Don’t Let Naming Your Business Stop You

Business building & blue sky

When starting our company we spent a lot of time brainstorming to find a good name. We got several good ideas, but we could not find a name we loved that also had a domain name available with a .com ending. We felt we needed to find the perfect name because we had read statements like: “The right name can make your company the talk of the town. The wrong one can doom it to obscurity and failure.”

Just do it

After a few months of postponing putting up a website, because we did not find a name we liked, we decided to set a deadline where we would choose the best name we had at that time, even though it might not be the perfect name.

Our time was better spent on growing our business instead of overthinking what to name it. As Noah Kagan from AppSumo puts it “A common pitfall is people overthinking their name when they’ve made no profit. Customers just want the solution and couldn’t care less what you’re called.”

This led us to the name Valoro Kreo, which means “value creation” in Esperanto. We loved the name because our goal is to assist entrepreneurs with creating more value in their business and in their life and we were able to have a .com ending to the domain name.

Name that is easy to remember and has two syllables

After choosing Valoro Kreo as the name of our company we finally started sharing useful information and growing our email list. However, when using this name we had a bit of a difficulty because people were having trouble pronouncing and spelling the name, as well as remembering it. We felt that it was a bit too long and behind the scenes we called it VK.

We then read an article from Buffer called “How to Name Your Startup”  where they talk about how successful companies like Google, Twitter, Dropbox and Facebook all have a name with only two syllables. They also talked about that the domain name doesn’t matter that much, more the name itself, e.g. Buffer’s domain name is bufferapp.com.

We thought about this for some time and we decided that we wanted a shorter name. Valoro Kreo has five syllables and it was not much fun having to clarify the name all the time so the brainstorming process began again. This time it was easier because we were not as focused on a matching domain name as well.

After spending some time discussing and brainstorming a new two syllables name we made a decision. We like the meaning of Valoro Kreo (Value Creation) so much so we asked ourselves: “How can we still connect to that name?” This lead us to the name Loro (shortening of Valoro) and we chose loromedia.com as the domain name because we produce content/media (articles, videos, books, etc.). As Gary Vaynerchuk puts it “Whether you like it or not, every single one of you is now a media company.”

Has your domain name been used before?

We were so excited that we had found a domain name that we like, that we forgot to investigate whether the domain name had been used before. After buying our domain name we started looking into whether it had been used before.

It turned out that this domain name had been used for an online marketing consultant and on other sites there are currently links to our domain. This is good because we received free links to our site and what used to be on this domain was appropriate and even related to our topic.

But it could have been worse…

Before you settle on a domain name we recommend you investigate whether it has been used before. Some domains might have a “bad reputation” – e.g. the previous owner might have used some shady tactics that could have gotten the domain name banned on Google and other places.

Here are a few ways you can check the history of the domain name you’re considering:

  • Internet Archive: Wayback Machine – See what was on the domain in the past (not 100% reliable).
  • Google – Search for the domain name on Google.
  • CSI: ACE Insight from Websense – You can see if the domain name is blocked by Websense, a popular service many organizations use to increase the security on their network (to protect their users/employees).
  • Google Webmaster Tools – This applies after you’ve bought the domain. Then you can connect your domain to Google Webmaster Tools and check how Google sees your domain. Under Search Traffic > Manual Actions you can see if the domain name has been blocked for webspam. Under Security Issues you can see if there are any security issues with your site’s content.

Social Media

After choosing a domain name we turned our focus to social media. On Facebook LoroMedia was available and we got so excited that we had found a name we like that was available with a good .com ending and on Facebook so we assumed the name was available on other social platforms as well. Well, as always you should never assume, and we found out that this name was not available on all the social platforms we have decided to be on.

We researched what others had done and found that some choose usernames related to the platform they are on such as on Twitter some add “tweeting” or “tweets” after their company’s name.

LoroTweets was not available, so all this has led us to calling our business Loro, our domain name is loromedia.com, our first choice on social media is Loro, second comes LoroMedia and third is LoroSocial. However, this is not ideal as this can be confusing for people and a bit harder to establish your brand.

Update: We were able to claim the username LoroMedia on Twitter and Tumblr because those accounts became inactive :)

Summary

Well, here you have it; this is how our process of finding a name has been and we hope you can learn from our mistakes so your journey will be easier than ours.

To sum up our learning:

  • We recommend finding a two syllable name that is easy to remember and pronounce
  • The domain name does not have to be exactly the same as your company name, even though it is better
  • Check if the domain used to be used for something else
  • Check if the name is available on social media and be creative if that is not the case

Finally, if you find this naming process challenging, remember that what matters most is your product, how you will make your customer’s life better.

About Birna Birgisdóttir

Birna Birgisdóttir is a Ph.D candidate, researching creativity and servant leadership. She enjoys learning new things and has a M.Sc. in International Business, B.Sc. in Business Administration, diploma in Human Resource Management and she is an Executive Coach as well as NLP Practitioner.

Birna loves new adventures; has travelled the world, scuba dived in Mexico, skydived in Las Vegas, surfed in Australia, meditated in India and climbed the highest peak in Iceland.

Comments

  1. Great tips Birna. I´m in the process of rebranding everything I do online and my new name has…… 6 syllables!

    • I’m glad you like our tips, thank you for your comment :)

      We believe the most important thing is the value you are offering your target audience.

      It is also important to think about how your audience will feel about the name you choose, does it matter to them how many syllables your company name has?

      In some cases companies use abbreviation for their name or product such as Jeff Walker with Product Launch Formula often calls it PLF.

      Good luck with your rebranding and we would love to hear from you if you have additional tips regarding this process :)

Trackbacks

  1. […] It’s common that entrepreneurs get excited about a new idea for a business but often struggle to find a good name for their new company. This happened to us and we set a deadline so the name decision wouldn’t delay us any further. We found a name and started using it, but we felt that the name was too complicated and changed the name of our business a year later. […]

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