4 ms·

What makes a good consultancy name

6 points by badman 13y ago

A friend and I are looking at starting out own it consultancy. We would like to ask the HN community what makes a good consultancy name? Do you think the domain name should contain the word consultancy, as part of the domain name like so many other consultancies do.

Communitivity 13y ago
No, definitely do not include the name consultancy. Think about what skills you and your friend have the distinguish you from the pack. Then think about how you approach problems. Also think about what you and your friend want your company to be known as. An exercise I give clients is "Think about five years down the road. Two future clients are discussing your company. What are they saying about it, in specifics? If one of them asks the other 'What do you love most about them?', what would the answer be? How about if the question is 'What annoys you the most?' (be honest and think hard, there are always tradeoffs)". Make notes for each of these thought exercises. Trello is good for this, as is a mind mapping tool like XMind. Then go over your notes with your friend and brainstorm about ideas, capturing all of them with no filtering. No idea is off the table at this point. You are looking for over 100 names. Next go over your list and rate each one with 1-5 stars. When you are done get rid of anything that isn't 5 stars. Now it's time to go over each of the 5-star names and ask the following questions: .. is it generic enough to not tie you to specific technology, while specific enough to capture what distinguishes you? .. is is short? .. is it memorable? .. how whimsical is it? Higher is usually better, but YMMV depending on your niche (financial software consultants might not want ButterfliesAreFree,Inc., then again they might...an no you can't use that one :) ). .. is the domain name taken? Are variations on the name taken? Depending on your creativity you might want to use this as a first pass filter on your 5-star names. I also tend to advise clients to either (a) pick a single word that represents them and change it with a prefix or suffix not usually used (e.g., Aptivity [not a client], Communitivity), or (b) pick two words that together represent them and use razr-spelling ( remove one or more of eliminate some vowels, phonetic spelling, etc.). An important thing to not forget is branding. Your best bet is to pick five final names and play around with logo ideas for each, as well as company slogans. Please be aware that good branding is hard. At some point you're likely going to want to go a branding consultant and get a new or updated logo/slogan, but you shouldn't spend money on that at the outset in my opinion if you are bootstrapping, especially if someone if going for a lifestyle business. Your best brand is your product and the word of mouth of your customers. Hope this has helped, Bill Barnhill, Founder Communitivity, Inc. - Community is a verb
- badman 13y ago
  Wow!! What an answer. That is going to help so much. If you have a site I would highly recommend making this a blog post as I have been looking online for help and nothing comes close to this. Really, thanks :-)
  - Communitivity 13y ago
    Thanks :) I'll make it a post and add the URL to this thread as a comment once I do.

6 points by badman 13y ago

Communitivity 13y ago

No, definitely do not include the name consultancy. Think about what skills you and your friend have the distinguish you from the pack. Then think about how you approach problems. Also think about what you and your friend want your company to be known as. An exercise I give clients is "Think about five years down the road. Two future clients are discussing your company. What are they saying about it, in specifics? If one of them asks the other 'What do you love most about them?', what would the answer be? How about if the question is 'What annoys you the most?' (be honest and think hard, there are always tradeoffs)". Make notes for each of these thought exercises. Trello is good for this, as is a mind mapping tool like XMind. Then go over your notes with your friend and brainstorm about ideas, capturing all of them with no filtering. No idea is off the table at this point. You are looking for over 100 names. Next go over your list and rate each one with 1-5 stars. When you are done get rid of anything that isn't 5 stars. Now it's time to go over each of the 5-star names and ask the following questions: .. is it generic enough to not tie you to specific technology, while specific enough to capture what distinguishes you? .. is is short? .. is it memorable? .. how whimsical is it? Higher is usually better, but YMMV depending on your niche (financial software consultants might not want ButterfliesAreFree,Inc., then again they might...an no you can't use that one :) ). .. is the domain name taken? Are variations on the name taken? Depending on your creativity you might want to use this as a first pass filter on your 5-star names. I also tend to advise clients to either (a) pick a single word that represents them and change it with a prefix or suffix not usually used (e.g., Aptivity [not a client], Communitivity), or (b) pick two words that together represent them and use razr-spelling ( remove one or more of eliminate some vowels, phonetic spelling, etc.). An important thing to not forget is branding. Your best bet is to pick five final names and play around with logo ideas for each, as well as company slogans. Please be aware that good branding is hard. At some point you're likely going to want to go a branding consultant and get a new or updated logo/slogan, but you shouldn't spend money on that at the outset in my opinion if you are bootstrapping, especially if someone if going for a lifestyle business. Your best brand is your product and the word of mouth of your customers. Hope this has helped, Bill Barnhill, Founder Communitivity, Inc. - Community is a verb

badman 13y ago
Wow!! What an answer. That is going to help so much. If you have a site I would highly recommend making this a blog post as I have been looking online for help and nothing comes close to this. Really, thanks :-)
- Communitivity 13y ago
  Thanks :) I'll make it a post and add the URL to this thread as a comment once I do.