What’s in a name?

(I’m changing mine btw)

Photo by Austin Kirk on Unsplash

Choosing a name for a new business is never an easy task. In the early days you often have an idealistic dream of what you want to become.

It’s hard because most founders have had no prior experience of branding and typically the name is chosen before you’ve even talked to any customers.

More often than not, over a short period of time, the business you thought you were building turns into something else. This makes it hard for new customers to understand who and what you are.

Worst case scenario the name is so great, you get approached about a trademark infringement because you’ve not done all your checks beforehand!

I spend lots of time thinking about names, talking to founders about the best way to approach it, and I’ve had the realisation that the name I have for my own consultancy no longer fits the bill.

X8IQ.com

It’s a short name, you can see I’ve got the dot.com, it looks good visually and we have no trademark issues.

The negative is that it normally needs explaining, and when I do I’m not sure everyone gets it.

Given the shortness of the name it’s also surprising how often people mistype or struggle to pronounce it.

The biggest issue however, is that it’s no longer what I originally intended it to be.

I chose the name years ago, while still in London running Motivii.com. The intention was that X8IQ would be a London based consultancy focusing mainly on Sales & Marketing for medium to large sized clients.

Fast forward to now, I’ve sold Motivii, I live in Cardiff and am a massive advocate of the brilliant local startup ecosystem here in Wales.

In my spare time; I’m in a privileged position where I can support, invest and help grow home grown ventures, and bring new ones to Wales from around the world.

X8IQ is therefore no longer the right name.

It’s therefore time to practise what I preach and evolve it into something which captures a different kind of motivation and energy.

Before I tell the you what the new name is, I thought it would be worth sharing my top 10 tips for choosing a new company name:

1. Establish from the beginning what URL you want. URLs are less important than they used to be, but there is nothing worse then coming across a great name and realising you can’t get the URL you want. In your brainstorming session, check ideas with something like NameCheap.com
2. Think about the why — this is the secret sauce behind what you do. Simon Sinek does a great job in explaining why understanding your why is so important. Write it down, maybe it becomes your company’s purpose. Use this as the core ingredient to come up with a name. The two should complement each other.
3. Descriptive names help in the early days — All the good (or most) of the abstract names are gone e.g. Apple, Tesla, Orange, Shell etc.. therefore try descriptive names e.g. British Telecom, DarkTrace. It may therefore be simpler to create a name that is more descriptive than abstract. It also helps explain what the business does.
4. Try and avoid crazy spelling — you can use some poetic licence in how you spell your brand name, but make it realistic and not totally illegible.
5. Check trademarks — This is really important. There are two types of trademarks, one is a word mark and the other a visual. Word marks are more valuable as you will be the only person who can use that word, the visual is how your brand actually looks.
6. Check Pronunciation — The name you’ve created may look great, but have you said it out loud? Try getting a number of people to say the name, does it sound right? If not, change it.
7. Check languages — If you’re creating a new word, just check you are not insulting someone in one of the world’s major languages
8. Think about icons — do you use the initials, do you add an icon next to the name?. Though the logo can change, ideally the name does not. Therefore it’s worth thinking about the icon/logo of the name.
9. Think about abbreviations — much like choosing a child’s name, you need to think about how the other kids in school will shorten their name. In this case you need to do the same with your own company’s name, check that it won’t be shortened into something that you aren’t happy with.
10. Think about the competition — lastly, just check the name doesn’t sound like your competitors, unless this is something you want to happen?

Do you have any other tips and recommendations in creating new a company name?