Here's the deal. If you're building a company and you don't lock down your exact-match .com, guess who's happy about that? Your competitors. Not because they're smarter, just because they either grabbed it first or they know how people behave online. A lot of founders make this mistake in year one, and by the time they want to upgrade, someone else is sitting on the name, or worse, your competitor owns it outright and now you're basically driving traffic to them for free.
I’ve seen it happen more times than I can count: two companies with similar names, one of them has the .com, the other has a .io or another extension. When press or customers search it, they almost always land on the .com first. If your competitor is the one holding it, they look like the real deal. You end up looking second place, even if your product’s better.
Another thing people don’t realize: if you’re growing and raising money and your competitor owns your name, they already have leverage over you. They can run ads against your name. They can buy typo domains. They can redirect your own brand traffic to themselves without lifting a finger. Not great optics when you’re pitching investors or trying to look like the category leader.
I’ve seen companies completely rebrand just because some competitor locked up the name first. And once one person out there owns the exact-match .com in your space, they don’t have to sell ever. You're stuck, or you pay something ridiculous later when you should’ve paid a few grand early on. Meanwhile the other guys get all the benefits just because they were proactive.
Bottom line?
If you let someone else grab the .com that matches your brand, you’ve basically handed them free trust, free search traffic, and a psychological advantage before the race even starts. And if that “someone else” happens to be your direct competitor… you just let them win round one without even throwing a punch. Don’t hand your competition that kind of free leverage. Lock your name in early, that way your brand works for you, not for the other guy.
"Your domain decision will follow your brand for years. Choose it like it's part of your identity—because it is."
