B2B founders: Stop naming stuff
Naming your company and products is fun. But “name creep” can create serious challenges for marketing and sales.
Choosing a name for your startup is one of the most fun parts of starting up. As it should be.
Still, when it comes to naming, I’m seeing an unsettling trend, particularly among early-stage B2B startups. Instead of just naming their companies, some founders are coming up with completely different names for their SaaS offerings. Some are introducing — on top of that — separate naming schemes for product lines, product suites, and product features.
Call it name creep. And aside from a few special cases, it’s bad. Let’s look at three kinds of name creep, drawn from examples of actual start-ups that recently raised VC money.
NAME CREEP TYPE 1:
Different names for your company and its SaaS offering
If you’re Toyota, your product needs its own name. But if you’re a new B2B SaaS platform, resist the urge. Have you heard the old chestnut that the moment you introduce a second name is the moment your marketing efficiency drops by a factor of two? I’d argue it’s much worse than that. Five or 10, maybe 20. Let me explain.
One team of founders I know started out by naming their B2B company BigusDealus, figuring that investors would think they were up to something important. (I’ve disguised all company and product names in this piece.) Then, based on the logic that prospects needed something more approachable and descriptive, they named their SaaS product LightBulbs123. They even hosted the product at LightBulbs123.com, while the main company site remained at BigusDealus.com.
At first, the founders closed proof-of-concept deals with friends and referrals, so the name split wasn’t a problem. But then BigusDealus raised a respectable Series A. TechCrunch covered the funding announcement, generating tons of visits to BigusDealus.com. Unfortunately, that traffic resulted in very few visits to LightBulbs123.com, and, of course, even fewer signups.
In creating a separate product name and domain, the founders had introduced an unnecessary step in user conversion that would plague every marketing effort going forward. If Y = 10 in the diagram above, the naming scheme robbed the PR hit of 90% of its ability to drive trial.
Needless to say, the founders are currently considering changing the company name to LightBulbs123.
NAME CREEP TYPE 2:
Features masquerading as products
When you release new features for your B2B offering, it can be tempting to call them products and christen them with cool names. One reason: product teams (and founders) feel pressure to show they’re being productive, and what better proof than a steady stream of new products, each with its own catchy moniker?
Unfortunately, a proliferation of named products can have serious negative consequences for marketing and sales. To see why, consider an early-stage company I know that recently raised a substantial Series C. Let’s call them Platforma. While Platforma’s founders wisely made no distinction between their company’s name and the name of their SaaS offering, they gradually introduced a host of what they called new products, which they gave names like Platforma Enterprise, Platforma Nexus, Platforma Boost, Platforma Local, and Platforma Direct.
Pretty soon, here’s what prospects saw when they visited Platforma.com:
Instead of just asking themselves “Is Platforma right for me?” prospects faced a more complex decision before engaging, which Platforma marketing and sales teams would have to help prospects navigate. The result was longer and less successful conversion:
Naming features in itself is not awful, but think twice before elevating them to the level of products. In general, early-stage companies should strive to maintain one product, keeping the “buy/try” decision as frictionless as possible. If you want to gate features, do that through pricing plans or other choices that users make only after signing up. Introduce separate products only if product selection is truly necessary before buying or trying. Even then, if at all possible, redesign your products so it isn’t.
NAME CREEP TYPE 3:
Superfluous tiers
A company I know called BusinessServices (again, in case you just joined us, not the real name) calls its SaaS offering the “AnalyticsAndMore suite of products.” There’s BusinessServices AnalyticsAndMore Reporting, BusinessServices AnalyticsAndMore Charts, and so on. This type of name creep is pretty much an amalgam of the two previous types, and saddles a company with all the negative consequences we’ve already explored.
So…don’t clutter your story with excess names. Until you have to.
Will your B2B company one day reach a point where multiple products, each with its own name, makes sense? Possibly. Can product suite or product line names help prospects sort through a set of offerings? Of course. But executive teams should give careful consideration to why they’re introducing a new product or tier name.
One of the most powerful advantages of your early-stage company is that your story is clean. Unlike those of legacy competitors, it’s unencumbered by bloated product portfolios amassed through questionable acquisitions, wrongheaded or abandoned strategies, and plain old time. Play that card to full advantage by giving your prospects as few names to deal with as possible.
About Andy Raskin:
I help leaders get clear on their strategic stories — for raising money, scaling marketing and sales, building great product, and hiring great people. My clients include leadership teams funded by Andreessen Horowitz, True Ventures, First Round Capital, and other top venture investors. I also lead workshops on strategic storytelling.
To learn more, visit http://andyraskin.com.
Or follow me on Twitter: @araskin
