{"id":2600,"date":"2010-10-15T19:26:43","date_gmt":"2010-10-16T02:26:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bspcn.com\/?p=2600"},"modified":"2010-10-15T19:26:43","modified_gmt":"2010-10-16T02:26:43","slug":"17-mutable-suggestions-for-naming-a-startup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/2010\/10\/15\/17-mutable-suggestions-for-naming-a-startup\/","title":{"rendered":"17 Mutable Suggestions For Naming A Startup"},"content":{"rendered":"

Written by OnStartups<\/a><\/p>\n

Naming a startup is hard.\u00a0 Very hard.\u00a0 On the one hand, the pragmatic entrepreneur thinks: \u201cI shouldn\u2019t be wasting time on this \u2014 for every successful company with a great name, there\u2019s one with a crappy name that did just fine.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t seem like a name has much influence on the outcome at all.\u00a0 I\u2019m going to get back to writing code.\u201d\u00a0 I sort of agree with this.\u00a0 You shouldn\u2019t obssess about your name.\u00a0 But, you also shouldn\u2019t dismiss it as unimportant.\u00a0 Part of the startup game is to try and remove unnecessary friction to your growth.\u00a0 Sure, you could build a spectacularly successful company despite having a lousy name \u2014 but why not stack the odds in your favor?<\/p>\n

One more reason why spending calories on picking a great name is important:\u00a0 It\u2019s a one-time cost to get a great name \u2014 but the benefit is forever. <\/strong>Conversely, if you short-change this and dismiss it completely, you\u2019re going to incur what I\u2019d call \u201cbranding debt\u201d.\u00a0 Not bad at first, and maybe not a big deal for you ever, but every year, as you grow, you\u2019ll have this small voice nagging inside your head \u201cshould I change the name of the company\u2026\u201d.\u00a0 It\u2019s going to be annoying.\u00a0 And the longer you wait, the more expensive the decision is, and the less likely you are to do it.\u00a0 Save yourself some of that future pain, and invest early in picking a decent name.\u00a0 You may still get it wrong, but at least you\u2019ll know you tried<\/em>. \"brand<\/p>\n

One last note before we get started:\u00a0 Not all of these are weighted equally.\u00a0 And, remember that these are suggestions<\/em> not laws.\u00a0 They\u2019re also mutable.<\/p>\n

The 17 Mutable Suggestions Of Startup Naming<\/strong><\/p>\n

1. Make sure it\u2019s legal! <\/strong>This should be obvious, but it\u2019s an important step that too many entrepreneurs skip.\u00a0 Before attaching yourself to a name, make sure that someone else doesn\u2019t already have claim to it by way of a trademark.\u00a0 In the U.S., you should take a quick peek at http:\/\/uspto.gov<\/a>.\u00a0 The good news is that if you satisfy some of the other conditions below (domain name, twitter handle, Facebook name), odds are relatively low that someone\u2019s already using the name.<\/p>\n

2. Hint At What You Do: <\/strong>You have two paths to go when picking a startup name.\u00a0 You can pick a name that is \u201csynthetic\u201d and made-up (example: Wufoo or Quora) or you can use somthing that is somewhat descriptive of what you do (example: Backupify or KISSmetrics).\u00a0 I lean a bit towards the descriptive side of the spectrum.\u00a0 But, a lot depends on what you\u2019re building.\u00a0 Synthetic names are often great in the long, long-term (easily trademarkable, and you can truly \u201cown\u201d them and infuse them with meaning) \u2014 but most of the time, I\u2019m more worried about surviving in the short-term.\u00a0 So, I like simple names that convey a bit of what the company actually does or stands for.<\/p>\n

3. Make it easy to remember: <\/strong>How do you know whether a startup name is easy to remember?\u00a0 You don\u2019t know.\u00a0 So, test it. <\/em>Talk to people.\u00a0 Describe the company.\u00a0 At the end of a 2\u201310 minute conversation, casually ask them if they remember what the name of the company is.\u00a0 If it didn\u2019t \u201cregister\u201d it\u2019s not a failure on their part (and make sure to tell them that), but a failure on your part for not having something that\u2019s memorable enough.<\/p>\n

4. Make it unambiguous when spoken: <\/strong>A quick way to test this is to ask friends and family what they think of the name over the phone \u2014 <\/em>and ask them to spell it back to you.\u00a0 If a decent percent of them get it wrong \u2014 or are uncertain, you\u2019ve got a problem.<\/p>\n

5. Make it unambiguous in Google: <\/strong>Many of the tricks of the trade you\u2019ll use to monitor conversations that mention your company on the web will involve doing some sort of search.\u00a0 If your name is something like \u201cPumpkin\u201d, you\u2019re going to have a harder time distinguishing when people are talking about the generic term, or when they\u2019re talking about your company.\u00a0 Of course, there are plenty of examples where a startup started with a generic word and went on to be pretty successful (Mint.com jumps to mind).\u00a0 That\u2019s why these are suggestions (not laws) and they\u2019re mutable.<\/p>\n

