How we changed the name of our startup — A user-focused approach

First of all, I wouldn’t recommend to any entrepreneur to change the name of your startup, unless you really have a compelling reason to do so.

The process of finding a new name and building a new identity is long, complicated and uncertain, so don’t do it because you want a better name, but because you have a bad one.

In this post, I’ll explain why we decided it was time for TawiPay to find a new name, how we went about finding new ideas and testing them to make sure not to make the same mistakes again, and all the steps between selecting a name and building a new brand and identity.

A major reason we needed to find a new name is the fact that I need a way too long paragraph to explain the story behind the old one. So please, bear with me as I explain (hopefully for the last time), why we named our startup TawiPay.

More than three years ago, my two co-founders and I had about ten minutes to find a name for a project we were about to pitch at a Startup Weekend. Our initial idea was to offer a revolutionary way to transfer money internationally, to help millions of migrants around the world save on the hefty charges they pay when sending money home. We were throwing some buzzwords vaguely related to our idea in Google Translate, and found that Tawi — branch — in Swahili (for branchless banking, if you really must know), sounded good. TawiPay was born.