5 ms·

What’s in a name – Tips for naming your startup

55 points by swombat 17y ago

100k 17y ago
Not sure if I should take naming advice from the guy who registered 000fff.org ;)
- lkozma 17y ago
  To be fair, his point is that naming doesn't matter that much.
- pbhjpbhj 17y ago
  Me too, my first thought .. 000FFF is blue not B&W. Names: Zyp, love it; Metallica, very masculine and "metal" perfectly 80s, hard edged; Flickr defines web-2.0 naming, was it the first, it's a better name than Flicker IMO regardless of the reason for the choice. In the commnets "I’m not any less of an entrepreneur because my name is Joe. " - except that introductions would be a lot harder if your name was something unpronouncable, maybe a series of clicks (Khosa (sp?)) or something that sounds like swearing in your propositions native language. IMO names matter a lot and no amount of interface will fix a bad name. A terrible name on the other hand you can work for ironic advantage.
  - pmjordan 17y ago
    #000 is black and #fff is white, at least in CSS notation.
    - jeroen 17y ago
      #000fff is blue (with a hint of green) in css notation.
      - pmjordan 17y ago
        I am aware of that. I'm merely putting forward an alternative explanation, which, in my opinion, is more plausible than that, considering the site's title.
- npost 17y ago
  That is an excellent point!
RyanMcGreal 17y ago
Perhaps the title should be, "What's not in a name - things you shouldn't worry about when naming your startup".
- aw3c2 17y ago
  Definitely. A name does not make you, it might just be the "dot on the i" but your actual quality decides about your success.
  - notauser 17y ago
    Up to a point. There are some things that the right name can help with: - It gets really boring to have to spell your name out to everyone you meet and talk to. Therefore having one that is unambiguously easy to communicate will save you hours at the boot strapping stage where one of the primary forms of marketing is talking to a lot of people at a lot of events. - Having a name that can only be spelled (or, mostly only spelled) one way will stop a potential competitor stealing traffic. You don't want to be PlayBlox.com when PlayBlocks.com gets bought up by an offshore competitor who you can't sue. Equally ColourLite.com would suck as a name with potentially four common variants to buy or lose traffic to. I certainly think that memorability is overrated. Generally the second time I meet people the conversation goes like this: "Hi, I'm the guy from X..." "Oh, that's the thing for figuring out how to do nasty projects, right? I remember you. How's it going?" No recollection of the name at all. Of course it could just be a bad name! :)
ThomPete 17y ago
000 black fff white
- Raphael 17y ago
  oh!
- pbhjpbhj 17y ago
  Who knew! Perhaps you should go on to say it's hexadecimal RGB shorthand and that when concatenated it should be interpreted as the long hand which gives rgb(00h,0Fh,FFh) which is blue with a little green. Shorthand hex notation is commonly used in HTML styles, eg p { color:#000; } gives paragraphs black text.
- gojomo 17y ago
  Alas, my first thought was 0x0fff, or 4095, even though I use 3-digit color codes quite a bit in HTML and CSS.
pxlpshr 17y ago
Carsonified had a good post on this back in 2007, and so did Kevin Rose and Tim Ferris. http://carsonified.com/blog/business/how-to-name-your-company/ http://carsonified.com/blog/business/how-to-name-your-compan... http://vimeo.com/3934635 http://vimeo.com/3934635 When it comes to consumer goods and services, short, sweet, and memorable should be your 3 primary objectives IMO. Be careful not to be to descriptive with the name or logo design, it can be problematic if/when you try to expand into other markets or grow new products that are different from your existing focus.
mseebach 17y ago
> If you are not in the business of domains no domain name is worth more than $50.000 And related to that: A domain name is (almost) not real estate. What would inner-city real estate cost if a city had an endless supply of perfectly nice cheap houses all within a ten minute subway ride away? This is essentially the case with domain names.
- pbhjpbhj 17y ago
  I think your analogy is very poor - indeed I'd say if an analogy can be wrong, this is. The proximity of the location of a dwelling to the city is analogous the the beneficial qualities of a domain name. Memorability, zeitgeist, aptness, etc.. The unity of each name is responsible for the cost of obtaining it (second hand) as much as the proximity of location to an economic centre is responsible for real-estate costs. Both are scarce. Your analogy is good for one thing, both situations are impossible: you can't allow everyone the same domain name and you can't enable everyone to occupy the same physical space.
  - mseebach 17y ago
    The point I was trying to convey with the analogy is exactly that of (the lack of) scarcity in domain names. Especially pre-bubble there was this real-estate-scarcity angle on domain-names: if you have a website about shoes, you need shoes.com, or you'll never be leading. But today we have Zappos which is a name I'm certain was purchased for $2.99 back when they launched and is developed into a first-class business today. If they'd insisted on getting shoes.com, chances are they might never have launched.
    - pbhjpbhj 17y ago
      No scarcity, great. I'd like Zappos.com then please for $2.99 ...
replicatorblog 17y ago
Key advice missing from this is to be dilligent about Trademarks. I've seen a friend's company burn through $250K in trademark law suits. They are transitioning from the startup to small business stage so it can be absorbed, but would kill an earlier stage venture.
ethanhunt 17y ago
This really helped out! Thanks guys.
endlessvoid94 17y ago
Mostly very good points. Maybe want someone else to proofread before posting that, though. To != too. Where != were.
daniel-cussen 17y ago
To a certain point your name matters because it can make it hard to spread by word of mouth and if it's downright stupid, that can reflect poorly on founders. Beyond that, it's pretty much the color of the bikeshed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_Law_of_Triviality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_Law_of_Triviality
- pbhjpbhj 17y ago
  it's pretty much the color of the bikeshed I've not heard that expression but changing the colour of the walls in a room alters the behaviour of people in that room including how long they stay. I'd say the colour of the bike-shed matters.
  - krakensden 17y ago
    And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the problem.
    - pbhjpbhj 17y ago
      What do you mean, me? Or human psychology?
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
npost 17y ago
Great post. I would also say: 1) don't get caught up in any one name 2) having too descriptive of a name can be disastrous as you won't have as much flexibility 3) have fun with it!
wdm954 17y ago
Most of these obscure short names are chosen because #1 the domain is available and #2 they're hoping they can somehow brand them. Name does play a role in the success of your company. However if your product sucks then a good name isn't going to fix that. If people can't remember or spell your name, that can kill your word of mouth marketing. When a startup begins seeing success and can afford to buy a better name then in many cases re-branding is seriously considered.
JacobAldridge 17y ago
In their early '80s book on 'Positioning' and cutting through the mass of advertising consumers see, Jack Reis and Al Trout use the example of executives who are known by their initials (TJ, AR etc - they use real examples, but I don't have my copy at hand). Anyway, they demonstrated that a lot of junior executives started using initials as well, without success. The Junior people saw the execs with initials and thought Initials = Success. Of course, in reality, that equation is Success = Initials. Be successful first - your name is less (hat tip, notauser) important. I like that that 25+ year old research has a modern-day equivalent.

