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13 February 2007

How To Name Your Company

By Michael McDerment

When you start a company, eventually you are going to have to choose a company name. You may not take the decision that seriously – but trust me, a great name can make all the difference.

As the online marketplace becomes increasingly cluttered it is more important than ever to be memorable and to stand out. The name of your company is a critical factor in this.

In the following article I will describe a process you can use to discover and select a good name for your company; this process can be applied to product and service names as well. Okay, let’s get going!

The Critical Steps to Generating A Good Company Name:

Step I: Set Your Constraints:

So what makes a good name? There are five main characteristics:

  1. It’s easy to remember
  2. It’s easy to spell and requires no explanation
  3. It describes your business category
  4. It describes your benefit
  5. It describes your difference

Here are three more constraints that I like:

  1. It has to be one or two syllables long – no more
  2. Each syllable starts with a strong consonant (B, C, D, G, K, P, Q, T)
  3. It’s fun to say (”…that just rolls off the tongue”)

You can of course add to or remove from this list as you see fit. The most important thing in attempting to name your company is to pick a list of constraints and then to ruthlessly stick to it.

Examples of great company names that adhere to these constraints:

  • PayPal
  • Best Buy
  • QuickBooks

Step II: Schedule Your Time:

Choosing a name is a process. Yes, sometimes a great name will just fall in your lap, but more often it will take time to “discover” one. You need to make time.

  1. Establish a ‘Naming Team’ – three to four people who are responsible for meeting regularly until they have found your name. Expect it to take eight to ten sessions of one hour each. That is about 30-40 hours of your organization’s time. It will be painful. It will be worth it.
  2. Get the tools you need:
    • Thesaurus
    • Dictionary
    • Pads of paper and pens because everyone who is not on a laptop recording words ought to be keeping their own notes with their own ideas. You can consolidate at the end.
    • Spreadsheet
    • We found that using a laptop with access to the web to check if the URL was available became invaluable. Go Daddy offers a plug in for Firefox that might come in handy.

    Secret weapon: The New York Times “Crossword Puzzle Dictionary“.
    It’s like an uber thesaurus and it lists words by length. Since you probably want short one-syllable words, this thing is worth its weight in gold.

  3. Identify a ’secretary’ to keep everything organized. This should be someone who types fast and records the words in Excel columns as laid out here:

    picture of spreadsheet with different name ideas

    4. BONUS: If you want a book that will explain some strategic pieces with naming, read “Positioning: the Battle for Your Mind ” by Al Ries and Jack Trout. If you can swing it, have you whole team read it before you begin the process.

Step III: Structured Brain Storming

Now that you have done the prep work and have everyone in the same room, here is a framework to brainstorm with:

Don’t try to find your name right away – try to find your words one at a time. Chances are your brand will be two words, and finding those two best words is the real challenge. So break the problem down and brainstorm for individual words in the following buckets:

  1. Words that describe your product category
  2. Words that describe the differences between your product versus your competition’s
  3. Words that describe the benefits of using your product

To keep things focused and manageable, try to spend each of your first three sessions focused on one of these buckets. Inevitably, you and your naming team will start to join the words you come up with to form alluring combinations. That’s totally natural, but try to stay disciplined because this really is an exercise that warrants follow-through.

Use the columns in the spreadsheet to guide you. You will want 50-100 words per column. Remember: be ruthless. In my opinion, single syllable words beginning with hard consonants are the best. They are hard to find. Hang in there.

Rinse. Repeat. Expect it to take eight to ten sessions.

Step IV: Got a Name You Like? Sleep On It

Once you have a name you like, sleep on it. We used to start every session with the question, “what was the name you remembered when you woke up this morning?” Invariably we would all agree on that one name and have a new front-runner that we all liked. That said, invariably this new best name would not satisfy ALL our constraints so we would cast it aside and press on.

To be successful with this process you have to be true to your constraints. Utterly committed. Unwavering. Every constraint you break will only dilute the quality of your name. This is one time not to be easy on yourself. Be hard and unrelenting. Be ruthless.

Step V: Once You Have Your Name – Test It

If you invest enough into this process, you will know a good name when you hear it. If it satisfies all of your constraints you will almost certainly have a great name. However, you do have to test it with your customers – your audience. Make some phone calls, run a survey, post the name on a forum and see what people think. Whatever you do, get some feedback from target customers outside your organization.

The Truth About How We Wound Up Choosing Our Name

As the process evolves you may find you like some words more than others. Some days, the exercise follows you around. It wakes you up, keeps you up and drives you nuts. Eventually some words will cut through. In May we renamed our invoicing service from 2ndSite to FreshBooks.
For us the word that cut through was ‘Fresh’. One day at lunch Kathy said, “What about the word Fresh? I like it.” In that moment, the coin just dropped. We loved the word because it is refreshing, it’s fun to say and it sounds good.

We never looked back, but we did go back to our list of category words. Since ‘Fresh’ describes the difference in our approach to something as tired as accounting, and one of the benefits of our service, we needed a word to describe our category. One word. Single syllable. Harsh consonant. The word ‘Books’ – as in “manage your books” – was perfect.

Now, I have told you this story not to contradict or undermine the importance of the process this article describes, I told you this story to illustrate its importance. Kathy had her breakthrough BECAUSE we invested in the process, and when she suggested ‘Fresh’, it was easy for the rest of us to recognize just how good the word ‘Fresh’ was.

A Quick Word Regarding Domain Names

If you are a web company, personally I think you have to own the .com domain. Make it another constraint. If you can’t get the .com, find another name. I know there are those that suggest otherwise, but requiring the .com domain name is just another constraint at the end of the day, and if your business is online, you don’t want to explain how to get to your URL. You just want someone to be able to hear your company name and go there.

You may have to spend money to buy your domain name. We purchased ours for several thousand dollars. While I would not have paid a penny more (literally the price was at our uppermost limit), our domain name and new brand have made the investment worthwhile.

Wrapping Up

While trying to find a name, and words that describe what your company is trying to do, you will find that your brain works overtime. Every word you read will be a candidate, every word you hear will have new potential, but only by embracing this process or something like it will you be able to recognize a great word/name when you hear it.

So is it worth taking the time to find a good name? You bet. Good luck with your naming – if you invest in the process you won’t regret it.

How have you come up with your own product or company names? Which name do you wish you’d thought of first?

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This post was written by

Michael McDerment

Mike is the co-founder and CEO of FreshBooks, a leading online invoicing app for service oriented professionals, freelancers and teams. You can follow Mike on Twitter at @MikeMcDerment

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