The genius of Apple's name

The name of your business doesn't matter. Look at Google - it's an awful name. If Google could become one of the most valuable words in the world, then it just goes to show you that it doesn't matter what you call your product as long as its revolutionary and memorable.

Same goes for slack. It's not a positive word. It didn't have any currency before Slack took it on. But it succeeded regardless of its name, because people prefer to use it over its competitors. Its name didn't play a role in its success.

Some people might say that a good SaaS name is 1 word long. After all, Google and Slack, my examples above, fit that criteria and I largely agree with this. Names that are 1 word long are easier to search and remember, but don't think just because your name is short that it's going to skyrocket your business. If the product disappoints then no one's going to care what it is called...no matter how cool it is.

It's so interesting to think about how impactful names are. Presumably, how effective the thing is at doing it's job would be the most important factor... But without a good name, many people will never interact with the thing to begin with!

I was thinking about this the other day when I took an Uber. Uber, Lyft... Both short, memorable, catchy names with connotations of speed or mobility. What if Uber was named the Amateur Taxi Drivers' Coalition (which is what it is, after all)?? 😂 Probably wouldn't be quite as successful, huh?

This was the line that really stuck out to me:

"Steve was innately comfortable trusting his gut; it’s a characteristic of the best entrepreneurs, a necessity for anyone who wants to make a living developing things no one has ever quite imagined before."

This is a really challenging tension to handle. Trusting my gut is completely necessary in order to have the confidence to proceed in new and creative directions... But the road to success is littered with the bodies of confident entrepreneurs who trusted their gut when they shouldn't have. 😂.

@swyx Thanks for the interesting read! What's your take on trusting your gut?

I thought apple chose the name because it was before Atari in the phone book and was also the name of the Beatles holding company

Love this. Pretty cool to learn the background of one of the most successful companies in history.

"Apple is not a word for geeks, unlike Asus, Compaq, Control Data, Data General, DEC, IBM, Sperry Rand, Texas Instruments, or Wipro, to mention some less felicitously named computer companies. It hints at a company that would bring, as it eventually did, humanism and creativity to the science and engineering of computers."

Good to keep this in mind as we see more startups smash up random letters so they can have a short domain name.