9 Steps to Coming Up with a Good Enough Startup Name
Naming your baby is hard. Naming your startup is harder. Why? Because you can name your baby anything, but your startup name needs to be easy to spell back, be relevant (or just good enough) to your business, must not be close to your industry incumbents’ trademarks, and a domain name must be available. Then there’s the issue of founders actually liking the name for whatever the reasons — for its pronunciation, typography, being easy to type, the domain extension, the length of the name and so forth.
Here’s the 9-step process of how we came up with our name SendBird — which we believe is a good-enough .com name to start with.
1. Finding keywords
Deciding on keywords lays out the scope of your initial search. You can randomly lookup 5 to 6 letter domain names and see which ones stick, but in reality, when you get to the next step with these kind of uber-short names, you’ll most likely hit a dead end unless you are willing to spend five to six figures on domain acquisition.
In our case, we wanted to start with keywords related to messaging, but the words “messaging” and “message” were just too long to begin with. So we looked for words in the similar space, such as “chat” or “send” then we played around with these words.
Find a few keywords that captures your startup’s idea, which can either be explicit (e.g. Airbnb, DoorDash, EverNote, Facebook, etc.) or can be implicit (e.g. Google, Tesla, etc.). Again, finding a super-short-cool-sounding name is doable (e.g. Uber) but will definitely cost you money.
2. Drafting a .com domain longlist
This part is arguable, meaning, you don’t need a .com name to succeed. But having a .com name doesn’t hurt. Angel List didn’t need angel.com to succeed, but Mint did spend quite an effort getting the domain name that users could ultimately trust:
“You will lose all word of mouth marketing if you don’t have a good name. Most people choose their name because the domain is available. That’s a really bad idea. I spent 3 months and $182,000 negotiating for Mint.com, and it was the best purchase I ever made.” — Aaron Patzer (Founder of Mint.com)
I’m not 100% pro-.com, but when you look at the ones that are doing well, almost 80%+ of the startups have .com domains. Some have acquired it from the beginning, while others acquired them along the way after raising a round.Paul Graham favors .com names quite strongly as well.
One of the fastest way to lookup .com domain is Instantdomainsearch.
I recommend using here, because 1) it’s fast and 2) it doesn’t squat on domains or sell your searches to someone else. Sometimes, it will show taken domains as available by mistake, so be sure to double-check with your domain registrar for final confirmation.
Or you can look for pre-owned .coms through sedo or afternic. This is also quite useful and worth spending your time on, because of most of good domains have been taken already. Try to find ones that cost less than $5,000 to start with. If your startup has raised a significant seed or series-A round, you can go for ones with five to six figure range, but you will also find that good-enough names do not always have expensive price tags.
A good way to buy a cheap domain is to use a mix of words. Think DoorDash, SendGrid, MailChimp, SurveyMonkey, etc.
Come up with a long-list of 10 to 50 .com domains that you think are relevant, then prioritize them to your liking.
Make sure to check for negative meanings in the dictionary and even urban dictionary to look for connotations or slangs that you were not even aware of before digging any deeper.
3. (optional) Looking up other startups and social media usernames
This is not entirely necessary, but also helps you to secure names that can be used consistently across profiles and social media. So, doing a quick search across the following websites will help:
- Facebook Page
- Angel List
- Crunchbase
- Others (depending on your business area)
- YouTube
- and so forth…
4. Looking up trademarks
Go to USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office) website and do a quick search of your domain/startup name and its variations. This will save you extra hassle down the road.
You will have to look up not only the exact words, but other words with similar spellings and similar sounding names with totally different spellings. You are looking for trademarks of businesses in the same or adjacent spaces.
For instance, SendKick was one of our candidates, but we quickly found that a company called SendQuick was in an adjacent space (of sending SMS and MMS messages) so we ruled this one out.
Searching on USPTO will only safe guard you from potential US trademark risks, but if you have a .com domain and USPTO comes up clean, the chances of your trademark registration will be higher.
5. Shortlisting your name
Now that you have a list of clean .com domain names that you sort of like, it’s time to pick your favorites. You can do this in many different ways, but let me suggest a few methods:
- Have founders and team members vote for favorites: You can use Google Forms to create a quick survey of your candidates. Pick out 5 to 10 candidates, then make sure to ‘randomize’ the order. We told everyone to pick out two favorites out of the six choices. We’ve also distilled which were the primary choices and the secondary choices. You can do a further analysis and post-processing of your votes if you want to. (e.g. If your startup is targeting engineers, give extra weight to engineers’ votes.)
- Score your names on criteria: Four criteria we’ve used were…
- Intuitiveness: Is the name relevant to our business?
- Visuals / Typography: Is it somewhat pleasing to look at?
- Sound / Pronunciation: How easy is it to pronounce? Could it be mistaken for something else?
- A Mix of Tech & Emotional Value: A custom criteria we’ve added to make sure we don’t sound too techie and we did it by adding a non-techie element to the name, hence the “Bird.”
6. Getting feedback
Now it’s time to ask the rest of the world: your friends, investors, and maybe even your parents. Can they spell back the name you’ve said on the phone? (try using something like SoundCloud to record your voice and send the link to your friends) Do the images they perceive align with your original intention? Do they ‘get it?’
If you have to spell out your name over the phone multiple times, it’s time to look for another name.
7. (optional) Conducting in-depth trademark search
This is an extra step for startups. If you feel concerned that your name is somewhat close to others in the industry, reach out to your patents / trademarks attorney to conduct an in-depth trademark research. It will usually take $1,000 or more per search and take three to four days, but this way, you can analyze the risk that goes with your new name. Of course, most of big companies will do this for sure.
8. Making the decision
Now you should have perhaps two to three names that you like on the table. If you are lucky, you may have already found the one! Look back on the evaluations, the votes, the sounds, the looks, and just be true to your gut. Is this the one you are willing to make the bet on, for many years to come?
Of course, then there are companies who change their name even when they are pretty big: ZenPayroll became Gusto, so if you’ve made this far, you probably have a pretty good names list and this will no longer be a life-and-death decision for your company. You already have a good candidate in your hand, if not great, so make the decision, and don’t look back.
Make your name proud. Make it a success.
9. Purchasing the domain and registering the trademark
Now go get the domain if you haven’t already. If available, buy the .net, .org, and maybe even .co if your budget allows. Also scoop other typo-prone names if you can (e.g. sendbrid.com? )
Then talk to your patents / trademarks attorney to file for the trademark. It’ll take sometime, but you can start using your name once you have the domain ready and feel comfortable after your USPTO search (or in-depth search).
Finally, you are good to go! I hope this helps other startups out there who are pulling their hairs out in search of the next great name.
* SendBird is the simplest messaging solution for apps. Please do check it out if you want to increase engagement and retention of your users.