55 points by swombat 17y ago

100k 17y ago

Not sure if I should take naming advice from the guy who registered 000fff.org ;)

lkozma 17y ago
To be fair, his point is that naming doesn't matter that much.
pbhjpbhj 17y ago
Me too, my first thought .. 000FFF is blue not B&W. Names: Zyp, love it; Metallica, very masculine and "metal" perfectly 80s, hard edged; Flickr defines web-2.0 naming, was it the first, it's a better name than Flicker IMO regardless of the reason for the choice. In the commnets "I’m not any less of an entrepreneur because my name is Joe. " - except that introductions would be a lot harder if your name was something unpronouncable, maybe a series of clicks (Khosa (sp?)) or something that sounds like swearing in your propositions native language. IMO names matter a lot and no amount of interface will fix a bad name. A terrible name on the other hand you can work for ironic advantage.
- pmjordan 17y ago
  #000 is black and #fff is white, at least in CSS notation.
  - jeroen 17y ago
    #000fff is blue (with a hint of green) in css notation.
    - pmjordan 17y ago
      I am aware of that. I'm merely putting forward an alternative explanation, which, in my opinion, is more plausible than that, considering the site's title.
npost 17y ago
That is an excellent point!

RyanMcGreal 17y ago

Perhaps the title should be, "What's not in a name - things you shouldn't worry about when naming your startup".

aw3c2 17y ago
Definitely. A name does not make you, it might just be the "dot on the i" but your actual quality decides about your success.
- notauser 17y ago
  Up to a point. There are some things that the right name can help with: - It gets really boring to have to spell your name out to everyone you meet and talk to. Therefore having one that is unambiguously easy to communicate will save you hours at the boot strapping stage where one of the primary forms of marketing is talking to a lot of people at a lot of events. - Having a name that can only be spelled (or, mostly only spelled) one way will stop a potential competitor stealing traffic. You don't want to be PlayBlox.com when PlayBlocks.com gets bought up by an offshore competitor who you can't sue. Equally ColourLite.com would suck as a name with potentially four common variants to buy or lose traffic to. I certainly think that memorability is overrated. Generally the second time I meet people the conversation goes like this: "Hi, I'm the guy from X..." "Oh, that's the thing for figuring out how to do nasty projects, right? I remember you. How's it going?" No recollection of the name at all. Of course it could just be a bad name! :)

