

Why picking a name for a startup does matter - vanelsas
http://blog.pinkelstar.com/post/4234927764/why-picking-a-name-for-a-startup-does-matter

======
jonnathanson
There are the right reasons to agonize over a name, and then there are the
wrong reasons. Your name needs to be easily and intuitively pronouncable in
the user's head. Furthermore, and similarly, it needs to be easily spellable.

IMO, too much fuss is made over the need for a "memorable" name. Names usually
don't become memorable until they become _known_. We all think Google is the
ultimate example of a "memorable" name, inasmuch as it became a verb through
its ubiquity. But it's memorable in hindsight. It became a verb only _because_
the product became ubiquitous. I can guarantee you that, had Google been named
something different -- let's say Gorkle -- we'd all be talking about
"gorkling" things right now.

Memorability is the product of good marketing; it is not the antecedent to it.
Focus on getting _to_ memorable.

~~~
vanelsas
I fully agree that the basis for becoming memorable is by providing value.

Picture a meeting with a customer or VC that understands German (and there are
many!). It took us valuable distraction time to get away from the name of the
service to its value. In some cases a good conversation was just not possible
anymore. Too much distraction from the story we felt was important :-(

------
kreek
The logo's rather unfortunate as well. Double entendres can also be visual. A
star inside a pink circle? At least it wasn't brown (hit me with your best
down vote).

~~~
vanelsas
It was actually a visualization of the inside of an apple. We seemed to have
failed at that too (LOL).

------
David
So you chose a name that was actually a word in another language (tl;dr:
pinkeln = peeing in german), and it was embarrassing when you found out. But
then you say, "Did it hurt us in the end? I don’t think so." And this is
evidence that Color made a good choice to go after a name like theirs.

Color paid half a million dollars for domain recognizability... and this is
beneficial because they didn't accidentally choose a name that means peeing.

I don't think your evidence actually argues for your point. What about all the
names that aren't a common word in your target language, but don't mean peeing
in others, either?

~~~
nikster
Color IMO is a bad name as it's too generic.

That they paid a lot of cash for the domain name - well, if they have it, why
not. Some startups are strapped for cash, others aren't. If the service
becomes as popular as they think it will, $500k are irrelevant.

PinkelStar - oh, you funny Dutch people!

------
Osiris
I'm going through the process of picking a name for a product and I have to
say, it's tough. You need something memorable, but also something that's easy
to say or turn into a verb. You want it to be able to roll of people's tongues
without sounding awkward or stupid. It also has to be obvious how it
pronounced so you don't end up with confusion.

------
hansy
Is it better to:

-create a name using a combination of existing words? (e.g. MySpace, RadioShack, etc.)

-create a name that doesn't really mean anything to a majority of users (but possibly memorable)? (e.g. Twitter, Tumblr, etc.)

-create a name from existing word(s) but change the spelling for funkiness? (e.g. Digg, Reddit, etc.)

-create a name derived from another language? (e.g. Roku, uh...)

-do something else?

Also, randomly found this too: clickable:
<http://www.thenameinspector.com/10-name-types/>

~~~
vanelsas
I would say, choose something that you feel comfortable with first, and then
wonder if your customer/user would feel comfortable with it too. That matters
too. Don't try to satisfy the entire world. That won't work ;-)

------
iuguy
When I started Mandalorian I had no idea of the trouble I was getting into.
People calling us Mandolin, having to explain how to spell it three times in a
row, and worst of all, coming mid table on alphabetised supplier lists.

If you're starting up, think about your market and your competitors. You don't
need a cool funky name. It just needs to be fairly short, easy to spell and
say, preferably starting with A or 1 if you're going on supplier lists and not
easily confused with or tied to something else in the market.

~~~
nikster
I once worked for Stagecast - easy enough right? But people kept calling us
Stagecraft or other varieties...

~~~
vanelsas
I guess it depends on whether they would know what it is you offer, and where
to find you, would define if that was an issue or not. Choosing a name has
advantages and always unexpected side effects. It doesn't always have to be
negative though

------
ScottBurson
Of course, the mother of all cross-language naming errors was when Chevrolet
tried to sell the Nova in Mexico. In Spanish, "no va" means "it doesn't go".

~~~
llimllib
> the mother of all cross-language _urban legends_

<http://www.snopes.com/business/misxlate/nova.asp>

~~~
nikster
Hey, it's still a good story, and makes a good point.