6. Start early in the alphabet<\/strong>.\u00a0 In the pre-Google world, this was done so that you\u2019d show up earlier in a lists of things that are often sorted alphabetically (like when you win an award).\u00a0 In the post-Google world, a similar rationale applies, but what\u2019s more important is the position of links<\/em> to your website when it shows up in a list of things (like a directory).\u00a0 If possible, you want to be in the first<\/em> page of a multi-page article that mentions a bunch of companies.\u00a0 The first page of a multi-page directory usually passes more SEO authority to your website than subsequent pages.<\/p>\n

7. The \u201c.com\u201d has to be \u201cgettable\u201d<\/strong>.\u00a0 By \u201cgettable\u201d, I mean that it is either not registered yet \u2014 or, it is available for purchase at a price you\u2019re willing to pay.\u00a0 Don\u2019t play tricks with the domain name either \u2014 like including hyphens.\u00a0 Also, stay away from clever domain names like del.icio.us.\u00a0 The reason is simple:\u00a0 It\u2019s not natural for people to type domains that way.\u00a0 (Note: Even del.icio.us eventually switched to the much easier domain, delicious.com).<\/p>\n

8.\u00a0 The twitter handle has to be available<\/strong>.\u00a0 No tricks with numbers and underscores and stuff.\u00a0 You want the most natural, obvious twitter handle that matches your company name.\u00a0 This is not quite as hard as .com domain names \u2014 but getting harder every day.<\/p>\n

9. The facebook page should be available: <\/strong>To test this, try visiting http:\/\/facebook.com\/yourname<\/a> and see if there\u2019s something there.\u00a0 Or, do a search on Facebook and see what you find.<\/p>\n

10. Keep it short<\/strong>.\u00a0 Always good advice, but particularly true in the age of Twitter.\u00a0 The more characters in your company name, the more characters in the tweets that people write that mention your company name.\u00a0 The more characters your company name uses up, the less you can actually say<\/em> in a tweet.\u00a0 Generally, try to stay 10 characters or under.\u00a0 Also, number of characters is not the only consideration, it should be short when spoken as well (that is, have fewer syllables).\u00a0 The fewer the syllables, the easier it is for people to say.\u00a0 Great examples of one and two-syllable names:\u00a0 Dropbox, Mint, FreshBooks, ZenDesk.\u00a0 I\u2019d shy away from anything that is over 3 syllables.<\/p>\n

11. Don\u2019t leave out vowels or add punctuation<\/strong>.\u00a0 Just because Flickr was successful does not mean it\u2019s OK for you to drop vowels from your name.\u00a0 Name your company in whatever way is natural \u2014 for humans.\u00a0 And, don\u2019t add punctuation (like an exclamation mark) to your name.\u00a0 Yes, it\u2019s distinctive and it worked for Yahoo! but there\u2019s no sense spending calories on this.<\/p>\n

12. Try to get your main keyword into the name<\/strong>.\u00a0 This helps with SEO and <\/em>signals to potential visitors what they might find on your site.\u00a0 For example, this site is called OnStartups.com.\u00a0 Not particularly creative, but you have to admit \u2014 it\u2019s clear<\/em>.\u00a0 (And, is likely partly responsible for my high rankings in Google for a bunch of startup related words).<\/p>\n

13. Start with an uppercase letter<\/strong>.\u00a0 If it\u2019s good enough for Google, Amazon and a thousand other really successful companies, it\u2019s good enough for you.\u00a0 Sure, starting with a lower-case letter is cute and might demonstate some humility, but 99% of the people are going to spell it wrong and you\u2019re going to spend too many cycles worrying about training them \u2014 and you\u2019re still going to fail.\u00a0 If you\u2019re going to ask the world a favor, save it for the big stuff \u2014 not \u201ccan you please be sure to spell our company name with a lower-case letter\u201d.<\/p>\n

14. Don\u2019t name your company after yourself. <\/strong>Yes, I know it\u2019s tempting because it\u2019s so easy<\/em>.\u00a0 And, you might even think \u201chey, customers should know who they\u2019re doing business with\u201d.\u00a0 You might even make an argument like \u201cthere have been plenty of successful startups that were named after their founder.\u201d\u00a0 Though that might all be true, on average, this is a losing approach.\u00a0 When customers hear something like \u201cDharmesh Shah Enterprises\u201d (granted, your name is probably not as odd as mine), it doesn\u2019t make them immediately think \u201cWow, that must be an awfully cool\/successful\/stable company\u201d.\u00a0 It sounds a bit amateurish right at the get go.\u00a0 The other reason is that if you name the company after yourself, too many people are going to want to talk to you<\/em>.\u00a0 That\u2019s ok when you\u2019re the only person in the company to talk to, but becomes problematic as your startup grows and there are other people trying to sell\/support\/market.<\/p>\n

