4 ms·

$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' corpo

$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 ago
To clarify: this was $50k prior to the trademark filing process.
- DanBC 13y ago
  If 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 ago
    It 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 ago
For 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.

jonnathanson 13y ago

To clarify: this was $50k prior to the trademark filing process.

DanBC 13y ago
If 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 ago
  It 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 ago

For 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.