How to name your startup Video Lecture | How to Start-Up your own Company (Video Course) - Entrepreneurship

hey everybody its Jason Calacanis and
welcome to another edition of startup
basics brought to you by our friends at
wsg our that's Wilson since Eenie the
great law firm that I've had a great
partnership for many years with and
today on the program I'm going to talk
about one of the most important things
you'll ever do with your startup which
is name it now naming a startup is
incredibly hard and most people do a
terrible job at it why do most people do
a terrible job at it well there's so
many people creating names of companies
that just like creating the name of a
band you have to make sure that you're
not going to bump into somebody so there
are legal issues like trade marks there
are confusion issues like Apple computer
and then Apple the record label by the
Beatles which led to many lawsuits and
Steve Jobs and the Beatles having to
make a lot of different agreements Yoko
Ono and Paul McCartney and everything
very complicated story and you can look
it up later what we'll do today is we'll
just start with a very basic concept
which is what should I name my startup
and the best way to start that is I'll
tell you a story about we web logs Inc
my second company we were creating a lot
of blogs and so at the end when we sold
to AOL we had 96 different blogs that
means we had to do a naming exercise 96
times it was incredibly difficult and so
we came up with a lot of different ways
to do things and we came upon a couple
of concepts one of them was do we want
to be literal or do we want to evoke
something in people right do we want to
have them feel something right so a
literal name is like TV com right or TV
Guide com the name explains what it is
now a name that evokes a feeling it
would be something like Yahoo or Google
right does it actually mean something
until it means something so there's pros
and cons when you use something literal
well you get the benefit if people know
what you're doing when you use something
evocative and that maybe people don't
actually know yet well you get something
very unique right like Google or Yahoo
or eBay eBay is one of those ones that's
kind of in the middle be
they kind of people understand a little
bit so there are things that exist
between literal and just completely
evocative and just trigger something in
you but let me give you one example we
wanted to create a video game blog and
so we wanted to make the game we thought
joystick would be a great name for a
video blog now how did we come to that
well we just did an exercise where we
asked everybody in the room to throw out
any word that has to do with video games
and so they said Atari they said
first-person shooter they said 25 cents
coin-operated asteroids just different
things and joystick came up right and so
that was like Oh joystick right that's
like the device where you actually have
the experience well of course joystick
comm was not available and so then after
much thinking somebody said well why
don't we misspell it on purpose and this
is your first tip which is it doesn't
have to be spelled perfectly you can
make something unique by misspelling it
and so people have been doing this for a
long time
we heard on this program that Flickr was
because they couldn't get Flickr with an
ER so somebody
katarina dropped the e and just made it
Flickr with an R and that actually wound
up making it very unique so with
joystick we just added a queue at the
end and the rest is history people
understood what it is now let me take
another example we had a blog about
Apple computers we called it the
unofficial Apple weblog now that's a big
literal mouthful so we came up with
another trick and this is your second
trick which is an acronym that means
something so instead we came up with tu
aw and I actually came up with that and
said hey this is a four-letter domain
because I had been obsessed with
four-letter domains so we got tois and I
never actually pronounced it tois but
people started calling it tois and now
it's famous as tois people go to Apple
conventions and say did you read it on
tois that was never the intention it was
just an acronym acronym tu aw further
the founders of Engadget another blog we
named wanted to start a blog called
gadget
so they needed GD GT they took the vows
out and again short memorable punchy all
of these things now another thing to do
when you're brainstorming is to use a
dictionary or thesaurus my favorite is
something called one look calm and on
one look they have something called a
reverse dictionary page and what the
reverse dictionary does is it lets you
describe a concept I'm reading from the
page here Wilma lucam described a
concept and get back a list of words and
phrases related to that concept so this
is exactly like the brainstorm session
except it's on crack so here I'm going
to type in traveler right let's say
we're starting a travel blog and the
