If you founded a startup before 2006, odds are you’d pick a .com domain for your website. That’s what Y Combinator (YC)-backed startups did. From their first two years of investment — including apps like Wufoo, Scribd, and Reddit — every startup YC invested in used a .com.

Then, slowly, other top-level domains (TLDs) started showing up. These include .fm for podcast startups, .tv for video-focused teams, .io for its geeky reference to input/output, and .co, likely for its similarity to .com.

At first, these other domains were supplementary, with .com being everyone’s first choice. You’d add extra words to get a .com that worked with your brand, as Dropbox did with their early getdropbox.com domain. You’d only look at other TLDs if your .com wasn’t available and you couldn’t or didn’t want to pay premium prices to purchase it from the current registrant.

During the first five years of YC investment, from 2005 to 2009, only five out of 145 startups used something other than a .com.

And then everything changed.

Here comes every TLD

The first fun, unique TLDs weren’t intended as such. They were region-specific domains, such as .tv, run by the Polynesian island of Tuvalu. There was also .io, nominally reserved for the British Indian Ocean Territory, and .fm, which was the Federated States of Micronesia’s TLD. They worked surprisingly well for TV, data, and audio-related startups, but that was a happy coincidence.

Once ICANN relaxed the rules and let anyone propose a new TLD in 2012, the floodgates opened, and suddenly your domain could end up in seemingly anything. Companies registered their names as TLDs; Canon, the camera and printer company, registered .canon and uses it for international sites, for example, such as asia.canon.

Startups quickly joined the fray. It wasn’t that they started buying unique TLDs; a $185,000 non-refundable application fee plus $25k/year in ongoing fees to run a new TLD is a bit steep even for a venture-backed startup. But enough new TLDs popped up that 2013 was the last hurray for .com, with 95% of YC-backed startups choosing it. It was a steady decline from there.

In 2022, only 49% of YC-backed startups used a .com. The rest were split between 62 other TLDs, including .app, .ai, .dev, .tech, .xyz, and more.

Part of the problem is that all the “good” .com’s seem to be taken. Over two and a half decades of being the most popular TLD means almost every dictionary word — and plenty of fake words besides — have already been registered. Maybe they’re for sale, but for a startup, your scarce funds are often better used to hire staff and invest in R&D.

On the flip side, the new TLDs offer truly unique opportunities. If you’re building an app, registering a .app (as we did for Reproof.app) makes sense from a branding perspective. Bit.ly did even better, blending their TLD into their brand name. Notion started out with Notion.so, and it became enough of a part of their branding that they stuck with that as their primary domain, even after acquiring their .com domain.

The decreasing usage of .com for new sites holds up when you look at other startup communities. On Product Hunt, for example, of the new products shared over the past two years that hit their top thousand most popular list, 49% used a .com in 2021, while only 40% used a .com in 2022.

Or, on Hacker News, a startup-focused discussion board run by YC, you can look back at the most popular “Show HN” posts that showcased new products from the past month, year, and of all time. Of the hundred most popular sites shared there, ever, 51% used a .com, followed by 17% with a .io. But as you get closer to today, the numbers go down. Over the past year, only 44% of Show HN sites had a .com, while 8% used .app and .io, respectively. And over the past month, only 38% used a .com — with .app up to 11% and .io at 9%.

The newly popular TLDs

Pour one out for .fm, which was the sole TLD other than .com used by YC startups in 2017, and rarely otherwise. Same for .ly, with a window of popularity in 2010 (prompted, perhaps, by Bit.ly’s popularity as the original default link shortener on Twitter) before being outshined by other TLDs.

The same goes for .tv, .bio, and .me, each with a brief period of popularity among startups, only to then be ignored in subsequent years.

Even the old stalwarts of .net and .org struggle to gain popularity among startups. The TLD .net was used by 3% of YC’s 2011 batch, while .org usage peaked at 5% in the 2014 batch before returning to 1% or less.

Some TLDs, though, have steadily grown their share of the startup market. The first was .io, starting with 2% of the startup share in 2018 and steadily rising to its 11% share in this year’s YC batch. Then .co started a bit later, with 2% in 2012, growing to 6% this year.

