Ask HN: How do you choose a name for your product / service? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: How do you choose a name for your product / service?

#11

Post by rcavezza » Wed, Dec 07, 2016, 8:47 PM UTC

Jemaclus wrote: post #10

I don't have any ideas about picking good names, but one rule of thumb about picking names is that it should pass the bar test. The bar test is simple: if you're in a loud bar, and someone asks you the name of your company, and you tell them, they should be able to go home and type it into Google exactly and know what it is. For example, "Microsoft" is a good one, as are Captain 401K, Uber, and Stripe, because it's m…

This is good advice. I would add you should also buy the domain names that can also make the same sound. For example, if you founded uber.com, you might also want to buy oober.com and redirect to uber.com.

Re: Ask HN: How do you choose a name for your product / service?

#12

Post by aquark » Wed, Dec 07, 2016, 10:08 PM UTC

Jemaclus wrote: post #10

I don't have any ideas about picking good names, but one rule of thumb about picking names is that it should pass the bar test. The bar test is simple: if you're in a loud bar, and someone asks you the name of your company, and you tell them, they should be able to go home and type it into Google exactly and know what it is. For example, "Microsoft" is a good one, as are Captain 401K, Uber, and Stripe, because it's m…

Actually I think Stripe is a surprisingly bad name. I work a lot with Stripe (& love them technically), have over a thousand of (mostly non-technical) customers that are connected via Stripe connect.

The name gets mangled by customers, A LOT. The most common confusion is (repeatedly) calling them swipe though strip has come up more than once. People are thinking more in terms of swiping cards than the stripe on them and so that verb sticks in their mind.

Re: Ask HN: How do you choose a name for your product / service?

#13

Post by supernormal » Thu, Dec 08, 2016, 4:52 AM UTC

I like Ben's approach to naming products/services - http://blog.pieratt.com/post/77293289254/a-3-step-process-fo...

The name does not directly need to coincide with its inherent value, paint the picture with your personal or teams values.

Re: Ask HN: How do you choose a name for your product / service?

#14

Post by finspin » Thu, Dec 08, 2016, 11:37 AM UTC

aquark wrote: post #12

Jemaclus wrote: post #10

I don't have any ideas about picking good names, but one rule of thumb about picking names is that it should pass the bar test. The bar test is simple: if you're in a loud bar, and someone asks you the name of your company, and you tell them, they should be able to go home and type it into Google exactly and know what it is. For example, "Microsoft" is a good one, as are Captain 401K, Uber, and Stripe, because it's m…

Actually I think Stripe is a surprisingly bad name. I work a lot with Stripe (& love them technically), have over a thousand of (mostly non-technical) customers that are connected via Stripe connect. The name gets mangled by customers, A LOT. The most common confusion is (repeatedly) calling them swipe though strip has come up more than once. People are thinking more in terms of swiping cards than the stripe on them…

Here's a story by one of the founders on how Stripe came up with the name https://www.quora.com/How-did-Stripe-come-up-with-its-name

Re: Ask HN: How do you choose a name for your product / service?

#15

Post by bharani_m » Thu, Dec 08, 2016, 1:03 PM UTC

I had a lot of trouble coming up with a good name/domain for my side project. I tried a few name suggestion tools [1][2] but wasn't satisfied with the results.

I was browsing through this site called FreshDrop [3] which lists expired/expiring domains and stumbled across a nice name - Metriculator.

Luckily metriculator.com and the social media handles were available. This might not work for everyone but is definitely worth a try.

[1] http://impossibility.org/

[2] http://www.leandomainsearch.com/

[3] https://www.freshdrop.com/

Re: Ask HN: How do you choose a name for your product / service?

#16

Post by rogerdpack » Thu, Dec 08, 2016, 5:20 PM UTC

taprun wrote: post #9

I used http://leandomainsearch.com and found a six letter domain that was made up of two English words. The name has nothing to do with my offering, but it's short and easy to pronounce / spell without any confusion. Bonus: Since it was available, it only cost 99 cents for the first year (with coupon).

For anyone interested, for my "hobby" projects naming conventions, one tip/trick is that you don't have to worry about the domain name being available (just competition with the "real" domain name) if you create a subdomain using afraid.org, ex:

mydomainname.inet2.org

or what not. You can have any domain name you want including ones whose .com and .org and .net are already taken LOL. Great for side projects, free, blah blah...