Earlier quoted context omitted.
"a plane with a low drag coefficient won't go anywhere without powerful engines." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glider_%28aircraft%29
CUT TO: A glider, motionless on the ground, trying to go somewhere. Stepping back to a less sarcastic point, your metaphor is useful. I don't really understand why Medium is called Medium, but it doesn't really matter, because I have a degree of trust in where it came from.
Poll: Does the name of a startup matter?
51–55 of 55 posts
Re: Poll: Does the name of a startup matter?
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unless you adopt a definition of the term "brand" that is so general as to be useless, building the right brand is not the core of building a successful business; that is the kind of thing a PR firm would say. For every Dropbox, there's a Heroku.
Possibly the opposite. A successful business turns into being the right brand? As one example, I can't think of a more generic name than Southwest Airlines, but somehow they've managed to brand themselves as the fun airline. With a little more effort, I'm sure even better examples could be identified. Coca-cola? McDonald's? Meaningless names.
Just playing devil's advocate here, but are you sure that the same sort of start-up culture pervaded the industry when these single-letter-NYSE companies formed (some over a century ago)? Don't you think that the presence of mass media (specifically internet presence) has greatly changed the importance of a name?
Re: Poll: Does the name of a startup matter?
#53I think you can have 3 levels to naming:
(1) Bad for one many reasons: Can't be googled. Can't spell it. Wrong associations. Legal/Trademark trouble. These are damaging.
(2) Neutral. Most company names are basically neutral. Microsoft, ebay, amazon, google. They may have little advantages (eg google, the verb). They're fine.
(3) Good names. These have one or more distinct advantages. Suer memorable. Real good/clever associations. SEO benefits, etc.
The difference between 1 & 2 is pretty big. Companies should definitely avoid category 1. It's not so hard. Category 3 is only really useful in conjunction with other things. A name that is easily remembered, spelled and has the correct association is only an advantage if it is said to potential customers. It's helpful, for example if the company does a lot of trade shows/conferences.
For what it's worth, I think Twitter is one of the best company names. It helps explain the product, which is hard to explain. I think ebay, amazon, microsoft and most names are neutral. I think a lot of the web 2.0 names are bad (eg Del.ico.us).
Re: Poll: Does the name of a startup matter?
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Possibly the opposite. A successful business turns into being the right brand? As one example, I can't think of a more generic name than Southwest Airlines, but somehow they've managed to brand themselves as the fun airline. With a little more effort, I'm sure even better examples could be identified. Coca-cola? McDonald's? Meaningless names.
Just playing devil's advocate here, but are you sure that the same sort of start-up culture pervaded the industry when these single-letter-NYSE companies formed (some over a century ago)? Don't you think that the presence of mass media (specifically internet presence) has greatly changed the importance of a name?
Yes and no. Look at magazine ads from the 1920s. No shortage of awesome sounding names peddling crap.
same sort of start-up culture pervaded the industry
I'd say that's the problem right there. Shouldn't the importance of a name be relevant to the customers and not the founders? :)
Re: Poll: Does the name of a startup matter?
#55I 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 com…
And with Airbnb and EBay, the name just becomes a symbol at a certain point and any literal meaning recedes. The fact that "bnb" stands for bed-and-breakfast, for example, is something I completely forgot until you mentioned it. Similar to how a floppy disk means "save" even though an entire generation has now grown-up sans optical media. It's just a symbol.
Nitpick: floppy drives are magnetic media.