Fast Branding For Startups
Many HAX companies rebranded (sometimes more than half of a given cohort). I’ve seen first-hand how frustrating and time-consuming this could be. So after the Startup PR Guide, here is another quick guide on branding — and more specifically naming. An edited version of this article was published on TechInAsia.
Most likely you already have a name. If it’s bad (hard to spell, confusing, misaligned) or already trademarked you have to change it.
Below are resources and practical naming tactics I built over several years. Its aim is to help founders with productive brainstorming, and avoid opinion wars. I believe the exercise is useful beyond getting a name, as it will help clarify your vision, mission, values, positioning and message. Naming matters but is a mere consequence of your positioning. Make sure of that first!
And yes, creativity and culture help, but you can largely compensate with good research.
Now let’s get started!
What’s In A (Good) Name
We’ll have to disagree with Juliet. Names matter. A lot.
Before diving too deep, it’s good to provide some baseline of what a good name does. This will help direct your creative and research efforts.
Ideally the name of your company helps your business in the following ways:
- Short, easy to spell, pronounce, and remember by people from anywhere
- Distinctive
- Helps understand what you do (by your target market)
- Inspiring / evocative or descriptive
- Available for trademark
In most cases, it’s better to have a name that stands out. Your prospects will love it, your non-customers will dislike or ignore it. Being in the ‘average’ zone trying to please everyone rarely helps.
Judging Names
In a way, what you think doesn’t matter as much as how your customers react. It’s more objective (and useful). The sources below are selected from years of practice, to shortcut your learning curve.
- Igor Naming Guide — An excellent evaluation method for names (2 key tables with detailed criteria). It helps structure discussions.
- Market Sophistication Talk + Article — Understanding how competitors communicate guides your marketing / messaging / clarifying your positioning.
- Positioning by Al Ries and Jack Trout. The foundational book on the topic. Here is a short review on slideshare. The book is worth reading and re-reading. Get it for airport lounges, flights and sleepless nights! In short: you’re always part of a category, understand it, and define the subcategory you lead.
Again, what truly matters is how your name is perceived / recognized / memorized, not as much if you like it, or if it’s clever. I like clever names, but too clever can become obscure and counterproductive.
Next up: how to find good names.
Finding Names
Your name is a consequence of your VISION and POSITIONING. The clearer the vision, the easier it is to find the right name, then a message and logo.
After that, it’s a matter of method, with a bit of creativity.
Exploring naming strategies benefits your company as it helps clarify its identity and message. Yet, at some point (when you’re tired of it) it becomes counter-productive to obsess on names. Make a call and live with it! Many names grow with the company and get accepted that way.
The process of naming goes through rounds of divergence and convergence. Follow one path, then validate and dive deeper, or reject what you find and use another path. The combination creates a broad vision of your identity. The end result should be, with some trial and error, a suitable name.
Prep Work: Map The Landscape
To get started, collect names & logos of direct and indirect COMPETITORS. This will help map the landscape. See what words they use and how good they are. Anyone in your industry has a great name?
Next: Immediate Ideas
Easy breezy! To warm up, start with what comes to mind first when talking about your product or technology. Immediate associations are a useful starting point, however inaccurate.
Imagine this conversation:
You: We make tiny drones to pollenize crops.
Person: Oh, like in Black Mirror!
You: No.
Person: Oh.
Now this:
You: We make tiny drones to pollenize.
Person: Oh, like in Black Mirror!
You: YES! We are not the size of bees yet, but we’ll get there, or smaller!
Person: So cool!
Then it becomes this:
You: We make tiny drones to pollenize like in Black Mirror
Person: Wow.
(Note: In some cases, the longer pattern is actually better, as people feel more involved by contributing what they know, and are likely to remember you better — but that’s another conversation)
So start by making a list of everything you can think of, related to the problem you’re solving and the technology you’re using.
You are building sensors for beehives? Just write down: spelling bee, Winnie the Pooh, honey, queen bee, killer bees, dying bees, Bee Gees, Black Mirror robot bees, Ant Man, pollenizing, pollen, antioxidants (benefit of honey?) … anything you can think of! This will fire up your creative juices, and the more famous the reference, the easier for people to remember!
Next: Narrowing The Approach
Here are some specific tactics to generate names:
- DESCRIPTION / porte-manteau word about your product. Look for synonyms too.
e.g. Wazer = Water Laser !—I’m quite proud of this one. Engineers cringed but it’s memorable, and descriptive, and short, and lots of good things — note that their previous name, ‘FloWorks’ was also a similar build, but much inferior on many levels.
Most teams start with a descriptive name made up of two words. It’s a low hanging fruit, but rarely stands out unless you’re a first mover. In 3D printing Makerbot name is great (as a first mover, they could use the strongest generic name). FormLabs is ok/good. The rest barely noticeable. You can also modify a bit the spelling but beware you might lose people who can’t memorize or spell it. Don’t be too clever!
HAXLR8R— the first name of HAX — was distinctive but ‘too clever for its own good’: weird to pronounce and impossible to spell (a legacy of 2011 naming conventions? Like websites with ‘.ly’?). ‘HAX’, however, combines ‘hardware’ ‘accelerator’ ‘hacks’, is short, snappy and easy to remember. - HISTORY of the tech (e.g. Tesla).
Anything special about the discovery and people involved? Read on wikipedia! - POP CULTURE references (e.g. iRobot), LITERATURE and MYTHOLOGY (God/deity of this or that, check various cultures — avoid too obscure ones)
- ANIMALS, PLANTS, OBJECTS, etc. (e.g. Plecobot sticks to windows to clean like the pleco fish)
- ‘FOREIGN BRANDING’ = word in foreign language / foreign sounding word to associate with the image of a place (e.g. Haagen Dasz to sound Nordic, Sony to sound American)
Is there a country famous for the problem or tech you’re using? - BENEFITS offered or EMOTIONS triggered by your product.
Remember your tech is just a means to an end. People don’t buy a nail but a hole in the wall … or the usage or memory of the thing they will hang. - INSIGHTS there is something only you and few people know, or that people don’t dare to admit. Use that! Check this deck for examples.
- HOW you solve the problem.
- YOU. Sometimes there is something unique about you, your name or your story. Using your name is not necessarily about ego, it’s about commitment: if your company doesn’t deliver on its promises, it’s YOUR name that will suffer.
If you think of other naming tactics, add them in the comments and I’ll complete the list!
Q&A
Q. Do you need different names for your company and product?
A. It’s hard enough to make ONE name famous, so having TWO is (generally) not useful. That said, it is case by case and in enterprise and health tech it can make sense.
Q. Should we attach a second word to our name to clarify our sector?
A. It’s case by case but can be useful to clarify what you do (e.g. use ‘robotics’, ‘labs’, ‘technologies’, ‘A.I.’)
