I learned quite an interesting "hack" to aid in naming a company. Talk to children, under 10, and see what names they come up with and their reaction. You will be quite surprised!
edit: a little proof; yumbud.com
How to name your startup: A 9 month first-hand journey through rebranding
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Re: How to name your startup: A 9 month first-hand journey through rebranding
#12I really like the story behind the domain acquisition. It sounded like it was going to be unfun before you got to it, but I'm really glad it went over well and it sounds like both parties were happy.
Sometimes it's the hardest part of the rebranding.
Re: How to name your startup: A 9 month first-hand journey through rebranding
#13I think the most important – and only thing – you should worry about naming stuff is simply not having a terrible name. Honestly, learndot is very poor for the reasons pud articulated.
* Have the .com
* Be able to pronounce it and the url without confusion.
Got those two things? Great, now get back to shipping your product. Seriously, names are irrelevant and unless you have mega cash you're not going to get a 10x name (eg: path.com) so just make sure you're not terrible.
Here is a better name for learndot: learnduck.com you're welcome.
Re: How to name your startup: A 9 month first-hand journey through rebranding
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
In that case: Learndot: "Our company is called learndot." Customer: "Learn dot what?" Learndot: "Learn dot nothing - that's the name of the company." Customer: "Learn dot nothing?" Learndot: "Well, dot com." Customer: "Learn dot com? Why didn't you say that?" Learndot: "No, it's learn dot dot com." Customer: "Dot dot?" Learndot: "No, the first dot is spelled dee-oh-tee." Customer: "???" I hope I'm not coming across a…
Fair enough - usually I just say "Learndot, dee oh tee" and it's no problem. Though I agree it's not perfect. The other factors balanced it out (spellability, MVP-ness and so forth). You're right, naming is hard.
Pud is right. You would have been better off going to a naming company/consultant that does this as its trade, and also does the foreign language checks, trademark searches, and so forth. Most large companies outsource that sort of stuff because branding isn't their core competency. Sorry to be so blunt.
Re: How to name your startup: A 9 month first-hand journey through rebranding
#15According to the article, one of the reasons they changed the company name is because it was hard for people to understand the old name when spoken verbally. Their new name seems to have the same problem. For example: Learndot: "Email me at paul-at-learn-dot-dot-com" Customer: "learn dot com?" Learndor "No, learn dot dot com" Customer "???"
This was my first thought exactly. They went from a name that was difficult for people to spell/pronounce correctly to one that is confusing in the context of the web. I'm not sure which is worse to be honest. After hearing the new name verbally people may either; type in "learn." into Google which I doubt they will be the first result, or be left waiting for the "com" part and still not have the right idea.
Re: How to name your startup: A 9 month first-hand journey through rebranding
#16I'm interested in this particular thing:
Twitter handle was registered, but had never tweeted and looked abandoned. I contacted a friend who works at Twitter and after a bit of investigation was able to get @learndot as well
Is this something that's easy to do? Can it be done if you don't know anyone inside Twitter? I had to settle for something like @myappnameapp instead of @myappname because the username was already taken but had never been used. I'd be interested to learn what are the Twitter policies regarding this.
Re: How to name your startup: A 9 month first-hand journey through rebranding
#17I like it. I like the business cards. I like all of it!!
Re: How to name your startup: A 9 month first-hand journey through rebranding
#18I'm interested in this particular thing: Twitter handle was registered, but had never tweeted and looked abandoned. I contacted a friend who works at Twitter and after a bit of investigation was able to get @learndot as well Is this something that's easy to do? Can it be done if you don't know anyone inside Twitter? I had to settle for something like @myappnameapp instead of @myappname because the username was alread…
The way to do this (I've heard) if you do not know anyone at Twitter is to buy a lot of ads then ask your sales rep to see if they can help.
Re: How to name your startup: A 9 month first-hand journey through rebranding
#19The ability to fluidly fire off your website address is just as important as the actual name itself. You fumbled twice in a row, my friend.
Re: How to name your startup: A 9 month first-hand journey through rebranding
#20Shameless plug of my own take on this: http://messymatters.com/nominology
Sam Stokes (Rapportive co-founder) called it his "favourite post on naming things". :)
Ooh, and Sam's coworker called it "absolutely brilliant". I might be reaching now.