4 ms·

Mint founder on branding: Keep it simple

11 points by ctingom 17y ago

wmeredith 17y ago
As an Online Marketing Account Manager for an agency, I'm constantly explaining to clients why building the site for his new shiny widget at shinywidgetworldonline.net instead of ponying up the cash for shinywidget.com is a terrible idea. We do a lot of branding and brand-shepherding and it always amazes me how little people care about things like names and logos. They'll budget <$500 for something that's going to be the first thing every single one of their customers associates with their business. Obviously, if a company has a monopoly (Craigslist) or some other truly unreproducible competitive advantage, than these sort of blunders can be nullified. But I've never worked with one in the 5 years I've been doing this; I've worked with plenty who thought they did.
- Retric 17y ago
  I think Craigslist and news.ycombinator.com both have a well executed strategy targeting a specific market. It's not the generic "slick" approach, but most users view it as "ugly enough to be useful" not just "ugly."
vinhboy 17y ago
So how much did the name "mint" really matter? Versus the fact that the CEO seems like a very hard worker and created an awesome product.
- fjabre 17y ago
  Names do matter. You just have to weight its importance appropriately. Put it this way: a name might not help your product but you definitely don't want it to hurt your product/brand.
mhartl 17y ago
"Choose something with meaning, even if it's expensive and difficult to acquire, rather based on domain name availability, because otherwise, you're going to kill word-of-mouth." Absent any indication of how to acquire a domain like mint.com, this is irritating advice. Moreover, there are tons of counterexamples. I'd guess that most brand gurus would counsel against such nonsensical domain names as weebly.com or wufoo.com, but both of those companies are kicking ass. I also find it telling that 37signals has been able to build several highly successful (and essentially non-viral) web apps with such unlikely domain names as backpackit.com, basecamphq.com, and campfirenow.com. Come to think of it, 37signals.com is also an unlikely domain name for a runaway success.

11 points by ctingom 17y ago

As an Online Marketing Account Manager for an agency, I'm constantly explaining to clients why building the site for his new shiny widget at shinywidgetworldonline.net instead of ponying up the cash for shinywidget.com is a terrible idea. We do a lot of branding and brand-shepherding and it always amazes me how little people care about things like names and logos. They'll budget <$500 for something that's going to be the first thing every single one of their customers associates with their business. Obviously, if a company has a monopoly (Craigslist) or some other truly unreproducible competitive advantage, than these sort of blunders can be nullified. But I've never worked with one in the 5 years I've been doing this; I've worked with plenty who thought they did.

Retric 17y ago
I think Craigslist and news.ycombinator.com both have a well executed strategy targeting a specific market. It's not the generic "slick" approach, but most users view it as "ugly enough to be useful" not just "ugly."

vinhboy 17y ago

So how much did the name "mint" really matter? Versus the fact that the CEO seems like a very hard worker and created an awesome product.

fjabre 17y ago
Names do matter. You just have to weight its importance appropriately. Put it this way: a name might not help your product but you definitely don't want it to hurt your product/brand.

mhartl 17y ago

"Choose something with meaning, even if it's expensive and difficult to acquire, rather based on domain name availability, because otherwise, you're going to kill word-of-mouth." Absent any indication of how to acquire a domain like mint.com, this is irritating advice. Moreover, there are tons of counterexamples. I'd guess that most brand gurus would counsel against such nonsensical domain names as weebly.com or wufoo.com, but both of those companies are kicking ass. I also find it telling that 37signals has been able to build several highly successful (and essentially non-viral) web apps with such unlikely domain names as backpackit.com, basecamphq.com, and campfirenow.com. Come to think of it, 37signals.com is also an unlikely domain name for a runaway success.