Buy a startup word
Operator words. Nobody outgrows arguing about a moat, and nobody stops hiring.
7 words in this category0 already takenreserves from $25
- startupunclaimedreserve $50
- founderunclaimedreserve $50
- supportunclaimedreserve $50
- hiringunclaimedreserve $50
- complianceunclaimedreserve $50
- indieunclaimedreserve $25
- moatunclaimedreserve $50
The smallest group on the board and the one with the longest shelf life. Categories churn — the AI vocabulary of 2023 is already dated — but nobody outgrows hiring, nobody stops arguing about a moat, and "founder" has meant the same thing for as long as anyone has used it.
That durability is worth something specific here. A word is auctioned once and then it is yours, so the only question that matters is whether the category still means anything in five years - and these do. A trendy word can go quiet and leave you holding a punchline nobody remembers; these keep working.
This is also the group people buy as identity rather than as advertising. Somebody claiming "indie" is not describing a market segment, they are putting a flag on themselves, and it is consistently the easiest purchase on the board to explain to a co-founder.
Why you would want one
You sell recruiting, compliance or support software — or you are one person who would rather plant a flag than buy a category.
What buying one costs
Every word carries a reserve, the price under which it does not sell — the lowest in this category is $25, and bidding opens well below it. Each later bid has to clear the current one by at least $5 or 10%, whichever is larger, and a bid in the last minutes pushes the close back. Whoever is highest when it ends owns the word permanently — there is nothing to renew, and no way for anyone to take it afterwards.
What you get is the word's page with your name, a line of copy, a logo and one outbound link; a slot on the board; a vanity URL you can say out loud; a live badge for your README; and click counts tagged so the traffic shows up in your own analytics. The full rules.