Then there are the newly popular TLDs. With OpenAI’s GPT-3 and DALL-E, among other tools powering the AI ​​market, it’s no surprise that .ai is growing fast, from a 1% share in 2014 to a 6% share today. The TLD .app, a newer TLD started in 2018 by Google, captured 1% that first year and this year, it was used by 3% of new startups. Another even newer star is .xyz, which also came up on Namecheap’s top ten new TLDs in 2020. It’s a TLD that could stand for anything and was first seen this year on YC’s startup list, with 3% of new startups using it. All three were also popular with sites on Product Hunt and Show HN, too.

Which TLD should you choose?

If a .com is available for your company’s name, it’s hard to argue against grabbing it. After all, .com is still the most popular TLD; you can’t go wrong with it.

But if you have to add extra words to your company’s name to get the .com, it’s worth checking around to see if there’s a TLD that’s a better fit.

When we looked around for domains when starting Reproof, for example, we considered several options, including .us, .is, and .io — but .app felt like the best option. We’re building an app, and will tell people to “go download Reproof app.” The .app TLD felt natural. Spreadsheet app Equals co-founder Bobby Pinero told me he felt the same about using .app for his startup — something that was even easier since his co-founder already owned it. He reported “no hesitation in trying to build a multi-billion dollar business on the .app domain.”

If possible, get creative. Just as Rinkevicius and his team were building Resonance as a job board, and the .careers TLD seemed like the perfect match. “The complexity you need to add to your name to have a .com was not feasible, so we looked at .io and other modern startups, and they were mostly taken,” said Rinkevicius. Then they found .careers, perfect for a place where you’d discover your next career move, and resonance.careers was born.

Then once you’ve got your domain, it’s time to plan out your links and UX copy for pricing, help, about pages, and more — something that, surprisingly enough, is more standardized than TLDs today. 72% of startups put their Pricing page at domain.tld/pricing and 61% have a Contact page at domain.tld/contact — far more than the number of startups that use a .com today. You’re better off using whatever TLD you want and following best practices for the popular copy and pages on your site than you are buying a .com and putting your product details and help on non-standard pages.

Research Data: View the full TLD data in our original Google Sheets spreadsheet. YC data via YC Startup Directory and Akshay Bhalotia’s YC Company Scraper; Hacker News Trending data via Daniel Cook; Product Hunt data from Leaderboard for Product Hunt via Pesto.

Investing in your career is a smart move that will boost your earning power over the long term, but investing in a side hustle is a genius way to create multiple streams of income.

Starting a side hustle isn’t just about extra paychecks. It gives you the opportunity to learn new skill sets, discover and consider new career paths, and diversify your network of clients and collaborators. Last but not least, a side hustle creates a safety net, and a sense of autonomy over your work and finances should your day job ever go awry.

It might seem like a no-brainer, but side hustles can be a challenge. You have to adopt new work habits and become a master of time management and self-management. But if done right, your side gig can become a full-time, or stable part-time, solopreneurship. It can be your own independent venture with steady clients, and steady income.

Below is a guide to launching a side hustle, then transitioning into a full-fledged solopreneur.

Step 1: Brainstorm your options and create a framework

A side hustle isn’t just about pursuing your passions and beloved hobbies. It’s about strategically exploring opportunities that suit your interests, skills, and availability. For example, if you want to launch an SAT tutoring business, but your full-time job requires you to travel during peak test preparation season, then you might have to think of alternative paths.

If you work a 9-to-5 tech job on the east coast, you can consider consulting companies on the west coast during the early evenings, thanks to time zones. Being realistic about your time commitment, then setting the right framework and schedule in place, are the keys to building a sustainable side hustle over the long term.

Take Ari Krzyzek, founder of creativewomens.co. Ari’s full-time job is as a creative director and chief designer. While she enjoyed networking and meeting new women entrepreneurs, she had a hard time actually finding those women.

In 2015, Ari founded Creative Women’s Co., a creative oasis for women entrepreneurs where they can share their goals and struggles, exchange feedback, and collaborate. After seeing a need in the community, Ari brainstormed what would work well, created her framework and website, and now has a fully-functioning side hustle to complement her full-time, creative job.

Step 2: Write a business plan

It might seem old school, but a business plan will help you create a road map to ensure you reach your side hustle goals. It doesn’t have to be a long-winded document.

First, it should clearly articulate your product or service. One section should list realistic goals for your business, be it sales milestones or a clear plan on how to turn your side business into your full-time career. Add some research on competitors, a list of potential customers, and a simple operating model that will help you reach your stated goals. Before you know it, you’ll have a business plan that can guide you along the way.

