Naming this new company has been a struggle, in large part because we place a huge importance on this step in the start-up process. It impacts everything, including things like recruiting and fundraising that set the path of company well before a single customer even sees the name. I ranted a bit in my last naming post about how hard it is to pry a good dot-com name away from the domainer industry. In this post, I’d like to talk about the rules we apply when someone puts another potential name on the whiteboard for consideration. Think you’ve got a good name? Then step up to the Board and we’ll see if your name is up to snuff. (Note: these rules are somewhat specific to the consumer-oriented business we are starting)
Tier One Considerations:
-
Can the Dot-Com Be Registered/Purchased? The rules we set out below mean most of the names that make our whiteboard have already been registered by someone, and buying the name is the only potential option. In fact only our “frugal” CFO was brave enough to put a name on the whiteboard that wasn’t registered: Spinningdoor.com. He registered it himself and made the argument it was perfect for the company. We told him he only liked it because it would cost the company $9. By the way, he has it for sale (ds@spinningdoor.com) if anyone is interested
-
Is the Name Fun? One of the best things about a consumer offer is that you can have fun. Unless you’re out to cure cancer or market to bankers or lawyers, have some fun with your name. We love names that make people smile.
-
Could it be a Mega-Brand? Picture it on the side of a stadium, sponsoring American Idol, on a blimp. Can you see it? If not, subtract a point.
-
Is The Name too Limiting? Usually the best candidates will have either nothing to do with the actual product or service or only suggest certain elements of the business to a consumer. These are easy to protect as trademarks and don’t unduly limit the company down the road as the business may change (for example, naming a company www.beer.com may make it difficult to sell something different later). We tend to favor names that give us a completely open canvas (like Jellyfish did).
-
Is it Easy to Remember & Spell? This is where most of our names fall off the map. We set up three tiers here: 1) completely made up words; 2) actual words, misspelled; and, 3) actual words with the correct spelling. We really favor tier 3. As a start-up it is hard enough to get someone’s attention; don’t force them to remember a funky made up word or misspelling. This doesn’t mean you can’t succeed with a tier 1 or 2 (consider Google or Flickr), but why make your job harder by naming your company Kulabyte or Cuil? If your neighbor told you this kind of name, would you remember it two hours later? How about two months?
-
Is it Bold & Unique? We love names that stand out without zillions of dollars of marketing. The best names make you smile a bit and ask “what do they do?” One word of caution: picking a bold name will put you close to the idiot/genius line. I remember getting an e-mail from a college student at Michigan State right after we put up the Jellyfish.com blog pre-launch. The e-mail basically said we were a bunch of idiots for picking the name Jellyfish and that their entire dorm floor was still laughing. I saved that e-mail (in fact, I still have it) as a reminder not to ever hire anyone from Michigan State
-
The Word of Mouth Test As a final test, I love to think about how easy it would be for an early adopter of our product to tell someone to try it. Do they feel good/cool/savvy saying the name? Does their buddy remember it?
Not many names make it through this criteria. And it’s easy to get depressed when you spend so much time brainstorming that the name Spinningdoor.com starts to look good (sorry Dave) or you find yourself spending time on dotomator.com (raises hand). But we’ve done of good job of staying true to our rules and reminding ourselves that we are setting a very high bar (we’d reject most of the start up company names profiled on TechCrunch, for example).
To date, we’ve only gotten a few names through this process, at which point we run a full trademark search, talk to our trademark counsel about any issues and try to buy the domain. A few of our favorite candidates have fallen off the map here. But we have gotten a great name to the finish line. As soon as we finalize the dot-com purchase, I’ll let you know what it is.
August 22nd, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Having to buy domain names: I am curious about your thoughts on supporting “the industry” in which you are having issues. Won’t the person you purchase your name from just reinvest and in more names. When introducing the next product, name clearance will be even more of struggle. As you noted, look what has happen in the time between Jellyfish and now.
Anyway, I have taken the challenge of thinking of names that meet your criteria. You are correct, it is hard but every possible name is not taken. You have laid out guidelines for a name (fun, mega-brand, easy spelling). With a pad of paper I brainstormed away. Maybe not being clear of your product or plans is helpful. If given the chore of naming an online bookstore, Amazon would not have been on my list, but it has worked. My favorite is available with all domain endings and a quick check of US Trademark records does not indicate a conflict. Additionally it could be incorporated with a small, mythical, woodland creature. I hope you have luck with your name search and I guess part of me hopes you are interested and wonder what name I have settled on for you.
August 25th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
When in doubt for a name, I’ve found that mythology sometimes provides some neat options: http://www.pantheon.org/
August 28th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
Tim:
I totally agree that it is hard to support this industry by paying big dollars for a dot-com name, but it is the reality of the marketplace. I now view it simply as a cost of entry for a new online consumer business. On the bright side, servers and software is a lot cheaper today than it was in 1997, so I guess there are trade offs. As to your name, we’ve already purchased a name, so I almost hope I don’t like what you came up with! Feel free to e-mail me markjmcguire at gmail and thanks for your interest
August 28th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
@platypus I love the mythology names and we spent quite a bit of time on this concept. My biggest problem here is that most of the names in this genre are really hard to pronounce and spell.
November 11th, 2008 at 11:30 am
[...] paper, trash bags with consumers. The founder’s blog, FlywheelBlog, also features a series of interesting posts about the decision to name the company [...]
November 16th, 2008 at 10:52 pm
[...] paper, trash bags with consumers. The founder’s blog, FlywheelBlog, also features a series of interesting posts about the decision to name the company [...]