When naming products, entrepreneurs often toss good ideas because the .com isn’t available. I think that’s often a mistake.

Yes, the first thing people do to look you up is type www.company.com. But if you aren’t there? They’re not going to disappear. The site that pops up instead is probably irrelevant to them. Almost every browser these days has a search box next to the address bar, and they’ll just use that. As long as you’re at the top of that search, you’ll see very little decrease in traffic because you use companywidgets.com or company.net instead of company.com. A great example is Basecamp (see basecamphq.com), the excellent project management software from 37 Signals.

And the people you do lose along the way? They’re not interested enough to become buyers (or subscribers, or repeat visitors) anyway.