I can't help it but... 'namelayer' doesn't sound like a 'great' domain name to me either. Hmm.
Before naming your startup, read this.
51–60 of 68 posts
Re: Before naming your startup, read this.
#52Names that exactly describe your product can be a problem if you pivot. If you pivot a bit, then International Business Machines is not too bad, but Wire and Plastic Products was less useful for a media empire. Polaroid was ok for a pivot as it is both specific about polarization, but also just a nice word.
International Business Machines was named out of spite. Watson was a former employee of National Cash Register.
Re: Before naming your startup, read this.
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
First line of the article: "I’ve learned a lot from the development of NameLayer, and I’m ready to divulge every trick in my arsenal." Pretty upfront.
Ah, I am just stupid for not recognising that as a full disclosure (I did not know NameLayer before).
And ironically, the name "NameLayer" doesn't give much insight into what kind of business it is...
Re: Before naming your startup, read this.
#54The article author of course has an interest in convincing startups that naming is important. That doesn't make him wrong, but I think it's easy to see that a name does not a successful business make, and that naming is one of the tarpits that any business owner can get stuck in. Pop quiz: rate the expected success of each of the following businesses based only on their name: Ford Reebok Nike Apple Chevy Applebee's J…
For another pop quiz, figure out by using only the name and the logo (extra information!) whether these companies are in the hair care business or the digital audio business: http://ridiculousfish.com/blog/posts/logos.html (Submitted it http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3876253 )
It really isn't that important.
Re: Before naming your startup, read this.
#55Some contradictions: MarketHear.com: bad because it fails the "bar exam" CardPool.com: how does this pass the "bar exam" again? Xort.com: bad - you settled on some domain because it's short and easy to pronounce Etsy.com: good because it's short
Xort.com is a bad name. If I heard "Xort.com" without seeing it, I would try to type it as "Zort.com" and probably wouldn't be able to come up with Xort.com on my own. That's also why I hate the Web2.0 trend of dropping vowels. It incurs too much work on my side to reach the website, which is a bad thing.
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Re: Before naming your startup, read this.
#56This is all stuff to consider, but without actual numbers, this amounts to his sincere advice that you should use his services. Does anyone have a story of a project or business that was greatly helped or greatly hurt by their name, in quantifiable terms? Let's exclude obviously terrible names like "wyslja.com", or businesses where the whole point is SEO, like "sex.com". I want to hear stories we can use as experimen…
solid real example - though not strictly quantifiable.. but in this piece Max Haot makes absolutely no bones that changing their name from Mogulus to LiveStream had a massive effect on their success (he says it over and over again)
http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/08/founder-stories-livestreams...
Certainly passes the smell test for me. Mogulus = huh? Livestream = Oh, I get what they do and remember enough to come back.
Re: Before naming your startup, read this.
#57I strongly believe that the rules or maxims presented here have too many exceptions. There's a lot of weak arguments to support a weak thesis. I remember Amazon.com being condemned for having a weird and confusing name. Ultimately, those detractors were wrong or the name didn't matter that much. The truth is that a company's name, like nearly every factor, demonstrates a weak correlation with success. But tech blogge…
And yet amazon.com has, at least now, an awesome logo. It's got an arrow from a to z which makes a smile. Three elements related to what it does, or at least aims to do.
Re: Before naming your startup, read this.
#58When I tried to tell my browser to scroll slightly to the right by pressing my right arrow key, the site hijacked the keypress and took me to an unrelated page. Wtf? FAIL. Edit: AND it keeps reloading itself every couple minutes. Who designs this?
This is why I use NoScript.
There's a meta refresh= for that.
Re: Before naming your startup, read this.
#59I didn't find several of the "strong examples" to be much stronger than the bad examples. I absolutely believe in passing the telephone test: a receptionist (not expert in your field) should be able to transcribe your name accurately over a low quality cellphone call. Using technical terms (e.g. git) complicates this, especially if they're longer, and rules out homonyms, frequently confused sounds, etc. I'd rather ha…
I didn't find several of the "strong examples" to be much stronger than the bad examples. I concur. For example, if I see a site named "somethingly.com", I immediately associate it with a whole bunch of negative connotations, including unoriginality, lack of substance in the product/service that would lead to a more meaningful name, and a high probability of being run by 21-year-olds who are more interested in landin…
I think 18-22yo who do startups are more likely to have something they're passionate about and build something awesome for the long haul.
The 22+ yo who have graduated college and need to find something to do, or those who have worked for one startup and now want to do something (but don't now what), seem a lot more likely to do a "fund me!" perfunctory startup.
I don't think it's really that related to age, though.
Re: Before naming your startup, read this.
#60Chart.io, Like.fm (Extreme obviousness meets extreme brandability): I know exactly what these companies do before I even visit their sites. Really? Cause I have no idea what Like.fm does. Chart.io? It's a place to input/output charts or something? This post is pure pseudoscience.
I can't be the only one that was confused by the name Last.fm when I discovered it. I thought it was about FM radio.
It used to be separate from audioscrobbler.com (the charting and recommendations service) and only did streaming 'radio' based on your AudioScrobbler account. I'm guessing that, they realised that while AudioScrobbler is an okay name, Last.fm is a better one (it's short, easy to remember and implies something to do with music/radio) and merged the websites.