Is your startup building the future with its innovative tech product? Then you deserve an equally innovative brand positioning for your startup. New domain extensions such as .TECH help you do just that. In this interview, we speak with Suman Das, Director of Brand Operations for the .TECH domain extension, one of the 9 new domain extensions owned and operated by Radix, a domain registry founded in 2012. Suman talks about how tech startups can use new domain extensions to their advantage and how startups can make the most of the Startup League, a unique startup support initiative which he helped design and launch globally.
How are new domain extensions changing the way startups brand themselves? Are they any different from .com/.org?
It’s interesting that new domains are quite similar to .com / .org in the way they function. But, new domains are made up of meaningful words so they offer the additional branding benefit to the businesses that use it. So, today you have .TECH for tech products and startups and .STORE for retail and so on. A startup can thus choose the most relevant domain extension which goes a long way in building, strengthening and maintaining its brand positioning.
Another benefit that new domain extensions offer is the sheer availability of domain names. So, if you have ever thought that all the great domain names have already been taken, it’s time to change that belief. Startups such as shadow.tech and breakinto.tech have been able to register desirable domain names on .TECH. Another example of a great category-killer name is smartphone.tech, which is available to take on .tech but not on .com. Thus, new domain extensions make it possible for startups to access a large pool of brandable domain names.
So, what are the benefits of using a new domain, especially to a startup?
There are two key benefits – availability of your desired domain name and the quality of the domain name. For example, hollywood.tech and extreme.tech are good names that are brandable, memorable and innovative. When you look at these names, they immediately build a picture in your head. That makes these names strong from the point of view of brand positioning.
If a startup’s website is on a new domain extension, would it have an impact on its organic search engine ranking?
Organic search ranking of a website depends on the quality of its content and on-page backlinks from reputed websites. A keyword rich domain name helps because if the website is called www.LondonFood.tech and it gets backlink on anchor text ‘London food tech’ from reputed websites, then it gives a positive indication to search engines about its relevance for those keywords. Therefore, keyword-rich new domains can actually help boost a website’s SEO. For examples, a search for ‘consumer technology’ shows CTA.tech as the top result.
What can startups keep in mind when choosing a domain name for their startup?
We are moving into an era where voice will become the primary way to search everything online. A good domain name is one that SIRI and Alexa can find instantly! There’s something called a ‘radio test’ in the domain selection process which basically means that if you say a domain name and the person (or an AI assistant) hearing it can type it out correctly at one go, it’s a good domain name. So, balance.tech is good but www.balanze-tech.com is not.
Is there any way that startups can use domain names apart from using it for their main website?
It’s a misconception that a domain name is needed only when you are building a website. In reality, domain names can be used for many purposes such as branded link shortening, domain redirects, campaign specific landing pages or microsites, personal branding and for blogs.
You have a startup-support community, the Startup League. How does it work?
Having visited global tech conferences, we realized that something quite odd was at play. These conferences are a great platform for early stage startups to test or showcase their product and to connect with investors, media, industry influencers and customers. However, the cost of exhibiting at these events was prohibitive to early stage startups. We wanted to build that bridge and that led us to create the Startup League where we offer financial and marketing support to early-stage startups to exhibit at these events. The program is accessible to startups that are using any of Radix’s 9 domain extensions, including .TECH.
Currently, we have over 200 startups from over 30 countries across various industries such as eCommerce, emerging technologies, travel, HR, sports and marketing. So far, we have been able to sponsor over a 120 of these startups at more than 25 events such as The Next Web, TechCrunch Disrupt, Web Summit, Dublin Tech Summit, Slush, Uprise, etc. The exposure that our startups got by showcasing their product/solution at these events was remarkable. They have been able to pitch their products to VCs, journalists, industry influencers and potential customers, and have been able to form strategic partnerships.
We also have on-board 100+ partners from the global startup ecosystem. These included WHub, Brinc, Campfire Collaborative Spaces, Founder Institute, Founder Space, WYND Coworking, Highway 1 and TechNorth.
Get a .TECH domain for your startup today to become a part of the Startup League!