Naming your Startup
Lots of founders spend far too much time trying to come up with the perfect name. Often the quality of the name is inversely proportional to the time spent thinking of it. Of course lots of folks don’t agree with me. Amit Desai suggests, ‘Don’t do this for the emotional side — even though it’s a name you’ll live with, sleep with, and be associated with (hopefully) for a very long time. Do it for the professional benefits: A good company name can contribute more than you think. For a startup, it can impact consumers, corporate customers, partners, analysts, the press, and even would-be employees in terms of how they think of you, how much they remember you, even what they think about you.’
Amit explains that the name will become less and less important as your company becomes more and more successful. He suggests three rules for startup names:
- Relevance – how intuitively does it communicate what you provide?
- Catchiness – how catchy, easy to remember and spell, fun to say out loud?
- Personality – how well do the words and prosody communicate the company’s personality? Are you hip? Solid? Safe? Hi-tech? Warm? Simple?
Over the years I have named a few startups: CyberCorp, Muse Communications, LayerOne, Architel, Carrier Credit, Big in Japan, WeblogsWork, WhiteBox, ServiceGuy and SimpleTicket.