For FirstLeaf.club, the business plan was relatively simple: to create a subscription-based business that introduced customers to new wines every month. To get started, First Leaf has customers complete a small quiz to understand what wines the customer likes (for example, do you drink reds, whites, or both?).

Once the quiz has been completed, First Leaf sends a box of six new wines for the customer to try on a monthly basis that is guaranteed to make the club member smile. And with over 150,000 members, First Leaf’s business plan appears to be working!

Step 3: Determine the right business entity structure

This step might not be as fun as brainstorming business ideas or dreaming up big goals. But it’s a critical one, so don’t skip it. Installing the right legal structure from the start will help you tap the right legal protections and tax benefits.

In general, your main options are a sole proprietorship, partnership, limited liability company (LLC), or corporation. Each one offers different legal protections and comes with various tax implications, so speak to a lawyer who specializes in small businesses to determine the right legal framework for you. The bottom line is that you have to decide which balance of legal protection and cost is right for you.

Step 4: Set a schedule

As we learned in step one, being realistic about your time commitment is key to getting started. It’s also key to thriving, especially if you aspire to eventually turn your side gig into a full-time career as a solopreneur.

But there’s much more to it than being honest about your availability and considering your day job. Side hustling is all about smart time management. You must create a set schedule that will ensure you can meet all your side hustle deliverables, build a client base, and scale your gig into a full-fledged and reliable source of income.

Here’s how to start. Look at your calendar and block off a set number of hours each week for your venture. Try to dedicate the same number of hours (be it 3 hours a day, or 3 days per week), and if possible, the same time slots each week (maybe you work weekends, or Thursdays and Fridays from 9 am to 2 pm) . This programs you to be consistent and to stick to a schedule so that your side hustle is on track to grow into something real.

Hugh Brooks of HughBrooks.design decided to turn his love for graphic design and illustration into a full-time side hustle. By offering prints he has created for sale on his online store, Hugh is able to bring in recurring income from this work while he spends the remainder of his schedule with custom commissions that he receives through both his website and his Instagram account.

Step 5: Market your side hustle

You have your idea, business plan, and set schedule. Now you need customers or clients. Whether you’re selling a line of products or a specialized service, be it a line of trendy handbags or all-natural home remedy recipes, you have to figure out how you’re going to reach your target audience.

This is where the beauty of social media marketing comes in handy, where you can reach customers from across the country via e-commerce or remote consulting. Whether you reach them via Instagram or LinkedIn, make sure to secure a website that comprehensively communicates what your business is all about.

Make sure your website has a contact form, a page outlining your bio and expertise, clear product descriptions, perhaps links to your best work if you’re a creative consultant, and what makes your hustle so valuable.

Whereby.us provides great examples of how you can market your side hustle. A newsletter content agency made up of local journalists, writers, and creators, Whereby has both their ‘Contact Us’ form and their email promoted on the home page. Whereby also promotes its services on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Medium to help spread the word.

Step 6: Stick to your side hustle to become a solopreneur

It can take some time to gain traction, but don’t feel discouraged if you’re not an overnight success. The key is to set realistic goals each month, be it gaining one client or selling your first ten units. As you scale, determine whether you should adjust your legal structure or business plan as well. Stick to your plan and be proactive about outreach until you get some momentum and feel your side hustle has become a stable source of income.

Lissy Alden of Myndy.co started her career improving organizational culture and engagement. Experiencing employee burnout first hand, Lissy began to focus her passion for employee engagement while consulting for Fortune 500s and startups, until she eventually ditched her corporate job and turned her side hustle into a full-time solopreneurship. Lissy is living proof that if you can dream it, you can do it.

Go get ’em! Whether you’re an experienced career professional looking to branch out, or a tinkerer ready to turn your now-and-later gigs into a fully-fledged business, there’s a place and a market for you online. Alternative domains like .co, .club, .designand .us enable you to strengthen your brand without having to compromise on your website name while providing other great benefits like enhancing your SEO. Get started today!

WordPress held the annual State of the Word keynote address on December 15th, 2022. During the event, WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg addressed the progress of various WordPress project aspects and provided previews of what’s coming in the future years.

A group of contributors and developers attended State of the Word 2022, and it was also live-streamed with over 30 watch parties and 500 RSVPs across 11 countries.

This article will recap the event and let you know what WordPress has achieved in 2022 and the plans for the project.

