Naming Your Business
Jared Haworth
has been weighing on my mind lately:
For those of you who are working as 'independent developers,' have
you found that it makes more sense to simply do business under your
own name, for example "Jared Haworth L.L.C.," or to come up with a
clever business name instead, such as "Code Fusion Studios"?
(Apologies if someone is actually using that as their name, I just
grabbed some buzz words and mashed them together.)
Your thoughts?
- Jared
Robert Fischer
just fine as long as I was just another independent consultant code
monkey. When I started trying to brand myself and find gigs beyond
writing code, I created the Smokejumper Consulting assumed name. That
name quickly communicates my niche, and it's certainly more memerable
than my old company name (which you've already forgotten).
Robert Fischer
IT Firefighter
Smokejumper Consulting
Amos King
A. King Software Development and Consulting, L.C.
It is way too long. Now I have filed for a fictitious name that is
shorter. It sounded good at the time because it is informative and
from the name you know exactly what I do. I used my name because I
think A. King is catchy and has some great logo possibilities. If I
had to do it over again I would use A. King Software, L.C. which is my
fictitious name.
Amos
--
Amos King
A. King Software Development and Consulting, L.C.
http://dirtyInformation.com
--
Looking for something to do? Visit http://ImThere.com
Myles Braithwaite
name (as in Myles Braithwaite). Nothing else to it.
Michael Breen
Mike Mangino
I'm moving to philly in a year, so the name will be a little silly then.
I would recommend incorporating under a generic name, and then
picking a DBA name for something that you will use. It's nice to have
a layer of abstraction in naming.
Mike
--
Mike Mangino
http://www.elevatedrails.com
Robert Fischer
least, registered alias): my FVMC corporation actually has two brands
beneath it -- Graphic Karma Web Design (http://graphickarma.com) and
Smokejumper Consulting. These are businesses with drastically different
target audiences, and it'd be awkward to try to sell both at the same time.
Robert Fischer
IT Firefighter
Smokejumper Consulting
Paul Pagel
We had a list of 50 possible names, and not one was "cool" though, so good luck.
Paul W Pagel
www.8thLight.com
blog.8thLight.com
Robert Fischer
Robert Fischer
IT Firefighter
Smokejumper Consulting
Paul Pagel wrote:
> We choose 8th Light because it was as generic and simple as we could
> think of. All the longer candidates would have put me one step closer
> to carpal tunnel syndrome. Also, you don't know if you are going to
> grow (or move), so it is better to have a generic brand. Otherwise
> your brand is your name, even if others are working with you.
>
> We had a list of 50 possible names, and not one was "cool" though, so
> good luck.
>
> Paul W Pagel
> www.8thLight.com <http://www.8thLight.com>
> blog.8thLight.com <http://blog.8thLight.com>
>
>
> On 6/7/07, *Jared Haworth* <jared....@gmail.com
Diego Lapiduz
Robby Russell
I registered the name PLANET ARGON with the State of Oregon in 2002
when I was starting to do some freelance stuff in the evenings. I
skipped the whole process of selling myself with my name and went
straight into using a name for a company.
As far as picking a name... that's a very personal decision. This is
our chance to be creative, clever, and hope it stands out amongst a
crowd of names. My company was named after a fictional place in a Tom
Robbins book... and it's now become part of the culture of PLANET
ARGON. New employees are handed a copy of the book and encouraged to
read the book.
At RailsConf, I learned that TextDrive was a play on "sex drive"...
so we all have our own formulas for this stuff. ;-)
If you think naming a company is hard... try naming a band. I can
come up with new company names much easier than I can come up with my
next music project name.
Good luck... and remember... have fun!
-Robby
--
Robby Russell
Founder and Executive Director
PLANET ARGON, LLC
Ruby on Rails Development, Consulting & Hosting
www.planetargon.com
www.robbyonrails.com
+1 503 445 2457
+1 877 55 ARGON [toll free]
+1 815 642 4068 [fax]
Chris Conrey
Are you going to have a website with the company name? Is the domain you want available?
Being Planet Argon is certainly made easier by having planetargon.com no? Being Neato Rails Consulting would be much harder if you couldn't have neatorails.com or similar.
If you're planning on only freelancing and never growing beyond one person who markets by word of mouth, then that may not be of much importance to you. But having a convenient presence certainly makes marketing yourself much easier.
--
Chris Conrey
chrisconrey.com
Robert Fischer
came up with about 30 names we would be happy with, and there were only
two or three where the .com wasn't taken already. So that filtered
thing down pretty well.
Robert Fischer
IT Firefighter
Smokejumper Consulting
Chris Conrey wrote:
> One thing to consider (beyond the points already listed) when picking
> your business name:
>
> Are you going to have a website with the company name? Is the domain
> you want available?
