Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Before naming your startup, read this.

thenextweb.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–68 of 68 posts

Re: Before naming your startup, read this.

#61

Post by cpeterso »

keiferski wrote: post #21
neilk wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Mint case describes ease-of-use, and you simply imagine that wesabe was very hard to communicate. You also make up this new criterion that Mint.com is better because it strongly implies a color, and wesabe.com lacks this. UnderArmour is product naming, not domain naming. I will grant you that this FeeFighters thing seems like a clear case of a domain name helping the product, although you are committing the post-…

1. Mint's relation to a color that has good associations is a good thing. Mint = green, clean, fresh. I also think it's pretty obvious that Wesabe is difficult to communicate, especially compared to Mint. 2. UnderArmour: ok, but we're talking about naming in general here. The brand positioning of your company matters no matter what market you're in. A social network targeting seniors isn't going anywhere if it's name…

"Mint" is also a place where money is made (minted) and, as an adjective, can mean something is in good condition.

Re: Before naming your startup, read this.

#62

Post by halefx »

Jach wrote: post #54
thaumaturgy wrote: post #45

The article author of course has an interest in convincing startups that naming is important. That doesn't make him wrong, but I think it's easy to see that a name does not a successful business make, and that naming is one of the tarpits that any business owner can get stuck in. Pop quiz: rate the expected success of each of the following businesses based only on their name: Ford Reebok Nike Apple Chevy Applebee's J…

For another pop quiz, figure out by using only the name and the logo (extra information!) whether these companies are in the hair care business or the digital audio business: http://ridiculousfish.com/blog/posts/logos.html (Submitted it http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3876253 ) It really isn't that important.

That was really easy.

"Computer scientist Alan Kay also plays Stan's father on South Park."

Re: Before naming your startup, read this.

#63

Post by skeletonjelly »

gammarator wrote: post #53
micheljansen wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, I am just stupid for not recognising that as a full disclosure (I did not know NameLayer before).

And ironically, the name "NameLayer" doesn't give much insight into what kind of business it is...

That's some pretty sweet irony right there. The author should have dipped into some humility.

Re: Before naming your startup, read this.

#64

Post by pkamb »

rollypolly wrote: post #3

I've come across "wysija.com" while looking at wordpress plugins recently. I immediately thought that was the worse name anyone could pick. It literally looks like random letters. It's unpronounceable and hard to memorize. They have a pseudo-explanation of the name at the bottom of their landing page. But I don't buy it. It reads more like an excuse. But I ended up trying their product because I liked their video. So…

If you didn't know, "wiz-ee-wig" is a very well-known term to a particular subset of the population.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WYSIWYG

Re: Before naming your startup, read this.

#65

Post by VigUi7vv8G2 »

keiferski wrote: post #21
neilk wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Mint case describes ease-of-use, and you simply imagine that wesabe was very hard to communicate. You also make up this new criterion that Mint.com is better because it strongly implies a color, and wesabe.com lacks this. UnderArmour is product naming, not domain naming. I will grant you that this FeeFighters thing seems like a clear case of a domain name helping the product, although you are committing the post-…

1. Mint's relation to a color that has good associations is a good thing. Mint = green, clean, fresh. I also think it's pretty obvious that Wesabe is difficult to communicate, especially compared to Mint. 2. UnderArmour: ok, but we're talking about naming in general here. The brand positioning of your company matters no matter what market you're in. A social network targeting seniors isn't going anywhere if it's name…

You're missing the obvious: Green = MONEY.

Re: Before naming your startup, read this.

#66

Post by VigUi7vv8G2 »

mooism2 wrote: post #25
tomp wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you pronounce "xort"? This is a serious question, I'm not an native English speaker and there are many pronunciations of X in English (Like "h" as in "LaTeX", like "ks" as in "extreme", like "z" as in "Xavier", maybe there are more...)

The X in "LaTeX" is not an English X but a Greek X (chi). I can't think of any actual English word where the X is pronounced like that. (But yeah, it's not obvious to me whether "xort" should be pronounced "zort" or "ksort".)

So in that case LaTeX is supposed to be pronounced like the spanish word for milk, "Lachee"? (Or I guess 'latechee', technically but if that were the case everyone would drop the 't' sound)

Re: Before naming your startup, read this.

#67

Post by StavrosK »

mooism2 wrote: post #25
tomp wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you pronounce "xort"? This is a serious question, I'm not an native English speaker and there are many pronunciations of X in English (Like "h" as in "LaTeX", like "ks" as in "extreme", like "z" as in "Xavier", maybe there are more...)

The X in "LaTeX" is not an English X but a Greek X (chi). I can't think of any actual English word where the X is pronounced like that. (But yeah, it's not obvious to me whether "xort" should be pronounced "zort" or "ksort".)

Well, it's actually TeX that's pronounced with a chi. Lamport doesn't care either way.

Re: Before naming your startup, read this.

#68

Post by StavrosK »

pkamb wrote: post #64
rollypolly wrote: post #3

I've come across "wysija.com" while looking at wordpress plugins recently. I immediately thought that was the worse name anyone could pick. It literally looks like random letters. It's unpronounceable and hard to memorize. They have a pseudo-explanation of the name at the bottom of their landing page. But I don't buy it. It reads more like an excuse. But I ended up trying their product because I liked their video. So…

If you didn't know, "wiz-ee-wig" is a very well-known term to a particular subset of the population. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WYSIWYG

I sort of guessed that it meant "what you see is... ja?" when I saw the name, but yeah, it looks random even to me.
Post reply on HN