State of the Word 2022 Video

In case you missed the live stream event, WordPress uploaded the State of the Word 2022 to its YouTube channel, and you can watch it here:

Four Freedoms of Open Source

Josepha Haden Chomphosy, the executive director of the WordPress project, began the event with the question, “Why WordPress?” She followed it up with a reminder of the four freedoms of open source:

1. To run the program for any purpose.
2. To study how the program works and change it to make it do what you wish.
3. To redistribute copies.
4. To distribute copies of your modified versions to others.

These freedoms, stated in the WordPress Bill of Rights, remove barriers and help secure a free, open, and interconnected web in the future. Josepha then mentioned that Matt Mullenweg taught her that open source is an idea that can change our generation.

2022 WordPress Recap

Matt Mullenweg then took the stage and started the keynote address. Here are the highlights for the 2022 recap.

Gutenberg Editor

As an editor tool for website and mobile application building using the block paradigm, Gutenberg has seen wide adaptation worldwide. Matt believes that Gutenberg will be bigger than WordPress itself.

In 2022, bbPress Forums, which powers WordPress.org forums, has embedded Gutenberg, so now you can add links and images in forums without using HTML-like language. This is done with the Blocks Everywhere plugin that will also be embedded in BuddyPress.

Other applications also have embedded Gutenberg. Here are a few examples:

• EngineAwesome, a Laravel-Based SaaS application.
• Pew Research Center’s Political Typology Quiz. One out of eight quizzes has been converted to blocks in 2022, with more than 1 million people completing it in 2022.
• The web version of Day One, an award-winning journaling app, uses Gutenberg.

The Gutenberg project also concluded the licensing of Gutenberg Mobile. Matt explained that Gutenberg has always been GPL-licensed, but people couldn’t just include Gutenberg in a mobile app due to how mobile apps are distributed.

Mobile Gutenberg now has dual licenses, so you can use it under GPL or MPL (Mozilla Public License) and easily embed it in mobile applications.

Since the beginning of the Covid pandemic in 2020, many community events, such as meetups, have switched to online. In 2022, we saw many online gatherings return to the in-person meetup style.

Matt explained that 500 meetup groups doubled their events in 2022. WordCamps are also increasing in number – from only one WordCamp in 2021 to 22 WordCamps in 2022. So far, 34 WordCamps are already planned for 2023, and the number will most likely increase.

Learn WordPress

WordPress hosts the Learn WordPress website. It contains courses and community workshops for people who want to learn WordPress. In 2022, there were 12,000 people who took one of these courses.

Matt said the course activities were happening almost every week and were moderated or facilitated by volunteers.

Website Redesign

The WordPress.org website was redesigned in 2022, including its homepage and blog areas. The new design follows the jazz design paradigm, and Matt hopes that this “neo-jazz meets software” aesthetic will become a new design language on its own.

Another new addition to the WordPress.org website is the Showcase section, which features famous websites that are powered by WordPress.

Openverse

WordPress acquired Openverse from the Creative Commons organization in 2021 and has since launched it on the WordPress.org website. It’s a search engine that scours the web for Creative Commons-licensed media, such as images and videos.

In 2022, audio media will be introduced into the Openverse, allowing podcasters and music creators to share their works with the world.

Matt continued with the following Openverse stats:

• 22 million images.
• 1.1 million audio files.
• Millions of users per month.
• Over 59 million requests made in the past 30 days.

Photos uploaded to the WordPress photo directory will also be available in the Openverse.

Three Major Updates

WordPress launched three major updates in 2022 with new design tools to customize a website’s entire front-end. What’s more, users no longer need to know as much PHP and CSS as before.

Matt highlighted the top three aspects that shipped with the updates in 2022:

• Block themes. WordPress themes are moving from a bundle of PHP and CSS to blocks, allowing users to create themes or customize websites in the Gutenberg Editor without dealing with code.
• Styles and style variations. Themes are usually a collection of colors, fonts, and spacing that people can customize with the Gutenberg Editor. The styles and the variations thereof provide alternatives to these components with the same underlying structure.
• Twenty Twenty-Three theme. Unlike its predecessors, the Twenty-Twenty-Three default theme comes as a black canvas, with ten style variations designed by WordPress community contributors.

