Notes on Buttondown.com
In April 2024, Buttondown acquired buttondown.com for $85,000. The migration from buttondown.email was completed by August, facing challenges but maintaining stable SEO traffic and enhancing brand clarity.
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In April 2024, Buttondown's owner made a significant capital expenditure of $85,000 to acquire the domain buttondown.com, marking it as the largest non-house purchase in his experience. By August, the migration from buttondown.email to buttondown.com was completed, although the process was complicated by the platform's architecture, which combines Vercel/Next for the marketing and documentation sites with Django/Heroku for the core application, all managed by an HAProxy load balancer. The migration was smoother than anticipated, with minimal production issues, largely due to a clear scope that focused solely on web traffic migration. Initial concerns about SEO traffic declines were unfounded, as traffic remained stable. The most challenging aspects involved external URLs and OAuth redirects that were not easily identifiable. The owner expressed satisfaction with the outcome, noting that the project involved extensive planning and execution but ultimately was worth the investment, as it eliminated confusion surrounding the brand name and avoided ongoing costs associated with other potential expenditures.
- Buttondown.com was acquired for $85,000 in April 2024.
- The migration from buttondown.email to buttondown.com was completed by August 2024.
- The process faced challenges due to the platform's complex architecture but was smoother than expected.
- SEO traffic remained stable post-migration, contrary to initial concerns.
- The project was deemed worthwhile, enhancing brand clarity and avoiding ongoing costs.
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- Users appreciate Buttondown's simplicity and effectiveness compared to other platforms like Mailchimp.
- There are concerns about brand recognition and the potential confusion with the previous domain, buttondown.email.
- Some commenters question the value of the $85,000 investment in the new domain, suggesting a possible rebranding could have been more cost-effective.
- Several users express satisfaction with Buttondown's customer service and functionality, highlighting its appeal for startups.
- Concerns about email deliverability and spam issues are raised, reflecting skepticism about new email service providers.
24 commentsI told our CEO that Buttondown is exactly the kind of scrappy startup we'd want representing our own startup.
If it's helpful for the HackerNews community, I've made my comparison spreadsheet free to view: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1P9FyAYDdFZvTzmXVQi8A...
(I'm not an employee and have no financial incentive, I'm just a fan.)
This is funny because I only remember Buttondown Email because I love the name and domain. I am either going to keep remembering it as Buttondown Email or eventually forget it as Generic Noun Unrelated To Product 9000
(I would also be remiss if I didn't say that I am grateful to HN for introducing me to what was called microISVs a decade ago, "indie hacking" five years ago, and now I suppose is mostly called "building in public" / "lifestyle businesses". I was inspired to start Buttondown in no small part due to reading about Candy Japan, Appointment Reminder, et al, and learning that there was a different yet equally valid path for growing a SaaS)
As maintainer of Hurl [1], this makes me happy!
[1]: https://hurl.dev
People apparently still hear a word, type it, and press Ctrl+Enter, or a mobile equivalent.
Whoever has been parking the domain likely had made a wise investment, and now received $85k for it. Not millions, but still a new car.
(I've migrated a domain from .io to .com, I can relate)
I'm a possible customer, so I looked at the service and its pricing page and… I'm not sure if this is a service for me. I send both transactional and non-transactional E-mail, but I don't need "list management", just E-mail processing. Buttondown would be $29/month + $50/month for whitelabeling, while Postmark would be $15/month. Am I missing something?
I think they paid something like half a million quid for it? It was an absolutely eye watering amount to me at the time (and I think them, in fairness), but past a certain size having your .com was and probably still is big for trust.
Which is to say, congratulations! You must be delighted.
First is my private email which has only 4 letters and our national .nl tld. I always have to spell out the domain because it is not really a word, and it sometimes confuses Americans (non-techies) that there is no .com.
The second domain is my business domain which has .bio as tld, and now I often see people waiting for more when I say my address, like: "Hi, my address is blabla.bio", "... and?" "No, that is it, .bio is the end."
So I guess "normal" .com is just the way to go ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (although in both cases that was just too expensive for me and I like short domains a lot myself, I once met someone who had (pattern) xx@yy.dk, apparently the whole company did, I kneeled.)
It’s not like hey.com or something, it’s kind of a clunky name in the first place.
I would have considered renaming the company and picking up a cheaper domain in the process.
Your homepage says "and our spam protection is best-in-class." is that for your client inbox, or mine?
We bought the dot-com-domain and managed not to shit ourselves in the process.
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