the story in the OP is awesome. Those little coffee shop meetings where a bunch of professionals take up half the furniture and chatter away endlessly annoy everyone at my local coffee spot, so I appreciate this bit of "coffee shop entrepreneurship".

Talk about incredible stuff... That was almost unreal if it was not imagined by someone.

But yes, in general, even walls have ears - so it's wise be cautious on what you are talking about anywhere, even in a place that you think to be private.

Domain names end up being how big of a factor for online success?

"It depends."

If you're building a site and have lots of capital to spend on branding and promoting it, the domain name probably isn't that important.

Though it's good to keep in mind that a name that is complete nonsense relative to what the site actually does is always going to be a handicap no matter how much money you spend. People simply won't remember it. Example: Zillow. I use it maybe three times a year but always have trouble remembering the name. eBay wasn't such a great name, either, but they have a massive marketing budget the likes of which you and I will never see.

If you're building a site on a shoestring, the domain name can be crucial.

Here's a good test: Pretend you're driving up Highway 101 between Mountain View and San Mateo, California. Let's say your startup gets some funding and you want to put up a billboard. People are whizzing by in their cars at 70 mph. No way can they make a note. Your only option is to be memorable.

There was such a startup that put up a series of ads. The company name was Lunarr. Without consulting Google, can you tell me what their product was?

No?

Would it help if I showed you one of their ads?



How about now, what's their product?

It turns out the product was a way to "flip" a web page over and make notes on "the back", then share those notes with other users.

But after months of these enigmatic messages, Lunarr had only signed up about 7000 users. It shut down, but not before leaving one last message.



There are great lessons here for Internet marketers. One is for heaven's sake, pick an evocative domain name. Another is don't try to be so clever. A third is maybe you should find out if people really want to write on the back of web pages before spending so much money.

fLufF
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Yes and yes...good point. Public business meetings = bad idea.

'Hipsters'... Is that what we used to call 'Yuppie Scum', or are 'Hipsters' a subset of 'Yuppie Scum'? Are the terms related?