Marty Ringlein is Big on Names

Ted Merz Surface Area

3 weeks ago

3 MIN READ

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Marty Ringlein has some advice for entrepreneurs: start with the domain name.

That helps explain the pithy and memorable name of his new company, Agree.com, a document signing app that incorporates payment services that he co-founded with Will Hubbard.

It also explains why he owns the domain Marty.com.

Marty is a venture capitalist at the Adventure Fund and serial entrepreneur with several exits. He started companies that were later sold to Twitter, Eventbrite and Brex.

If you want to start a company, he recommends creating a catchy name with an available URL. Then you can come up with a business idea and finally the product.

“Domains are everything,” he told me when we met at a party organized by Andrew Yeung at Maxwell’s.

Marty’s sort of joking but also not, according to his co-founder. Names are a big deal. Will told me a story to illustrate the point.

Marty used to be known as Martin. But when he sold his first startup to Twitter in 2012 he was told he couldn’t have the email martin@twitter.com because it was already taken by an intern.

Rather than settle for a more complex email address, he opted for the easy to remember marty@twitter.com. In the process, he went from being known as Martin to being called Marty.

Marty is big on tweeting, but bigger on meeting people in real life.

Marty and I already “knew” each other when we met because I had commented on some of his posts on X and he had followed me.

One of the things that has surprised me most about people I’ve met online is how enthusiastic they are about meeting IRL and Marty is no exception.

I told Marty that he was exactly how I expected based on his online personality. (Down to the baseball cap!) He took that as a compliment.

He asked me what I was working on.

I started to explain some of the projects on my plate and he interrupted me.

“I have a good name for that business,” he said.

“You should always start with the name.”

BRIEF OBSERVATIONS

ADVICE FOR FOUNDERS: Expect to be constantly told “no,” according to Marc Andreessen.

PRICE DEFLATION: The fact that Costco sells a knock-off version of Hoka sneakers for $19.97 explains so much about the world ie how unbelievably competitive it is and also the power of brand.

HOW TO WRITE: C.S. Lewis’ advice on how to become a better writer is solid but also notably different than what you tend to read online these days. “Turn off the Radio,” is timeless.