>
> Being Planet Argon is certainly made easier by having planetargon.com
> <http://planetargon.com> no? Being Neato Rails Consulting would be
> much harder if you couldn't have neatorails.com
> <http://neatorails.com> or similar.
>
> If you're planning on only freelancing and never growing beyond one
> person who markets by word of mouth, then that may not be of much
> importance to you. But having a convenient presence certainly makes
> marketing yourself much easier.
>
> --
> Chris Conrey
> chrisconrey.com <http://chrisconrey.com>
>
> On 6/7/07, *Robby Russell* <ro...@planetargon.com
> www.planetargon.com <http://www.planetargon.com>
> www.robbyonrails.com <http://www.robbyonrails.com>
brasten
clients who find my name (through blogs, wikis, etc) and want to hire
"Brasten Sager: Ruby Developer" are more often than not looking for
more of the on-site, 9-5 code monkey type work... where-as more
recently those contacting "Nagilum LLC" want more of the traditional
consulting/telecommuting developers/etc.
I would think that would change if one makes themselves known as a
'top-tier' Ruby guy... say, for example, if your name is Dave Thomas
or Jamis Buck... I haven't yet been able to test that particular
theory. ;)
You might also consider a modification of your name as a company
name? I briefly considered Brasten LLC, for example.
-Brasten
Robert Dempsey
Solutions) started out as Hired Gun. I chose the name to showcase the
consultant angle. The name worked well until 9-11. I was in the DC
area at the time, and interestingly enough a lot of people took
offense to the name. I changed it to ADS for a number of reasons.
Atlantic -> east coast (large area = large company), Dominion (a word
big in Virginia, but cool nonetheless), Solutions -> what we provide,
and generic enough if the focus of the business changed, which it did
from IT to software development.
As it has been said, keep it flexible, keep it professional, and don't
forget you can always get a D.B.A. The next step is a good logo that
works with the name - one more element in the branding process.
Good luck!
Robert Dempsey
http://www.techcfl.com
http://www.railsforall.org
Jim Mulholland
Does Sinai have any sort of meaning or story behind it? The
dictionary definition of Sinai is "peninsula extension of continent of
Asia NE Egypt between Red Sea & the Mediterranean."
Looking at the name, I am not sure how it should be pronounced. So
unless there is an intriguing story behind the name, you may want to
look into something new. Names that could have multiple
pronunciations with an unknown meaning are going to be difficult for
potential clients to remember. I think in our industry, a name that
is easy to remember is very important. We know how easy it is to lose
business cards, so it is nice if they can easily remember our name /
URL.
Unfortunately, naming a business is not easy. We have been
brainstorming company names ourselves over the past few weeks. Here
are a couple of resources we have used to help with the process.
http://www.igorinternational.com/process/name-evaluation-brand-evaluate-names.php
http://hellomynameisscott.blogspot.com/2007/05/why-you-need-cool-company-name.html
- Jim
On Jun 7, 11:23 am, Diego Lapiduz <dlapi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I've been in crisis with our name Sinai IT for a long time. We
> thought of changing it to "Holy Rails" but its a little child-ish.
>
> Also, I don't know why, but clients tend to be more appealed when
> they hire "Diego Lapiduz" instead of "Sinai IT".
>
> Would love to hear your thoughts about this.
>
> _____________________
> Diego Lapiduz
> Sinai IT
>
> On Jun 7, 2007, at 1:17 PM, Robert Fischer wrote:
>
> Of course, branding-as-name has worked out just fine for Robert Half...
>
> Robert Fischer
> IT Firefighter
> Smokejumper Consulting
>
> Paul Pagel wrote:
> > We choose 8th Light because it was as generic and simple as we could
> > think of. All the longer candidates would have put me one step closer
> > to carpal tunnel syndrome. Also, you don't know if you are going to
> > grow (or move), so it is better to have a generic brand. Otherwise
> > your brand is your name, even if others are working with you.
>
> > We had a list of 50 possible names, and not one was "cool" though, so
> > good luck.
>
> > Paul W Pagel
> >www.8thLight.com<http://www.8thLight.com>
> > blog.8thLight.com <http://blog.8thLight.com>
>
> > On 6/7/07, *Jared Haworth* <jared.hawo...@gmail.com
Dave Myron
> dictionary definition of Sinai is "peninsula extension of continent of
> Asia NE Egypt between Red Sea & the Mediterranean."
If his audience is religious (which is sounds like it is considering his
other name choice was Holy Rails), they will recognize the reference. Mt.
Sinai is where Moses received the Ten Commandments.
Dave
Diego Lapiduz
that name, I should in fact change it and not for Holy Rails.
