

Ask HN: What startup has the best name? - colourfulclock

What are the best named startup at the moment? Purely based on name, not on quality!<p>Personally, I just love the name 'Backupify' (http://www.backupify.com/)
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patrickk
mint.com

They spent $2m buying it, and it was a superb piece of branding.

<http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10457870-36.html>

" _Mint’s product had an instant edge because of how its name branded it–a
simple, easy-to-spell dictionary word, alluding to both the manufacturing of
money and that fresh, clean taste._ "

<http://www.dotweekly.com/mint-com-founder-speaks-of-branding>

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staunch
The price they paid was $181k in Series A stock. The _return_ to the investor
after the company sold was something like $2 million.

[http://thinkvitamin.com/asides/aaron-patzer-on-how-to-
take-y...](http://thinkvitamin.com/asides/aaron-patzer-on-how-to-take-your-
start-up-to-the-next-level/)

I think that's actually somewhat low as a dollar figure for the domain. It
probably could have been sold for at least $300k in cash. Having Ron Conway
and First Round Capital as your investors probably gets you better deals.

~~~
patrickk
Oops. Thanks for that correction. Hadn't seen that figure quoted anywhere in
relation to their purchase of the domain before.

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mashmac2
I'm going to put my vote in for GazeHawk. It's a great name for a eye tracking
software company.

Gazehawk.com

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gorog
It's hard to find a great company name.

There are some WTF names like Apple Computers, or obscure acronyms like IBM.
Specifically English words like MySpace are great for English-speaking
customers, not so much for others. Invented proper names like Google should
better be short and the Google example has the downsides of an English word
since it sounds way more English than Japanese. 'Great' depends on context of
course.

I would say Twitter is great because they use the metaphor consistently
(tweets, the bird icon, the egg avatar).

For my own project, I will take the least bad name whose domain I can buy.
People will get used to it eventually.

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solipsist
I like startup names that are made up of real words...

    
    
      Dropbox  - Drop, Box
    
      Facebook - Face, Book
    
      Linkedin - Linked, In
    

...or ones that sound like real words

    
    
      Notifo   - Notify

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tejaswiy
I actually think Facebook is a pretty poor name, like Microsoft. Sometimes,
the only reason why these names sound okay is because of repetition.

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solipsist
True, it's always tough to judge a name of a company that has already taken
off. You'll either like it because of hearing it so much or dislike it because
you think you'll have a bias if you went the other way. The truth is that
you'll have a bias no matter what you choose.

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petervandijck
I'm not crazy about backupify. It kind of assumes you know what a backup is.

~~~
pan69
Me neither. It doesn't really role of the tongue so to say.

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sucuri2
I really like DropBox's name... Matches very well what they do.

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goosmurf
I personally like this not so small company in the Cook Islands.

<http://i.imgur.com/575Br.jpg>

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_ques
I think Ooyala is beautiful. It's a bunch of ex-googlers, I like to think the
"oo" carries that. And it's an abstract name, which is ok given their business
(not end-user). According to their materials, "Ooyala means cradle in Telugu,
a Southern Indian language."

[i don't know anyone at Ooyala, I just found them on the web]

~~~
scottyallen
Try mentioning it in a conversation to someone, and then asking them to spell
it. Total nightmare. Despite Ooyala having pretty serious traction, very few
people have heard of them. As someone who used to work there, I'm convinced
that the name is a huge strike against them on this front. When people ask
where I've worked, I first ask them if they've heard of Brightcove, and then
say that I worked at Ooyala, which is their main competitor. Much easier to
explain:)

BTW, my father _still_ can't pronounce Ooyala properly, after 2.5 years, nor
can a lot of people I run into in the valley.

Based on that experience, here's a couple rules I go by when naming
products/companies I'm involved in:

\- It has to be easy to pronounce. \- It has to have a completely unambiguous
spelling. \- An average person should be able to spell it based on hearing it
once.

You shouldn't have to say that you work for "Ooyala, spelled o-o-y-a-l-a".
That's just embarrassing.

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ebun
Not sure if you'd still consider it a startup, but PayPal has a great name
that complements their service extremely well.

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mindcrime
I'm sort of partial to Fogbeam Labs. <http://www.fogbeam.com>

But I'm just a _little_ bit biased...

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decasoft
CloudFwd (<http://www.cloudfwd.com>) but I'm also biaised :) Best 10 bucks
around.

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Kilimanjaro
<http://deel.co>

Best name ever. Short, easy, to the point, the best $30 spent so far.

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ashleyw
The problem I have with .co is it's so similar to .com. If somebody sent me an
IM containing "deel.co", I'd probably assume they meant deel.com and just
missed the last character.

~~~
Kilimanjaro
I know, but nothing a huge marketing campaign can not fix.

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studentscircle
i like mine <http://studentscircle.net> pretty much says what the startup is
about

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tdoggette
You've gotta really enunciate whenever you say it, or people will go to
studentcircle.net

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franciscocosta
I like mine: tymr.com but that's obvious :)

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adrianwaj
Hotmail had the best name.

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karthikm
resu.me

