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How to Name your Company

judegomila.com

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Re: How to Name your Company

#31

Post by aneth4 »

tptacek wrote: post #30
aneth4 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's certainly more important to execute on product and market than come up with a good name, however don't discount the importance of a name. Consumers do judge companies by name, and first impressions matter immensely. Matasano is not a good name for an American company. It is difficult to spell and has no apparent meaning or association. That doesn't mean you can't be successful, but you will have harder time and…

I feel comfortable arguing that Matasano has never lost a customer early in the funnel because of various points of confusion about what it does. I am willing to stipulate that there are names that can cost customers if you're a general consumer-facing company. For instance, Casimiroa edulis is the species name for the Matasano plant. If Matasano sold appointment reminder software to people like my mom, and had chose…

Just because a company is successful doesn't mean it has a good name (just as a good name doesn't make a company successful.)

Ebay is a terrible name, but they had other advantages.

Braintree is a poor name, which may explain some of their struggles with entering the broader market. PayPal and Stripe are much better - emotive and associative.

If github were called snaggletooth, they would have struggled much much more.

Regarding your experience, the point where you lose customers is generally before they talk to you. You would not know that you were losing them.

I don't know what Matasano does, and truthfully if I am honest with my emotions, I care less because I don't associate with the name and initially discount the company because of the naming choice. This is a base emotive response btw, not a conscious judgement. You may have a fantastic product that I would ultimately select if I were in the market, but you are starting at a disadvantage.

Re: How to Name your Company

#32

Post by mehulkar »

tptacek wrote: post #23
judegomila wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should be able to pull off a great name in 1 day. Heroku is a great name: abstracted, unique, interesting and developer related. Ebay is also a great name.

I am not clear on how "Heroku" is "developer related" in a way meaningful to most of its customers. "Abstracted", "unique", and "interesting" are very easy bars to clear when you take "relevant" out of the mix. So yes: I buy that you could come up with a name as good as "Heroku" in a day. Just open up a book of Japanese plant names.

Heroku could mean '6 farts'[1] You'd have to open up something other than a book of Japanese plant names to come up with that :p

[1]http://www.quora.com/What-does-Heroku-mean/answer/Matt-Van-H...

Re: How to Name your Company

#33

Post by run4yourlives »

judegomila wrote: post #11
tptacek wrote: post #9

Or, just name your company quickly and move on. We lost a couple weeks early on to naming Matasano, and after some false starts, eventually gave up and thumbed through a list of exotic plants. By the time the book of plants had been opened, the naming premise had been accepted: we were done trying to find a semantically "fitting" name for the company. We just picked a plant with a cool name. We ran into two "problems…

You should be able to pull off a great name in 1 day. Heroku is a great name: abstracted, unique, interesting and developer related. Ebay is also a great name.

I think Heroku is a terrible name actually. Same goes with Ebay.

The only reason these names make sense at all is that you already have identified them with a very popular product. That doesn't mean the name is good, it means the product is succeeding despite the name.

That of course raises the entire point of names not being that important overall.

Pinterest, for example is a wonderful name for that company. Microsoft is another. Oracle, even better.

Re: How to Name your Company

#34

Post by tptacek »

aneth4 wrote: post #31
tptacek wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel comfortable arguing that Matasano has never lost a customer early in the funnel because of various points of confusion about what it does. I am willing to stipulate that there are names that can cost customers if you're a general consumer-facing company. For instance, Casimiroa edulis is the species name for the Matasano plant. If Matasano sold appointment reminder software to people like my mom, and had chose…

Just because a company is successful doesn't mean it has a good name (just as a good name doesn't make a company successful.) Ebay is a terrible name, but they had other advantages. Braintree is a poor name, which may explain some of their struggles with entering the broader market. PayPal and Stripe are much better - emotive and associative. If github were called snaggletooth, they would have struggled much much mor…

Most of us aren't really in businesses where customers find us by Googling relevant-sounding names and following one of the first 2 links on Google.

The point of my comment isn't that there are names that are better than other names. There clearly are. My point is that the difference is unlikely to be determinative of success. Again: Heroku is meaningless. There are many companies in Heroku's space with much "better" names that do not manage to outcompete Heroku.

I am now repeating myself, but because this is worth repeating: there is a long list of things that "founders" procrastinate on that won't really help their business. They include logos, designing replacement web frameworks so they don't look like they're using Bootstrap, finding the optimal company name, business cards, attending SXSW or going to meetups... the list goes on and on. Most founders would be well served to at least note that these are likely to be unproductive tasks.

That doesn't mean you can't engage in those tasks. If you love web design, vent some steam by replacing Bootstrap. Just don't con yourself into thinking you're doing something vital by doing that.

Re: How to Name your Company

#35

Post by smickie »

Lots of people are pulling Airbnb up on their name, but I think it's great:

Air = air travel, BnB = Bed and breakfast

I'm not sure if some people don't know what it means because it might be a British colloquialism or whether it's totally unintentional Airbnb's part.

Re: How to Name your Company

#36

Post by tptacek »

mehulkar wrote: post #32
tptacek wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not clear on how "Heroku" is "developer related" in a way meaningful to most of its customers. "Abstracted", "unique", and "interesting" are very easy bars to clear when you take "relevant" out of the mix. So yes: I buy that you could come up with a name as good as "Heroku" in a day. Just open up a book of Japanese plant names.

Heroku could mean '6 farts'[1] You'd have to open up something other than a book of Japanese plant names to come up with that :p [1] http://www.quora.com/What-does-Heroku-mean/answer/Matt-Van-H...

It's funny; first Google search result:

http://koi-z-are-us.20m.com/japanese_plant_names.htm

... and most of these are viable company names.

Re: How to Name your Company

#37

Post by mise »

We struggle with our name: Bitesize Irish Gaelic.

It's a language learning tool.

The Irish language is called "Irish" in Ireland, but often "Gaelic" elsewhere (depending on who you're speaking with).

The name we've ended up with is a mouthful of a compromise :)

I don't know if there's a fix for that...

Re: How to Name your Company

#38

Post by aneth4 »

tptacek wrote: post #34
aneth4 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because a company is successful doesn't mean it has a good name (just as a good name doesn't make a company successful.) Ebay is a terrible name, but they had other advantages. Braintree is a poor name, which may explain some of their struggles with entering the broader market. PayPal and Stripe are much better - emotive and associative. If github were called snaggletooth, they would have struggled much much mor…

Most of us aren't really in businesses where customers find us by Googling relevant-sounding names and following one of the first 2 links on Google. The point of my comment isn't that there are names that are better than other names. There clearly are. My point is that the difference is unlikely to be determinative of success. Again: Heroku is meaningless. There are many companies in Heroku's space with much "better"…

Okay, I don't think we are too far apart. We probably just disagree on how strong an impression a name can make. Similar to bad design and user experience, a product can be successful with a bad name. That doesn't mean user experience, design, or the name is not important.

Re: How to Name your Company

#39

Post by 001sky »

tptacek wrote: post #9

Or, just name your company quickly and move on. We lost a couple weeks early on to naming Matasano, and after some false starts, eventually gave up and thumbed through a list of exotic plants. By the time the book of plants had been opened, the naming premise had been accepted: we were done trying to find a semantically "fitting" name for the company. We just picked a plant with a cool name. We ran into two "problems…

Equity goes into* your name; it usually doesn't get extracted from your name.*

-- This is a good articulation to remember.

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