ThomPete 17y ago

000 black fff white

Raphael 17y ago
oh!
pbhjpbhj 17y ago
Who knew! Perhaps you should go on to say it's hexadecimal RGB shorthand and that when concatenated it should be interpreted as the long hand which gives rgb(00h,0Fh,FFh) which is blue with a little green. Shorthand hex notation is commonly used in HTML styles, eg p { color:#000; } gives paragraphs black text.
gojomo 17y ago
Alas, my first thought was 0x0fff, or 4095, even though I use 3-digit color codes quite a bit in HTML and CSS.

pxlpshr 17y ago

Carsonified had a good post on this back in 2007, and so did Kevin Rose and Tim Ferris. http://carsonified.com/blog/business/how-to-name-your-company/ http://carsonified.com/blog/business/how-to-name-your-compan... http://vimeo.com/3934635 http://vimeo.com/3934635 When it comes to consumer goods and services, short, sweet, and memorable should be your 3 primary objectives IMO. Be careful not to be to descriptive with the name or logo design, it can be problematic if/when you try to expand into other markets or grow new products that are different from your existing focus.

mseebach 17y ago

> If you are not in the business of domains no domain name is worth more than $50.000 And related to that: A domain name is (almost) not real estate. What would inner-city real estate cost if a city had an endless supply of perfectly nice cheap houses all within a ten minute subway ride away? This is essentially the case with domain names.

pbhjpbhj 17y ago
I think your analogy is very poor - indeed I'd say if an analogy can be wrong, this is. The proximity of the location of a dwelling to the city is analogous the the beneficial qualities of a domain name. Memorability, zeitgeist, aptness, etc.. The unity of each name is responsible for the cost of obtaining it (second hand) as much as the proximity of location to an economic centre is responsible for real-estate costs. Both are scarce. Your analogy is good for one thing, both situations are impossible: you can't allow everyone the same domain name and you can't enable everyone to occupy the same physical space.
- mseebach 17y ago
  The point I was trying to convey with the analogy is exactly that of (the lack of) scarcity in domain names. Especially pre-bubble there was this real-estate-scarcity angle on domain-names: if you have a website about shoes, you need shoes.com, or you'll never be leading. But today we have Zappos which is a name I'm certain was purchased for $2.99 back when they launched and is developed into a first-class business today. If they'd insisted on getting shoes.com, chances are they might never have launched.
  - pbhjpbhj 17y ago
    No scarcity, great. I'd like Zappos.com then please for $2.99 ...

replicatorblog 17y ago

Key advice missing from this is to be dilligent about Trademarks. I've seen a friend's company burn through $250K in trademark law suits. They are transitioning from the startup to small business stage so it can be absorbed, but would kill an earlier stage venture.

ethanhunt 17y ago

This really helped out! Thanks guys.

endlessvoid94 17y ago

Mostly very good points. Maybe want someone else to proofread before posting that, though. To != too. Where != were.

daniel-cussen 17y ago

To a certain point your name matters because it can make it hard to spread by word of mouth and if it's downright stupid, that can reflect poorly on founders. Beyond that, it's pretty much the color of the bikeshed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_Law_of_Triviality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_Law_of_Triviality

pbhjpbhj 17y ago
it's pretty much the color of the bikeshed I've not heard that expression but changing the colour of the walls in a room alters the behaviour of people in that room including how long they stay. I'd say the colour of the bike-shed matters.
- krakensden 17y ago
  And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the problem.
  - pbhjpbhj 17y ago
    What do you mean, me? Or human psychology?

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

npost 17y ago

Great post. I would also say: 1) don't get caught up in any one name 2) having too descriptive of a name can be disastrous as you won't have as much flexibility 3) have fun with it!

wdm954 17y ago

Most of these obscure short names are chosen because #1 the domain is available and #2 they're hoping they can somehow brand them. Name does play a role in the success of your company. However if your product sucks then a good name isn't going to fix that. If people can't remember or spell your name, that can kill your word of mouth marketing. When a startup begins seeing success and can afford to buy a better name then in many cases re-branding is seriously considered.

JacobAldridge 17y ago

In their early '80s book on 'Positioning' and cutting through the mass of advertising consumers see, Jack Reis and Al Trout use the example of executives who are known by their initials (TJ, AR etc - they use real examples, but I don't have my copy at hand). Anyway, they demonstrated that a lot of junior executives started using initials as well, without success. The Junior people saw the execs with initials and thought Initials = Success. Of course, in reality, that equation is Success = Initials. Be successful first - your name is less (hat tip, notauser) important. I like that that 25+ year old research has a modern-day equivalent.