first thing it says is hike traveler
Walker rider writer I like that one
let's bookmark that passenger Marco Polo
pedestrian polo companion footer hustler
cosmonaut fellow traveler TallyMan
Wayfarer Wayfarer Itali man I like both
of those Wayfarer and Taliban so I'm
going to open those up and look at the
definitions I've never even heard of
those or I think I have anyway one who
keeps a total a tally of quantity or
weight of goods produce or shipped and
received that's a fascinating words a
tally man is great I mean does have a
gender issue right and then one look
came up with Wayfarer a person who
travels by walking alright so these are
great name so we have Wayfarer so if I
was going to start a business and it was
in travel
I might just drop the e from there and
just go for Wayfarer but spelled W ayf
ar-are or something and then just tell
everybody it's two R's and this takes us
to our next tip which is fake it until
you make it in the domain space right
now I've been very focused on domains
here and we're going to get to apps and
other things in a minute but fake it to
you make it means it's okay to have an
but ugly domain when you start because
hey when I'm an angel investor I'm
looking at your company I don't want to
hear that you bought a million dollar
domain and you didn't put it into the
product yet so if your product sucks and
you put a million dollars into a domain
that might actually signal like maybe
you're just a little loopy now if you're
rich fine if you're Mark Cuban or you
know and you buy a great domain
great you're Mark Cuban you can afford
it it's just a rounding error but for
like young startups it's okay to fake it
until you make it a perfect example was
delicious a bookmarking service that
Yahoo bought ten years ago when they
started it was like de L da dishes dot
us and that was the dot us domain name
and people couldn't find it so they
googled it and it was the first listing
after they got popular so that's
something you need to know and it's
another tip it's okay if it's misspelled
because at a certain point flicker with
noe is going to come up first above
flicker with any so the misspelling at
some point will win the Google search
race now what delicious did was they
grew they got better and better they
proved out the model and for a
commercial internet service seven of ten
which fail to actually make it into that
group of three of ten that succeed well
then they were able to raise more money
and buy the domain name and box I think
had the similar thing and many times you
see people using misspellings nets dot
COEs whatever it is and then truth you
know having calm makes you look
incredibly legitimate but having a
dotnet is not the end of the world and a
dot Co actually I think is better than a
dotnet I love the dot code domain name
space so those are domains and there are
some ideas for how to for you to
brainstorm what your site will look like
now prefixes and suffixes are also a
great way to do things so when we launch
the launch ticker which was a research
service by the team at launch but we
just added the word ticker to it and so
ticker or report or reporter or daily or
news any of those can come after a word
so let's say you wanted to create a site
that was about wireless news or Bitcoin
news well Bitcoin reporter or you put
the word thought in front of it the
bitcoin reporter or the Bitcoin report
now all these variations you're probably
going to find one that works and if you
want a hint for how to do this and is
another tip look at how they used to
name newspapers because newspapers
another great startup business from a
hundred years ago they had to go through
this so they did the New York Observer
the New York Times the New York weekly
daily New York
post New York press a timeout New York
right so there's all different ways and
timeout New York's a great one right
they put something in front of New York
and these are great ways voice right
Village Voice voice you can put at the
end of any geographic location so these
are all great names now here's one that
I'm very proud of it's called Gatling
calm and the way I found Gatling was I
wanted to create a travel site and so I
started searching using one of these
reverse dictionaries and some of the
sources and I found the word Gatling
just by stumbling upon it and the the
definition was a roving vagabond one who
roams a man of humble condition a fellow
a low fellow lowborn originally comrade
or companion in a good sense but later
used in reproach a spike on a gauntlet a
GAD who knows what those last couple
things are but anyway I fell in love
with the word Gatling and I go to buy
the domain name and it's available
nobody had ever thought about it now
this was ten years ago so most domains
gonna be taken but you could do get
Gatling go gambling and this is another
great tip you put a little word before
it until you can buy it then you have to
negotiate with the domain squatter so
let me give you a couple of tips around
