The Domain Name Race

Wow... I underestimated the saturation of the autos industry. The first hurdle of starting this business was to lock down a catchy .com name. After trying every combination under the Sun and have it be already taken, one can only be discouraged by the competition.

While I know .net and dot everything else for domain names are pretty much worthless, I've decided to start this off with a .net name. The .com version of the name I want is currently taken but not used for a commercial or personal site so maybe there's a chance that the guy will sell it. Slight chance... but still a chance.

So last week after picking out a domain, I posted a job on Guru.com and hired a designer to come up with a logo based off of the name. While the guy seemed professional, timely delivery was just not in the books. Can I really blame him considering what I paid? Maybe not... Granted he said due to all the weather and storms, he had a power outage which delayed first draft for a couple of days. However, second and third draft seemed to be pacing slower than he promised which is annoying.

Business Lesson #1: Under promise and over deliver. Although we (internally) set a due date for the project for mid September when seeking RFP's and wouldn't have minded a delivery date around that time; the proposal from the hired designer said everything would be done by the end of August.

We're now a few days away and I feel like we're not even close to the end and of course there have been no updates!!! Note to all contractors: If you don't think you can complete a task by some crazy schedule set by you, then set my expectations correctly. You were hired for your creative skills, not your speed. What would have been a perfect feedback will now have some scars mainly due to the fact that my expectations had been raised and they've not been met.

Tangent... the above reminds me of a story about a sign that someone I know had saw.

We can do fast work, cheap work & quality work. However, you can only pick 2 out of the 3 choices.
If you want it fast and cheap, it won't have quality.
If you want it cheap and high quality, it won't be fast.
If you want it fast and high quality, it won't be cheap.

I guess I picked option number two.

edit: btw, does anyone reading this have a good autos domain name they'd like to donate or sell?