DomainTools Blog

Guy Kawasaki sent me a free copy of his book before my vacation so it is on my list of things to read while sitting by the pool in Mexico. I came across page 35 the other day and I made a note to review it. The author, Guy Kawasaki runs Garage Technology Ventures in Silicon Valley and he funds start ups in the early stages. Guy was on the team that invented the first Macintosh, but since then he went on to start a VC company in 1997,  Garage has funded dozens of startups over the years. The advise he gives in his book was right on, so rather then summarizing it I thought I would share this page from his book.

Don’t Compromise On Your Name

A remarkable name for your organization, product, or service is like pornography: It’s hard to define, but you know it when you see it. Coming up with a good name is easier than creating a product or service, but you wouldn’t think so based on the atrocities out there. Spend the time and effort to come up with a good name - it makes positioning easier. Here are some tips for the process:

Have a first initials that’s early in the alphabet. Someday your organization’s, product’s, or service’s name will appear in an alphabetical list. Better to be early in the list than later. Imagine, for example, a trade show with a thousand exhibitors. Do you want to be in the first third or last third of the show’s directory? Also, avoid words that begin with X or Z because they are difficult to spell out after hearing them. For example, if you heard “Xylinx,” would you think that it’s spelled “Xylinx” or “Zylinx”?

Avoid Numbers. They are bad ideas for names because people won’t remember whether to use numerals (123) or to spell out the number (One Two Three).

Pick a name with a “Verb Potential.” In a perfect world, your name enters the mainstream vernacular and becomes a verb. For example, people “Xerox” documents - as opposed to photocopy them. More recently, people “google” words instead of “searching for them on the internet.” Names that work as verbs are short (no more than two or three syllables) and not tongue twisters. AWOA (a word on acronyms): Avoid multiple-word names unless the first word solid verb potential (for example, “Google Technology Corporation” would still be fine) or the acronym spells out something clever. For example, the name Hawaiian Islands Ministry, a parachurch organization that trains pastors and ministers, becomes “HIM” - a clever homonym with “hymn” and a play on “Him,” that is , God.

Exercise See if the name your’re considering works in this sentence: “______________________ it.”

Sound different (as opposed to “think different”). The name should sound like nothing else. For (a bad example: Claris, Clarins, Claritin, and Claria. It’s hard to remember which name refers to software, cosmetics, antihistamines, or line marketing. Even if you did remember, it’s likely that you would associate all four words with one category, and that can’t be good in three of four instances.

Sound Logical. In addition to sounding different, your names should also sound logical. That is, they should “match” what you do. A good example of this is the most clever examples of naming that you’ll come across. Take Geodude and Lickitung, for example. Ask your kids to show you the cards of the characters Beautifly, Delcatty, Flygon, and Huntail, and you’ll see what I mean about logical names and good positioning.

Avoid the trendy. With hindsight, we made two mistakes naming Garage Technology Ventures when we started in in 1997. First, we initially called the company, garage.com.” Unfortunately, dotcom acquired negative connotations when the Internet tide went out because it came to stand for companies run by people without business acumen in markets without business models. The second mistake was lowercasing the “g” in garage.com. It was silly act of pseudohumility, but those were silly times. The problem with the lowercase “g” was that it was hard to pick it out in blocks of text. The visual cue that the word was a proper noun wasn’t there - you’d think that someone named guy (sic) would know this. Also, no one could really figure out what to do when a sentence started with “garage.com” - should it be capitalized or not? The bottom line, in hindsight, is that you should come up with a name that will endure for decades, and save your cleverness for the features of your products and services. On the other hand, consider the name Krispy Kreme. It doesn’t start with a letter early in the alphabet, and both “crispy” and “cream” are spelled incorrectly. Furthermore, the company’s donuts are neither crispy nor creamy. What his proves is that if you have a truely great product, it can overcome anything. One last example: I saw a great name for a company in a restroom at the Calgary International Airport. The company sells billboard advertising space in restrooms, and its name was Flushmedia. Brilliant.

I think Guy is right on. Further, if you want to start a company I suggest reading the whole book, The Art of the Start. I already have a few companies that are past the start up phase but I was still taking notes on things I could improve and concepts that I could simplify. I think the second thing a company needs is a good domain name. The first thing need, the nameless company needs is the product or service. A new company is dead in the water without a good domain/name. I will touch on some of the worst domains I saw last week while at TechCrunch 40 in SF last week in a future blog post. You can almost predict failure by how bad a name is for a company.