The Name — Issue 06: Letter from the Editor
Hey Starter crew,
Well, here we are 6 months into this project. Half a year already, dang! THANK YOU for being here. This little email magazine has grown from only friends and family to new Starters from all over the world. This month we reached a new milestone, our first contributing editor! Welcome Alli Ball who’s taking over the monthly product round-up, now with an official name: The Starter Pack. With her background curating products for Bi-Rite Market in San Francisco to now consulting the best boutique brands, I’m stoked to have our own tiny Bi-Rite-ish section of Starter.
Ok, so onto this issue, albeit rather late this month because…I blame the name. I am in the naming process and it dominates every waking and probably dreaming thought. As a person that loves the branding process, I always think it’s something I’m going to enjoy but it ends up being so head-banging-against-the-wall hard. It consumes every thought until it’s done. WHHHHY. After naming a human and now three businesses, I can say naming the business baby is absolutely harder.
What do you want your audience to feel when they hear your name? That’s the kernel of your positioning. Then you have to think about domain names, instagram handles, and trademark laws. As I have learned the hard way with my second company (after getting sued), it’s not just who has the trademark either, it’s anyone with the same name in the same category — as common trademark law can protect a name in certain instances. Not to fill this letter with legal ick, but it’s thinking about these nuances ahead of time that helps you down the road.
After my second company (first called Forage) was sued — we decided to proceed with the path of renaming for various reasons. That led me to working with the team at A Hundred Monkeys who led us to the name Din. What I was most impressed by was their process. Typically working with a group like that can run you $10k or more, but Eli Altman the founder, wrote a book revealing how to find an exceptional name. So after what was a pretty painful process of re-naming, what surfaced was actually a more keen understanding of how to work through the naming of any company. I hope to share these learnings with you to make your process of naming a bit easier. After 3–4 weeks of it dominating my thinking space, we finally landed on THE NAME (!!!). There is still some trademark work to be done to secure it, so we won’t divulge it just yet. Stayed tuned to future issues for the reveal.
Ahead in this issue we share, the book Eli wrote, Don’t Call it That as our Starter Book Club pick, one of my favorite exercises from the book to kick off your brainstorming, stories from other food founders, AND of course the new Starter Pack with Alli Ball.
Sending the good vibes your way.
In Good Food We Trust,
-ELO
*one more thing* — You can see the full issue and all past issues at thestartermag.com and subscribe to get this little email magazine delivered to your inbox!
*two more things* — Remember last month I talked about a co-founder? Next month in Issue 07, you will meet her. :)