Then again, PinkelStar is actually even better. I am a native German speaker:
PinkelStar is just funny, and the Dutch are known for their strange humor
anyway - all credibility for investing would be lost, even if I'd accept that
it could still be a huge hit outside Germany.

~~~
vanelsas
+1, I agree.

------
brk
I think the real lesson here is one that many companies have leanred the hard
way: be aware of translational problems if you will be going international.

Also, I would have advised them against the use of the Elstar part. Most
people probably have/had no idea what an Elstar is outside of that region.

~~~
vanelsas
We actually assumed that PinkelStar would be something that was meaningless.
It just sounded good at the time. We checked domain names, but didn't check
what Pinkel could mean (star seemed pretty obvious at the time).

A pretty expensive oversight in retrospect and a mistake I will not make
lightly in the future. Now let's hope no one comes up with something we didn't
expect when we choose Zwapp! ;-)

~~~
phlux
Pinkel pinkel little star how i wonder what you are.

~~~
vanelsas
+1!

------
swombat
Are you sure you've drawn the right conclusion?

 _Why picking a name for a startup does matter_

vs

 _Did it hurt us in the end? I don’t think so._

Seems that the correct conclusion is: even if you pick a disastrous name, you
can always change it later.

~~~
vanelsas
See my other comment below. Think about the costs involved, both in terms of
cash (startups want to manage cash!), design and development time spent to fix
this. At some point you find that your brand is in MANY places.

For example. We can fix our site, but we also need to fix EVERY framework that
we release to developers. etc. etc.

~~~
llimllib
Then you're arguing that it _did_ hurt you in the end.

~~~
vanelsas
It is hard to measure the potential damage. Did we lose users/customers? We
don't know. We certainly didn't gain German devs on board. Did we lose
investors? We got ourselves a great investment ( $500K), but it may hurt
future rounds. This is a "better be safe then sorry" decision in the end I
think.

------
terryjsmith
One of the big contentions over the Colo[u]r debate wasn't necessarily the
name but the domain name. I'm pretty used to seeing colourapp.com or
mycolour.com, etc. at this point. The start-up name IS definitely important,
but the domain name is less so imo.

~~~
vanelsas
Besides the obvious successes of companies generating huge distribution on
other channels, I would still say that having a great domain name will help a
startup get on its way. It isn't nearly as important as providing great value,
but if no one finds that value, well, then you will fail.

------
benologist
If you're going to change names I would go for one you won't have to spell out
loud to every single person. It also feels awkward to say in English with the
'w' after the 'z'.

~~~
vanelsas
I'm afraid that's a tough one to solve too. We thought about it, asked a few
native English speaking friends to take a look at it. We liked Zwapp very much
because to us it associates with our idea that friends would like to swap
apps. That name, and domain are obviously not available, so we ended up with
Zwapp. We hope it will work out well, but it is a bit of a worry to us.

------
jogo
Depending on your service changing names can be expensive. Of course if you
can buy domain names for $250k then everything becomes more fluid.

~~~
vanelsas
OUr rebranding costs less than the $250 K color spent on their domain. But if
I could have avoided our costs by selecting a better name to start with I
would have.

------
staunch
Zwapp Connect and the hyphenated domain name are not good.

------
count
So, you're throwing away all that free publicity?

~~~
vanelsas
In my opinion 'free publicity' really doesn't exist. It always comes at a
cost. In this case, we got loads of traffic, but only from German people that
had a good laugh. There wasn't a way (we could think of) that would help us
turn that traffic into new customers

~~~
count
I can see that - now you have a HN frontpage link, AND you can have a great
rebranding campaign for the Germans in the future.

~~~
vanelsas
True. I am very happy with this discussion on HN, but I do hope others will
learn from this and not be tempted to make the same mistake. I'd rather would
have had an excellent review on TechCrunch and then lots of people signing up
from all over the world, including Germany. This attention now is great, but
obviously doesn't fix the false start. In the end it is so much better if
people talk about the value you may or may not deliver, then discuss the name

------
phlux
Im in the process of putting up some landing pages to tes 3 names for the same
service, it plots actions you take to a visual timeline.

What do you think of the following names:

Plotsdots.com

Whatstat.us

Timestat.us

Without having seen anything else which would you say rolls off the tongue
better?

~~~
benologist
Plotsdots. To me the other two read like 'stat dot us' not 'status' because
stat is a word in its own right.

~~~
alanfalcon
"Plots dots dot com"? It's cute, but I prefer Timestat.us. If you take it as
"Time Stat" that isn't so far off the mark, and "Time Status" sounds spot on.