Gutenberg Phase Two Wrap-Up

WordPress introduced Gutenberg four years ago, and the project is divided into four phases:

1. Easier Editing. Replacing the post and page editor with the Gutenberg block tools. Already available in WordPress, with ongoing improvements.
2. Customization. Using the Gutenberg design tools to customize headers and footers and create an entire website with blocks. This phase includes full site editing, block patterns, block directory, and block-based themes.
3. Collaboration. A more intuitive way to collaborate during WordPress core content creation.
4. Multilingual. Core implementation for multilingual sites

We are in phase two of Gutenberg with the latest WordPress 6.1 release. At this point, creating a theme from a blank canvas is possible just by using the Gutenberg editor on the front-end. The upcoming WordPress 6.2, expected to arrive on March 2023, will mark its end.

This is possible using the Create Block Theme plugin that allows importing Google Fonts into the theme and serving them locally from the site. Matt said that with this system, we could haveone theme, one pattern, infinite permutations,” implying the endless customization possibilities with block-based editing.

A Record Number of Release Contributors

A record number of 1,399 contributors made all the updates and new features possible. Check out the following contribution stats:

• 652 first-time contributors.
• 204 contributors participated in all 2022 releases.
• 424 contributors from 2021 returned in 2022.
• 322 contributors who took a break in 2021 returned in 2022.

Matt also introduced and recognized four new core committers in 2022 – Bernie Reiter, Marius Jensen, Adam Zielinski, and George Mamadashvili.

Plugin and Theme Taxonomy

Starting in December 2022, WordPress is launching a new taxonomy for the plugin and theme directory. With over 50,000 plugins and 10,000 themes, the new taxonomy should help users understand what kind of plugin or theme they’re getting. The new taxonomy also allows the creators to self-identify what kind of project their extensions are.

The feature is still a work in progress, but Matt mentioned four taxonomies:

• Solo or single-player. Solo developers develop extensions under this category for themselves but also release them for others.
• Community. These extensions belong to a community of developers with a lead dev stewarding the development. These extensions are then shared in the directory and passed to others. Community extensions also invite contributors to get involved in the WordPress community.
• Canonical plugins. The WordPress project considers a portion of community plugins important to the ecosystem. These plugins receive support from the core WordPress developers.
• Commercial. These extensions often have commercial support and are developed by companies. They also offer upsells, such as pro versions of the plugins.

What’s Coming In 2023

In addition to addressing the 2022 WordPress project progress, Matt also presented some plans for 2023.

WordPress 20th Anniversary

WordPress will turn 20 in May 2023. Matt mentioned that few software projects make it to such an age and that WordPress shares the same birth year as Creative Commons.

There will be celebrations for the anniversary – you can follow the updates on the WordPress 20th anniversary website.

WordPress Community Summit is an event where top contributors gather. After a six-year hiatus, the WordPress Community Summit will come back in 2023 and coincide with WordCamp US 2023.

Gutenberg Phase Three

Gutenberg phase three will start after the WordPress 6.2 release. The next generation of Gutenberg and WordPress will have a real-time collaboration feature that allows multiple people to work together on a post, page, or website. Matt explained that it would feel similar to working with Google Docs, where everyone can see what others are doing on the interface.

This feature will also allow people to invite others to collaborate in WordPress to edit posts, pages, or themes together. This way, users won’t need to use external tools like Google Docs, plus they’ll be able to benefit from using blocks in their collaborative workflow.

Post revisions will also receive a revamped interface during phase three, allowing people to edit revisions or check the post or page history.

Finally, WordPress will improve the media library with the Openverse integration. This will allow people to download media from the Openverse directly via the WordPress media library, improving the editorial workflow.

WordPress Playground

Adam Zielinski developed a new sandbox called Playground. Normally, you need a web host or a local web server to use WordPress. The WordPress Playground, however, will work on web browsers using WebAssembly.

The sandbox is handy for testing themes or plugins or just trying a new design with the editor. The Playground already shows potential for the future. For example, you can use it as a staging environment to download and clone your WordPress site into your browser, make some edits, and then deploy the changes on your live website.

WordPress playground is still experimental and in active development, but you can visit the Playground page to test it or even participate in the project.

Conclusion

WordPress has progressed a lot in 2022, including core updates like broader Gutenberg integration and community changes like the reactivation of many worldwide events. The introduction of Full Site Editing, now known as Site Editor, is one of the biggest WordPress changes in 2022, and it has changed how people build websites with this content management system.

As we’re approaching the end of phase two of the Gutenberg project, we can expect another major milestone in 2023 – the introduction of real-time collaboration in WordPress. The new feature will improve our editorial workflow, making WordPress a better platform for creating content.