Name Change, Game Change

How Facebook dropped TheFacebook.com, bought Facebook.com for $200K, later paid $8.5M for FB.com, and turned domain upgrades into brand infrastructure.

How Tesla spent over a decade and a reported $11M to move from TeslaMotors.com to the exact-match Tesla.com, and why the domain upgrade arrived right before the company dropped "Motors" from its name.

How Airbnb launched in 2008 as AirBed & Breakfast on AirBedAndBreakfast.com, then shortened to Airbnb.com in 2009 to escape the literal air-mattress name and become a scalable global brand.

How Dropbox launched on GetDropbox.com because Dropbox.com was taken, fought a trademark and squatting battle, and finally bought the exact-match Dropbox.com for a reported $300,000 in cash.

How Slack launched on SlackHQ.com because someone else had Slack.com, paid a reported $60,000 to buy the exact-match domain, dropped the "HQ" — and why @SlackHQ still survives on social to this day.

How Snapchat quietly bought Snap.com from Idealab for a reported $5M in 2014, then in September 2016 renamed itself Snap Inc., "a camera company," and let the short exact-match domain carry an identity bigger than any single app.

How a 2010 cease-and-desist forced UberCab to drop "Cab," how Uber bought Uber.com from Universal Music for 2% equity worth $107K, and why that domain upgrade became one of the most consequential trades in startup history.

How Box launched in 2005 on Box.net because Box.com was taken, pivoted from consumer storage to the enterprise, and in 2011 paid Digimedia close to $1 million for the exact-match Box.com — a .net-to-.com upgrade that landed right as the company became simply "Box."

How Buffer launched in 2010 on BufferApp.com because Buffer.com was taken, then spent 624 days acquiring the exact-match domain — even showing the seller its bank balance — and why a company famous for radical transparency stayed quiet on the one number everyone wanted: the price.

How Ctrip, China's largest online travel agency, acquired the premium Trip.com domain in 2017 from a startup called Gogobot, relaunched its global brand around it, and in 2019 renamed the entire parent company Trip.com Group to expand internationally.

How the pioneering social-bookmarking site launched in 2003 as the famous domain hack "del.icio.us," why those dots became a permanent tax on every mention, and how Yahoo moved it to the cleaner Delicious.com in 2008.

How Discord launched in 2015 on DiscordApp.com because Discord.com was taken, quietly bought the bare word, and in 2020 made discord.com its primary home — partly for brand cleanliness, partly because the "discordapp.com" vs "discord.com" split was a gift to phishers and malware crews.

How Facebook, Inc. became Meta in October 2021, why Meta.com was already a Zuckerberg-related asset forwarding from a science search engine, and how a separate $60M deal bought the "Meta" name from a Sioux Falls bank — while the Facebook app kept Facebook.com.

How Instagram launched in 2010 on the instagr.am domain hack — borrowing Armenia's .am ccTLD to spell its own name — then paid $100,000 to consolidate on Instagram.com, and what the tradeoffs of a clever ccTLD hack teach founders.

How Jamba Juice spent 29 years explaining itself with the word "Juice," why it dropped that word in 2019 to become simply "Jamba," and the quiet advantage almost no one noticed: the company had owned the exact-match Jamba.com since the 1990s.

How Massdrop spent seven years building an enthusiast group-buying community, then rebranded to Drop in 2019 — quietly acquiring the premium Drop.com domain (asking price once $800,000) before the rename, and why dropping "Mass" mattered.

How the crypto-card startup Monaco rebranded to Crypto.com in 2018 by buying the ultra-premium Crypto.com domain — registered in 1993 by cryptographer Matt Blaze, who refused to sell for 25 years — in a deal experts valued at up to $10 million.

How a 2011 pet startup launched as "Mr. Chewy" on MrChewy.com, dropped the "Mr." to become Chewy on the exact-match Chewy.com, and why that one-word domain upgrade quietly became part of a brand PetSmart bought for $3.35 billion.

How Elon Musk built X.com in 1999, lost it when PayPal took his old name, bought it back in 2017 for sentimental value, and finally moved a $44B social network onto it — making Twitter.com redirect to X.com.

How Urban Compass launched in 2012 as a New York rental app on UrbanCompass.com, dropped "Urban" in its February 2015 rebrand, and upgraded to the exact-match Compass.com — a domain that had been listed at auction for $1 million — right as it set out to go national.