

Believing Your Own Bullshit - natasham25
http://nickoneill.com/believing-your-own-bullshit-2011-08/

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lsc
I dono if ycombinator is good or bad at teaching people about branding... but
personally, I don't really think a name has that much to do with it. I mean,
you want something unique that doesn't sound like it's a weak knock-off of
something else, and you want something that shows up in google, but I think a
brand is something you build up over time.

Your brand is a reputation; just like changing your name to something that
sounds better isn't going to improve your reputation, having a cool name isn't
going to make your brand strong.

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georgemcbay
A neutral name is fine if you can own it (and I don't mean in the trademark
sense here). eg. Amazon... or Zappos. Neither of these names are cool on their
own, they simply mean what they mean because the company behind them worked
hard to establish the brand as a symbol of quality (of customer service,
mostly).

OTOH, there are names that aren't really neutral and those can hurt you no
matter how good your product/service is. Nick's examples of Fukime and
MunchOnMe (1) are perfectly representative of this, IMO. Those two names give
me a bad impression of the company to begin with, so they are starting off in
a deep hole instead of at sea level when trying to get me to use them.

(1. FWIW, I made the same connection back when Fukime was doing their launch
post here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2848436> )

~~~
lsc
huh. MunchOnMe seems like a reasonable name for a groupon clone (which looks
like what it is?) I guess I'm missing how that is bad or offensive.

I mean, Fukime sounds like a handle on a cosplay form. Not really what I'd go
for, but being Japanese is a thing and that's okay. The real problem is that a
google search confirms it - the first hit I got (safesearch off) is the
deviantart page of... some cosplayer. oh man. On the first page, I found
references to the cloud platform, but not their home page. This is a serious,
serious problem, if you ask me, /much/ more serious than a vague resemblance
to a curse word in the name.

On the other hand, I'm told I'm horrible at picking names so maybe I'm
exhibiting bad taste here.

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dethstarr
I think this article was pretty good. Sometimes I sit back and wonder-- why
the heck am I struggling so hard for stuff? Why not just give in and go with
the flow, kick back and let others take the rein. I just can't though, it's
something in me, and probably in you, too.

The world needs more entrepreneurs.

~~~
dev1n
I was wondering, are you ever afraid of taking the reins? The OP says how they
failed a few times before they had success. Is that something that keeps you
in that mode of kicking back and letting others take the rein, or is the want
to succeed greater than your fear of failure? Or do you simply enjoy the
challenge and struggle that comes with entrepreneurship?

I don't mean to prod, I'm just curious as I'm thinking of starting my own
personal project but fear it's too big to complete.