15. Don’t Use An Acronym: <\/strong>These were all the rage at various points in time — but I’m not a big fan.\u00a0 It’s hard to get emotional about a three letter acronym.\u00a0 It’s hard to hug an acronym.\u00a0 As a corollary to this, try not to have a company name with three words in it, because it’s long enough that people are going to be tempted to reduce it to an acronym.<\/p>\n

<\/strong>16. Have a story<\/strong>.\u00a0 When someone asks (and they will), so why did you pick X for your name, it\u2019s nice to have something relatively interesting to say.\u00a0 Names are a part of your personality, and the absence of a personality is rarely a good thing.\u00a0 For example, when I started my first company (I was 24, and didn\u2019t know what branding was), the name I picked violated many of the rules in this list.\u00a0 The company name was \u201cPyramid Digital Solutions\u201d.\u00a0 But, it had a pretty good story.\u00a0 I started first with the acronym P.D.S.\u00a0 I wanted to name the company after my dad (whose initials are PDS).\u00a0 He\u2019s a tad superstitious and didn\u2019t want me to name the company after him (it\u2019s\u00a0 a long story).\u00a0 And, <\/em>wanting to prove him wrong I started with the acronym PDS.\u00a0 Then, for the first word, I picked \u201cPyramid\u201d because I was passionate about strong, architectural software design.\u00a0 We were going to build products that stood the test of time \u2014 much like the Pyramids.\u00a0 The other two words (Digital Solutions) were sort fluff words.\u00a0 Summary:\u00a0 It\u2019s OK to be purely scientific in your name selection, but a good story never hurts.<\/p>\n

16. Pay attention to character sequences in multi-word names: <\/strong>This one\u2019s a bit subtle.\u00a0 But, if you have a name that is two words stuck together, then be mindful of what character ends the first word, and what starts the second.\u00a0 I\u2019d stay away from names where both of those letters are the same.\u00a0 Example: If your company name is something like BetterReading, it\u2019s sub-optimal (because Better ends with \u201cR\u201d and reading starts with \u201cR\u201d.\u00a0 Normally, that\u2019s OK, but when you type it out as a URL, people will often see:\u00a0 betterreading.com \u2014 which is not terrible, but does cause the brain to \u201cpause\u201d for a micro-second because it feels a tad unnatural.\u00a0 And, I\u2019d be remiss if I didn\u2019t bring up the widely popular example of unfortunate character sequences:\u00a0 expertsexchange.com.\u00a0 When capitalized properly, this name is just fine (ExpertsExchange) which is what the site owners intended.\u00a0 But, it turns out, this can be confused as \u201cExpertSexChange\u201d (which is not what was intended).\u00a0 Make sure you think through the combinations properly.<\/p>\n

17. Seek timeless instead of trendy: <\/strong>It seems that every generation of startups has their own \u201ctrendy\u201d approach to names.\u00a0 Examples are the dropping-vowels thing (like Flickr), the breaking up of words (like del.icio.us) or the newly fashionable \u201c.ly\u201d names.\u00a0 I\u2019d suggest that names that don\u2019t necessarily indicate when you started are a good thing (on the off-chance that your company outlives that particular fad or trend).\u00a0 Pick a name that is timeliness.\u00a0 One that people will see 10 years from now and not think \u201cHey, they\u2019re one of those<\/em> companies\u2026\u201d.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s all I have for now.\u00a0 For more on the topic, you might want to check out Guy Kawasaki’s article<\/a> on the topic (makes some similar points, but he’s a better writer).\u00a0 Also, hat tip to the “22 Immutable Laws of Branding<\/a>” whose title was an inspiration for this blog post.\u00a0 More floating around in my head, but I\u2019m a believer in the \u201crelease early, release often\u201d mantra.\u00a0 So, what do you think?\u00a0 Any other tips or rules of thumb you use when coming up with startup names?<\/p>\n

Oh, and I’m thinking of creating a simple web-based tool that assesses a name (which I think is hard to do via software).\u00a0 What do you think of that idea?\u00a0 What kind of features would you want to see?<\/p>\n

Like this?\u00a0 Help spread the word.<\/p>\n

Bonus: I liked the velociraptor sign and put it on the door of our computer-room. Three iterations later…..<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written by OnStartups Naming a startup is hard.\u00a0 Very hard.\u00a0 On the one hand, the pragmatic entrepreneur thinks: \u201cI shouldn\u2019t be wasting time on this \u2014 for every successful company with a great name, there\u2019s one with a crappy name that did just fine.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t seem like a name has much influence on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2600"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2600"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2602,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2600\/revisions\/2602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}