Happy Saturday!
Every now and then I’m asked the question: How should I go about naming my business?
Well my friends, if I were a dad with 75 kids, I’d be an expert at naming kids. But instead, I’m the dad with 4 kids and 75 businesses, so I’d like to think I’m okay at naming businesses. If I’m not okay at it, then I certainly at least have a lot of experience at it!
For every business I’ve launched and named there’s 1-3 more than I named but never launched.
A name is important! But it’s not something you should get so hung up on that it causes you to delay your launch.
By the end of this email you’ll have a thorough framework for naming your business, as well as a few tools to assist.
A good business name should include all of the following characteristics:
Few syllables
Easy to spell
Clearly describes your product or service
Should not include your own name (with rare exception)
Has an available .com (some workarounds on this later)
Is future proof
Here’s what I mean by all of these:
Few Syllables
More syllables = more friction and friction = lost sales.
60% of the businesses in the Fortune 500 have names with 3 syllables or less. That’s pretty impressive! As humans we tend to want to say more to explain our point. To explain something succinctly yet clearly is very hard to do.
That’s why I’m trying to make my emails shorter! It’s easier to write long ones!
Long business name = long domain name and that’s even worse.
Easy to spell
This is self explanatory, right? It MUST be easy to spell. This is a non negotiable, without exception. Moving on.
Clearly describes your product or service
Here are some of my current or former businesses that fit this pattern:
Fast Tree Care - We trim frees, fast
Phone Restore - We restored phones
Send Eats - We shipped food
Speed to Ship - Shipping software that speeds up the shipping process
Texas Snax - we sell Texas-themed snacks. I used an X because the snacks . com was taken…but then I later bought it for $1,500 but the SEO juice already favored the X so much we kept using it.
Quarter Cows - We sold grass fed beef in fourths.
Assistant Realtor - Virtual Aasistants for Real Estate agents.
Lead Texters - Texting to find leads
Guys I had a freaking website that sold leads to lawyers in China that was literally called Lawyers in China!
You get the point. Don’t cause confusion. Don’t try to be cute. Quick story time.
In 2010 I launched Phone Restore - an iPhone repair store. I almost took on an investor for that business but do you know what the deal breaker was?
His son was going to a fancy marketing school and wanted to “help” with the naming and branding of the business. Know what he wanted to name it?
Cell Menders. With the mascot being a salamander…he may have even wanted to spell it like cell…mendars…or something. It was so so bad. And his dad loved it!
I literally did not take their money because it was so bad.
If you have to explain what it means to someone, then it’s a bad name.
Should not include your own name (with rare exception)
You know what survivorship bias is, right?
From Wikipedia:
Survivorship bias or survival bias is the logical error of concentrating on entities that passed a selection process while overlooking those that did not. This can lead to incorrect conclusions because of incomplete data.
Survivorship bias is a form of selection bias that can lead to overly optimistic beliefs because multiple failures are overlooked, such as when companies that no longer exist are excluded from analyses of financial performance. It can also lead to the false belief that the successes in a group have some special property, rather than just coincidence as in correlation "proves" causality.
For all of my “rules” you’ll find many exceptions:
Jeni’s Ice Cream
Larabar
Dave’s Killer bread
Ben & Jerry’s
Man, how obvious is it I love food?
Ford
Burt’s Bees
So many more
But hey, who’s to say that A) These companies wouldn’t have been more successful with a different name or B) How many companies failed that were named after the founder, that wouldn’t have failed otherwise?
I actually think a large company being named after a founder is a strength, because it provides more of a personality to such a large brand, making it seem more home-grown.
But the statistical likelihood of your company becoming publicly traded is far less than 1%, so let’s use statistics to our advantage.
People name companies after themselves largely out of pride and ego, and those aren’t good foundations upon which we should make decisions.
If I were starting a VC-funded CPG (consumer packaged good) brand that was aiming for a billion dollar exit to Proctor and Gamble, I would likely name it after one of the founders.
If I were launching a home service business that I didn’t plan to scale outside of my hometown, I would also consider it. I wouldn’t go for it immediately, but it would be an option.
In any other circumstance I would not.
Has an available .com
If I’m launching a web app, SaaS tool or Chrome Extension, .co, .ai or .io is fine (although .io may be retired here soon). But I would still try to get the .com with all my might.
NEVER EVER go with .net.
If your business name is short and sweet, and the .com for sure isn’t open, like Hailey . com, then shoot for meetHailey . com, or helloHailey, etc. This can be confusing, because half of everyone will call your business by your domain name, and the other half won’t, but it still works.
Support Shepherd was always just named Shepherd, but no one knew it because the domain had “support” in it. That’s why they rebranded to a $400k domain name.
Go High Level is actually just called High Level, but the .com was taken. It’s a billion dollar company!
If you’re just testing a concept, don’t pay more than $12 for a domain. If you’re going all in on something proven and tested, spend 4-5 figures for a domain name if you have to. It’s worth it.
Is future proof
Phone Restore wasn’t future proof. We started fixing tablets and buying back iPhones in year 2, and that was big business for us. But the name still worked.
Radio Shack? Nope.
Apple? Yep.
My favorite strategy is to start niche and then go broad. Which means you make the name broad but the product or service niche to allow for future flexibility.
Selling a unique dog chew toy? Don’t call it dogchewie. Call it funnypets. Sell the same chew toy, and when you add more products you’re still gucci.
Speaking of starting new businesses, I recently became buddies with one of the executives at Bizee. You likely knew this company by their previous name, IncFile.
IncFile is the Lyft to LegalZoom’s Uber. I hate LegalZoom by the way, which may be why I became fast friends with this guy! They’ve been a bootstrapped business for 20 years and offer incorporation and registered agent services for startups, and it’s what I’m starting to use for my companies now. Highly recommended! Cheap, easily and simple.
This is a perfect example of starting with a somewhat niche name and having to go more broad later. They rebranded about a year ago and it’s been going very well so far, but still a hassle to do after 19 years with the same name!
Extra
I also like it when names rhyme. They’re easier to remember. A few of my previous ones:
AI Guy - AI Newsletter
Door to More - Door to door buying electronics
Text Book Crook - Online textbook marketplace for Alabama students
Want some feedback on a name or logo and don’t have an audience? That’s ok. Post to Reddit, FB Groups or pay to use PickFu. You’ll have feedback within minutes. Just know that Reddit is toxic and you will get angry.
Thanks for reading this. I hope it’s helpful. Make it a great day!
There are my top tweets from last week.
Your favorite toxic optimist,
Chris Koerner
chrisjkoerner