I have no intend to have a religious or no religious audience, that
was the name I used since some time for no actual reason.
Anyway thanks a lot.
Diego
Keith
the confidence and experience I felt I needed, I waited. I always
wanted to create a software or tech company. As for the name, I
wanted it to incorporate my last name, Veleba (veh-leh-bah for those
of you following along at home) in some way. VeleSoft was always the
first choice.
When it actually came to pass, I decided I wanted a more professional
sounding name.
The rejects (which I absolutely worshiped during the time I considered
them and registered domains for all of them :) )
Binary Tool and Die ( a play on the venerable folks at Software Tool
and Die)
Tech Thing Industries
Blackhawk Consulting
The name I settled on, IntelliTek Services Ltd, was really accidental
and picked by my wife out of a bunch of (now) stupid sounding names.
It was the best one, because it sounds good and tells you what I do.
Tech services.
I came up with a simple logo and color scheme (you can see it at
http://www.intellitekservices.com, mind the dust I'm working on a full
redesign, so most links are broken at the moment)
Everyone I've shown it to has commented on how memorable the name and
the logo are.
Moral of the story: Even though you think you have the perfect
sounding name, run it by some people whose opinion you value. Names
with obscure references to technology or other nerdery (take no
offense, I'm a card-carrying member myself - just ask the wife) just
end up falling flat over time IMHO.
Second Moral: Protect your logo with a trademark and service mark if
applicable. It becomes your face out in the world. I'm in this
process now, and I will share my thoughts on it later.
-- Keith
Chris Wanstrath
Imagine if PLANET ARGON, founded in 2002, was PLANET PHP.
- Chris
Bothari
finding a good domain name, then naming my company that. It's only
$50, and if you don't like any of the domains you get your money back.
Joe
--
"For a new software system, the requirements will not be completely
known until after the users have used it." Humphrey's Requirements
Uncertainty Principle.
Jade Meskill
...
oh wait. :P
Seriously though, I agree with Robby that is is a very personal choice
and should reflect some of your personality, or at least some of the
personality you want your company to radiate. If you have a fun,
offbeat type of company, let your name reflect some of that;
conversely if you are serious and are targeting uptight corporations
with very little sense of humor, go with something serious sounding.
When I chose the name integrum (Latin for "whole, complete, entire"
and also related to integrity) for our company I spent many days
pondering possible names and running it by friends and business
contacts to get their feel for what they thought about the possible
names and what stuck. Spend some time being creative, have fun, don't
rush it, if things go well, it will be a name that sticks with you for
quite some time!
Having something memorable helps potential clients remember who you
are. Jade Meskill Consulting, Inc. really doesn't stick the same way
that Integrum Technologies does (at least I hope so!). Also having
the domain available sure helps (curse you integrum.com!!!)
Jade @ integrum
On 6/28/07, Chris Wanstrath <ch...@ozmm.org> wrote:
>
Mitch Pirtle
Everyone (but me, that is LOL) ran out and bought mambo*.com domains
and set up shop - MamboThis, MamboThat, MamboMegashop.com blah blah.
Well, there was this little disagreement a couple years ago and we
ended up rebranding ourselves as Joomla. And all those mambo*.com
companies had a land rush on their hands, with everyone racing to
secure the joomla*.com equivalent. The fighting was awful, with some
people still unhappy with how that panned out today, several years
later.
Had they just named their company something unique - and not taken the
name of a technology that wasn't theirs in the first place - they
wouldn't have been forced to change their names anyway.
Also, make sure the name is shorter than longer - for example, my own
Spacemonkey Labs is a great name and everyone tells me they love it,
and it is easy to remember and so on; but it is just too long to make
nice business cards and branding. I'm already being called SML for
example, as people do get tired of saying the whole name every time...
-- Mitch
Jose Hurtado
Naming your business is perhaps one of the most important steps for any entrepreneur. I just wanted to add, that in addition to being memorable, there are a few characteristics a good company name should have.
So here are my 2 cents on the subject of names.
1. It's a Brand - not a Person or not?
For a small company, a startup or even a giant the size of Microsoft; your company name is first and foremost your first brand. Your umbrella for anything your company wants to make now or in the future.
So like any brand it should not be a person's name. Unless that person has truly became unmistakably focused and memorable. Case in point Michael Dell or Martha Stewart; whose very names evoke their products. But for most of us, this is not the case, and having a good company name that is our first brand tends to be better than using Your Name Inc.
2. Keep it Short
How short? Ideally under 10 characters, and just one word.
