4 ms·
Jesus Christ, $50k to pick the company name?? You could launch a whole new product for that much.
by jonmrodriguez 13y ago
Jesus Christ, $50k to pick the company name?? You could launch a whole new product for that much.
- smacktoward 13y agoYou think that's bad? Read this: http://www.salon.com/1999/11/30/naming/ http://www.salon.com/1999/11/30/naming/ Written at the height of the dot-com craziness, so the figures have probably come down to earth a little since, but still hilarious-slash-sad.
- StavrosK 13y agoSure, but what will you call it?
- kasbah 13y agoProduct A
- tadfisher 13y agoPhoenix
- lifeformed 13y agoUniversity of Phoenix
- nahname 13y agoSaneProduct
- logical42 13y agoHow about Google? Or maybe Apple?
- ianstallings 13y ago"I just saved $50k"
- blackhole 13y ago"Not More Goddamn Cat Photos"
- swamp40 13y agoWish I could upvote that twice!
- reinhardt 13y agoI can tell you with a modest $10K fee.
- trg2 13y agoColor
- teddyh 13y agoThe Gruntmaster 3000
- yannis 13y agopud<insert number here>.com?
- jonnathanson 13y agoNo kidding. Someone actually inserted "Facepalm" into the running at one point, no doubt in the belief (proven correct) that the CEO woulnd't be familiar with the term. I had to stop him from submitting it to the lawyers for serious consideration.
- JonFish85 13y ago$50k to pick a company name sounds pretty low for most companies. Names are important. Granted I reject the idea that you need to pay some high-falutin' corporation to name it ("Agilent", anyone?), but $50k to do some background searches, patent searches, general lawyer review? Doesn't seem too bad to me.
- jonnathanson 13y agoTo clarify: this was $50k prior to the trademark filing process.
- DanBC 13y agoIf it means that trademark filing goes ahead smoothly without the trademark being contested I guess some people would see that as useful spend of money.
- jonnathanson 13y agoIt really depends on the stage of the company, IMO. The cost of switching out the name of a company with no in-market traction is pretty minimal, when you think about it. In our case, we went through this whole naming process on Day 1, with all hands allocated to the task. Product development was, if not entirely halted during this process, than certainly placed on the backburner. If we'd had an MVP out in testing, people were loving it, and we'd been preparing to go big with a launch of some sort, sure, $50k in exploration toward securing an awesome name would have made a lot more sense. But $50k, right off the bat, felt pretty absurd at the time. And to reiterate, this was just one symptom of a much more insidious disease: the need to consult lawyers about everything. I'm using only the mildest of hyperbole here. We did not make a single decision without a legal weigh-in. Eventually we were able to convince the CEO of our financial and strategic inability to sustain this approach. But a lot of damage had been done before we got to that point. It was a very expensive lesson.
- gaadd33 13y agoFor a company that doesn't have a market presence or a product yet? If this was Bell Atlantic rebranding as Verizon or similar, $50k does seem quite cheap. I doubt many (any?) startups have paid $50k to come up with a company name since the money is just better spent elsewhere as your name as no meaning yet.
- philbarr 13y agoMaybe it was worth it. I once worked for a company that wanted to launch a new product called whose initials were A.I.D.S. I was lead dev of the Technical Information Team System too.
- jonnathanson 13y agoA lawyer friend of mine worked with a French firm that imported a lot of chicken (in culinary usage, commonly known as "coq" in France, translating accordingly as "cock" in English). She swears she got an email once with the subject "Concerned about Chinese cock." (Note, as well, that one of the French words for hen is "poule," which is also an old slang term for "slut." The French just can't catch a break in the chicken business).
- joshuaheard 13y agoJust a quibble: chicken ("poulet" in French) that you buy in the supermarket is the female chicken, the hen. The male chicken, the cock ("coq" in French) is generally not eaten as the meat is leaner and tougher. The French, however, do eat them sometimes. The famous French recipe "Coq au vin" is for cooking cock for a long time in wine to break down the tough meat. The French word for slut is "salope" and is also synonymous with the english word "bitch". The french word "poule" does mean hen, but is used more like the American slang word for a single woman: "chick".