Creating names for your startup business
If you want me to give some suggestions, I'll do 3 here. I've created business names and slogans for dozens of companies, and even one of the indie hackers here: Mondaymetrics.com
Usually I charge around $20-$40 on fiverr.
Some things I've noticed to a good name for startups who don't have the branding power of the big names, make it;
Phonetically Memorable - with rhyming, alliteration (same starting letter), Assonance (similar vowel sounds).
Straightforward - tells what it does, or the outcome to what it does
Thesaurus research - brainstorm a bunch of similar words
Portmandeaou - mix two words together, that's what I did for my startup - Personizer is a mix of PERSONal OrganIZER. But also has a double meaning to turn something into a Person (Or customer).
Be mindful it doesn't give too much of a wrong impression, get feedback from people to see what they think of when they hear it, and also importantly what the target market thinks of the name.
Thanks for the nice read Pete. I learned about bustaname from you. Thank you. :)
Do you think it is bad if we use subdomains for different apps and move to a separate domain once it become potentially benefitable idea?
Hi Shiv,
so you're working on multiple apps, and want to use a subdomain for each app, and then move to a single domain once it's viable?
If that's the case I'm not quite sure what your reasons are for doing that.
Firstly I would have thought it's best to work on 1 app for profitablity, and focus completely on that. Once there is some success, role onto the next one. And fund the second from the first.
Maybe I'm missing something here?
It is more of like say I bought a generic name and a domain and working on something like checking the market with landing page. At that point I am not sure if the idea will every be profitable or will be built, some domain costs are really high when it is easy to pronounce and use so I was thinking if I can save the upfront investment by using a subdomain until I am sure that the idea is worth it.
I understand this might undermine the branding efforts of creating logo/name etc. But this was just a thought. I have bought domains which I never used and let them expire, so I was thinking if we can push that purchase until we have something to show for.
I get you. If it's early days and you just want to test the water on a very tight budget go for subdomain, but I would imagine there is a lot of cheap primary domains around. It may lessen the professionalism shown to potential customers by using a subdomain.
At some stage soon I want to change to .io or .app myself.
Feel free to share some name ideas or concepts if you'd like some feedback.
Thanks for the advice. I also think that people will start believing that we'll deliver the app once they see that we invest time and money into that idea. I mean if we don't believe in it, who else will?
I have two names for now, SimpleScope is the organization name that I thought of for bringing all the apps I create under a single umbrella. I haven't got a domain for it.
My current app is whereami.dev it is a tracker for people who is undertaking a coding challenge called #100daysofcode, you can see the landing page here at https://whereami.dev, the design is really not to the level I expect, so I am working on a better design and it will up by tomorrow.
Can I suggest, try Namecheap and some other discount providers and see if they have any $2-$5 range domains available, just totry get a TLD. Otherwise yeah subdomain as backup option. Remember too there is some juice in names for SEO if the name is correlated to the keyword searches. But that might be too far down the road at your validation stage.
By the way I like you're approach with things and nice tweets.
Thanks for your time and insights.
Interesting read, thanks Pete!
When suggesting company names, do you research the domain availability? How do your recommendations differ based on the .com domain availability?
The website bustaname is pretty good for coming up with free domain name options. But with so many extensions these days it gives a fair bit of flexibility too.