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Poll: Does the name of a startup matter?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Poll: Does the name of a startup matter?

#4
post #2

In the most polite way, I must ask: what are you hoping to accomplish with this poll? Of course a name "matters:" you can't call your flower company "moldy cheese flowers."

It is something I've thought a lot about and wondered. You consistently see "hip" short names come out of YC for example. Sometimes it's just a word with "ly" attached to it, sometimes it's the concatenation of two short words. Rarely do I see multiword names or traditional, older style names with "the" or "co"/"company".

So I think the answer is probably more nuanced than "as long as it's not a name that is blatantly awful" like the one you suggested.

Re: Poll: Does the name of a startup matter?

#5
post #2

In the most polite way, I must ask: what are you hoping to accomplish with this poll? Of course a name "matters:" you can't call your flower company "moldy cheese flowers."

I believe that you could build a successful business like that, if you took on the name appropriately. Self-deprecating names do have some history. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-a-Wreck

Re: Poll: Does the name of a startup matter?

#8
The name, logo, and branding of your identity means a lot. Although the service you provide will likely matter more than these things, you need to be aware that a customers first impression of your company is huge.

I find it so odd that all of these companies have names that tell you nothing about the business. Welcome to swaply, we sell insurance. I always have thought that your business name should give some information relating to what your business does. 'Swaply Insurance', slogan here. You instantly know what they are about.

Re: Poll: Does the name of a startup matter?

#9
I assume the author of the poll isn't asking whether the difference between "Zap" and "Quacyxloctl" matters, but rather how important marginal differences between names are.

I think they're much less important than people think they are, and usually cite both Airbnb (a name that actually has negative connotations to the positioning Airbnb aspires to now) and Ebay (an utterly meaningless name) as examples.

Earlier comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4684845 --- shorter: equity goes into a name; it isn't extracted from it.

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