Let's try it with some real brands / company names:
Brand / Company - Characters
Nintendo - 8
Sony - 4
Apple - 5
Yamaha - 6
Toyota - 6
Microsoft - 9
Dell - 3
Cisco - 5
Nestle - 6
Panasonic - 9
37Signals - 9
YouTube - 7
Google - 5
So what about the longer names, the exception kicks in when the longer name itself is memorable. Frequently though they will be reduced to initials, take for example:
General Motors - 13 chars. - becomes GM
Electronic Arts - 14 chars - becomes EA
3. Don't Use Acronyms
You are not IBM or GM so do not pretend to be them!
Use full words, one or two and try to make them memorable.
4. Be Memorable, and learn to Spell ; )
This means your name should be original, visual, and ideally easy to spell correctly by your customers or market. So think of something that would work for you. Planet Argon is unusual but memorable. We thought of Trumpet Interactive since it was unusual too, but easy to remember.
If you realize that your company name will probably also be your URL, then it's even more important to use a proper spelling!
So, something like :
AwesomeRailsDevelopers.com
Is actually better than:
AwsmRailsDevs.com
Simply because most people will misspell the second one, and never reach your email or URL.
5. Lasers not Umbrellas
Since we have small companies we must choose a name / brand that is narrow enough to say something about us. So names like YouTube are just about perfect. While actually 37Signals is confusing at first; although is memorable because it now has a reputation.
Umbrella names tend to be wordy, tend to have some acronym with international thrown in there, and pretty much reminds us of huge companies with a million products, so yes, please focus and avoid things like AT&T, NTT, PWC, etc.
6. A Name is never bigger than it's Reputation
This is perhaps the biggest thing of it all. Even a long, boring, name can become amazing if the people and the company behind it make it so.
Think about Hewlett and Packard, that's quite a dull, unremarkable name. Now think HP; quite a difference. Why? Because of a history of delivering value to people. Reputation is the end the ultimate brand, the ultimate business name is built on it every day.
Jose Luis Hurtado
Project Manager / Web Developer
Trumpet Interactive
Toronto, Canada
Best Regards,
Jose Hurtado
Toronto, Canada
Philip Hallstrom
> This means your name should be original, visual, and ideally easy to spell
> correctly by your customers or market. So think of something that would work
> for you. Planet Argon is unusual but memorable. We thought of Trumpet
> Interactive since it was unusual too, but easy to remember.
>
> If you realize that your company name will probably also be your URL, then
> it's even more important to use a proper spelling!
4.a - Make sure your name is easily prounancable and the spelling can be
easily figured out "over the phone" or at a conversation at a bar.
Years ago we had "eilio.com" which was Gaelic for "weave". Neat. Clever.
Short. But it *sucked* trying to relay that information to people. How
would you spell eee-lee-oh.com if you could only listen to it?
Even when you'd list it out letter by letter people couldn't do it.
E-I-E-I-O? Like the nursery rhyme?
Heck, I have that problem with "pjkh.com" as the pee, jay, kay all get
blurry over the phone. Those are my initials so I can say it, but
ironically the 'k' is for Kohl which no one gets either :)
-philip
Robert Fischer
It drives her nuts, because people are constantly calling her
"ah-lee-SHUH" or "ah-LISH-uh". And for years, I used corradiation.net
for my domain. Even I had trouble spelling it, and if you didn't get it
right the first time over the phone...it was all over!
Robert Fischer
IT Firefighter
Smokejumper Consulting
Diego Lapiduz
for my business.
Would you think that having Rails in the name is bad? I know that is
very specific but its not PHP its a word and, I think, a very cool
one for web development.
Thanks all for giving thoughts,
Diego
Robert Fischer
falls out of the limelight, go for it.
(Before anyone gets their hackles up: I'm not saying that Rails is on
the way out. I'm just saying that technologies can and do change, and
most developers can and do change with them. Case in point: what were
you doing 5 years ago? I bet it wasn't Rails!)
Robert Fischer
IT Firefighter
Smokejumper Consulting
Mitch Pirtle
>
> As long as you're willing to accept rebranding your business when Rails
> falls out of the limelight, go for it.
+1 on that one!
Whatever name you end up with, make sure it is YOURS, and not based on
someone else's technology - railsninjas.com, javajunkies,com,
phphreaks.com and so on. The last thing you want is your name tied to
a particular technology, especially when the image of that technology
is completely out of your control.
-- Mitch
Jose Hurtado
Quite true indeed, the name of your company should not be linked to any particular technology. No matter how good that technology seems to be at the time, and that is the case for Rails.
The main reason is that you are trying to build YOUR own brand, not someone else's. So all your effort should be in trying to differentiate and promote your business first, technology second.
That said, technology will be a differentiator. So being a Ruby on Rails development company will immediately put you in a category, as will do every technology you choose over the rest. But the main differentiators will be outside of technology things like: your track record, innovation, what your customers say about you, your company values, etc.