Dot-Com or Not-com? Branding Backlash Hits Start-Ups - Page 2

dent of Renegade Marketing. "If they are a technology-driven company, I think there's still magic in the name."

The "magic" that a lot of these companies are looking for, of course, is financing -- either from venture capitalists or from the public markets. Although Fusebox, NameTrade, and A Hundred Monkeys advise their clients against using dot-com at the end of their names, all say they've seen resistance, mostly because there's a feeling among entrepreneurs that dot-com means more money -- higher valuations.

It may be a false assumption, especially when you're pitching at the more sophisticated, levels of venture capital. But dot-com may help time-crunched venture capitalists figure out where you belong more quickly.

"I think it helps in some cases in defining what the company does," said Tim Draper, founder and managing director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson. "In terms of valuing a company, I think a dot-com avoids confusion within the financial community, but makes no difference to a company's valuation."

In the public markets, too, dot-com once drove high stock prices, but now, when investors have hundreds of Internet companies to choose from, dot-com may no longer signify a sure-fire path to riches.

Still, the dot-com may still be useful, especially for consumer-oriented companies or for those that need to distinguish their online divisions from their bricks-and-mortar arms. But it appears that the advisors, at least, are cautioning companies against adopting the "nineties" fashion of tacking dot-com on their names.

In the end, though, it's always up to the start-ups themselves. "We're only the advisors," Foden said, "not the owners."