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How to name your startup

joel.is

11–20 of 60 posts

Re: How to name your startup

#11
I prefer guidelines for choosing bad names because they are much fewer than guidelines for good names.

* Make the name offensive in some language.

* Make the name difficult to pronounce.

* Make the name difficult to spell.

* Make the name non unique or confusingly similar to another name.

As long as you DON'T FOLLOW these guidelines you'll be ok.

Re: How to name your startup

#12
A recent article made the case against disregarding domain names: while Square used to be SQUAREUP.COM, and Facebook used to be GETDROPBOX.COM, neither is today; both have acquired the bare domain name corresponding to their name and use them exclusively.

The issue here is then, once you make the decision to be "getFOO.COM", the better you do, the more expensive FOO.COM becomes. There is no guarantee the price for the "real" domain name will ever be reasonable. It may instead become intractably expensive.

If you're committed to "getFOO.COM" forever, the strategy works just fine. But when I see people talk about how Facebook used to be "thefacebook.com", I get itchy. How much would you have charged for "facebook.com" 4 years ago?

Re: How to name your startup

#13
post #8
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Companies prosper or fail because of their product, not their name. Consider Amazon. It outshines competitors in e-commerce, even though one rival -- Buy.com -- owns the perfect name for online shopping. While true, I would hesitate investing with a group called "Bernie Madoff Groupies" or purchasing a DVD from an Ebay company called "KnockOff".

Great point. "Or fail" should be removed from the line.

[deleted]

Re: How to name your startup

#14
post #9
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great point. "Or fail" should be removed from the line.

Wow--I didn't even consider that. Now I completely agree with the point. Language is lost on me sometimes.

A recent example of a terrible product name is Fit Sliq Jeans by H&M. Fit sounds very similar to "fitta", the Swedish word for cunt and Sliq sounds like "slicka", i.e. (to) lick. You would think that in a global company such as H&M, which has its roots in Sweden, there would be at least one person who would notice the error.

http://adland.tv/content/unfortunate-name-or-genious-marketi...

Re: How to name your startup

#16
post #12

A recent article made the case against disregarding domain names: while Square used to be SQUAREUP.COM, and Facebook used to be GETDROPBOX.COM, neither is today; both have acquired the bare domain name corresponding to their name and use them exclusively. The issue here is then, once you make the decision to be "getFOO.COM", the better you do, the more expensive FOO.COM becomes. There is no guarantee the price for th…

> Facebook used to be GETDROPBOX.COM

Perhaps you mean "thefacebook.com?"

Re: How to name your startup

#19
Have to disagree with this article. There are three qualities that override everything else for a good name:

1) Being memorable

2) Easy to spell when you hear it said out loud (and conversely: easy to pronounce when you see it written)

3) Not being cheesy or otherwise embarrassing to say when you introduce yourself to people

I just can't believe it every time I hear a company name that, if I remember it a few days later and want to go look them up, is impossible to spell. Missing a letter is fine. But having silent letters, with k's instead of c's and other non-phonetic spelling? That's just crazy.

Re: How to name your startup

#20
You only the mistake of having a bad name once. I had a copywriting side gig I tried to name and got caught up with the idea of a red pen. So we ended up with RedWrit - not only impossible to say and spell (if you know how to say it), but the red pen allusion was completely lost.

This time I don't think we made the same mistake. GrassWire. It comes from grassroots newswire, but you don't need to know that - everyone knows how to read it, when someone says it you know how to spell it, it's unique and the domain was available. That's all that matters.

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