The $1,600 Domain That Made the Startup Inevitable

It starts with a click.

And an empty bank account.

You’re on a domain marketplace at 2 a.m., half-curious, half-hopeful. Searching. Scanning. Chasing that feeling—product-market fit before there’s even a product. And then it hits you.

A .com.

Short. Catchy. Familiar. BuyMeACoffee.com.

It’s perfect. It already feels like a brand. Like something that’s always existed.

But it’s not $12. It’s $1,600.

And Jijo Sunny buys it anyway.

That wasn’t a business expense. It was the rent money. Literally. Bootstrapped out of the UK, betting nearly everything he had on five words and a dot-com.

Not because he had users. Or traction. Or a roadmap.

Because he had a hunch.

When a Domain Isn’t a Domain

Most of us treat domains like lottery tickets. Grab a .io or .xyz for ten bucks, slap together a landing page, see if anyone bites. It’s the indie hacker way—ship fast, validate faster.

But Jijo didn’t just buy a domain. He made a commitment.

Buy Me a Coffee wasn’t a flex. It was a story people already understood. A metaphor, a feeling, a gesture. Creators were already using the phrase to ask for support. All he did was give it a home.

$1,600 was painful—but that was the point. It hurt enough to matter. Enough to make quitting expensive. The kind of skin-in-the-game move that forces you to build like you mean it.

That’s the difference between dabbling and deciding.

Brand First. Code Later.

Jijo and his brother Joseph weren’t backed by YC or tweeting from SoMa. They were indie hackers out of Kerala, India. No connections. No funding.

What they had was a simple idea: make supporting creators feel good.

Not a subscription wall. Not an algorithmic ad split. Just a button. A gesture. A cup of coffee, digitized.

And that name—Buy Me a Coffee—did more than describe the product. It was the product.

That’s the part most builders miss.

We obsess over features. MVPs. Launch checklists. But sometimes, the most important line of code is the URL.

Because names carry weight. Emotion. Trust.

And when they launched? It popped. Product Hunt. Hacker News. Creators got it instantly. Not because of onboarding flows or clever copy—but because of the name.

No pitch deck required.

The Sequel: $21K and a Voice Note

Years later, Jijo’s at it again.

New idea. New domain.

This time? $21,000. Voicenotes.com.

Same lesson, scaled up.

Was it necessary? Probably not. Was it rational? Maybe. Was it a forcing function? Absolutely.

Because when you drop that kind of money on a name, you’re not allowed to half-ship. You don’t get to "see where it goes." You build like it has to work. Like you’ve already burned the boats.

And honestly—that’s what early-stage focus looks like.

What Should Founders Take Away?

Not that you need to spend five figures on a domain. That’s not the point.

The point is: when something feels right—when the name nails the vibe, when the emotion is baked into the brand—don’t cheap out.

Because brand isn’t a logo.

It’s not something you "get to later."

It’s how people feel when they see your product for the first time.

And in a world full of noise, a name that cuts through is leverage.

So Here’s the Indie Litmus Test

Next time you’re staring at a checkout page, hovering over that overpriced domain, wondering if it’s worth it—ask:

Will this name force me to build?

Will it hurt enough to matter?

Will it make strangers feel what I feel?

Because sometimes, your startup doesn’t start with code or capital.

It starts with a reckless click.

And a name you just can’t walk away from.