that by up five different six different
ways to say something then when you
negotiate with somebody who owns Gatling
Calm let's say I didn't know it at the
time
I can say dear mr. domain squatter I
really love the name Gatling and it was
so prescient of you to register it I'm
sure you loved the name as well I am a
humble startup founder trying to build
something awesome in the world and I
would love if you're amenable to it to
purchase your domain name see how I'm
being like a little bit of like you know
humble and nice everything I'm not no
just kidding but I'm being humble and
nice and I'm trying to you know butter
the person up a little bit play it down
a little bit and then when you talk to
me say I already own get Gatling and go
Gatling or thug addling or Gatling
report or Gatling daily so I don't
actually really need it but I would love
to have it can we talk and that's just a
way to start the conversation out
because you know that you've got all
those things now with inside.com which
is my latest startup I love that domain
for over 10 years and so did a lot of my
friends it had been used and abused and
then it got sold to a domain squatter
and a good friend of mine Rifat Aldi who
has a company called skiff comm what a
great name a skiff right for a travel
site hey we keep we keep going on this
travel theme skiff what a great name
right that's a skiff is like something
you travel on great so and it's
memorable and people don't use it that
often so he had bought inside.com
and he had wound up never using it and I
wound up buying it from the person he
sold his last company to but oh my god
when I tell people that I'm the CEO of
inside.com they say to me how did you
get that domain oh that's a great brand
and the reason I coveted that brand so
much like the domain name about com if
you put a topic on it in the URL it
speaks volumes inside.com
slash Game of Thrones inside.com slash
Bitcoin inside.com slash Brooklyn inside
Brooklyn right so I've got the naming
convention built into the domain
structure that's like a high level
kung-fu stuff that took me 20 years to
get to but if you can start to have your
domain structure work for you boy does
that work great okay
so we've gone through a couple of things
here let's talk about apps apps have
created a whole new reset on branding
because if somebody actually had a blog
called gatling and they weren't updating
it that frequently or it's kind of
sitting out there it's quite possible
somebody would create an app called
Gatling and not feel bad about it and
then it would be up to the person with
the blog to go to them and say hey
that's my trademark and that's why you
need to file a trademark on your domain
name and on the name of your company so
that when people step on you in another
medium you have a little bit of
protection so every time a new medium
comes out whether it's a new domain
space like Co or apps
it gives people this next chance to
actually use your brand again like Apple
Computer did to Apple Records and the
way trademarks work is you basically can
trademark something in your vertical or
in a number of verticals but if you're
not really active in those verticals you
really can't have it everywhere and if
the more generic of a name you
use the more open you are to other
people being able to use it now this is
not legal advice but these are just
general rules if you use something like
the word inside.com as the name of your
site you really don't have the ability
to go to somebody who has inside the NBA
on TNT or inside baseball as a podcast
or something and tell them you have to
stop using it just cuz I got the domain
name inside comm but whoever has the
best domain name and the Bessie SEO will
ultimately win so when people tell me oh
Jason
somebody created inside Bitcoin comm I'm
not particularly worried because I have
the best domain name I win ultimately in
the SEO rake races and in people's minds
and about comm had that same thing
happened people would register a hundred
domain names about this about chocolate
about Tesla about sushi and the folks at
about.com sometimes they would take
action I'm sure but they just could
sleep well knowing that they had the
best domain name in the world and they
didn't actually have to worry about it
now there is something happening
interestingly in the app stores people
will build an app called Bitcoin and it
will suck because of the first people to
put out an app called Bitcoin and then
they forget about it and they own the
word Bitcoin in the App Store now you
have to come in and say Bitcoin times or
Bitcoin whatever the Bitcoin app
whatever it is well you could go find
that person and ask them to take over
their namespace in the app store pay
them a little cash essentially buy the
app from them but you're really buying
the place holder in the app store now
let's get to Twitter handles Twitter
handles are particularly difficult
because everybody bought up all the
premium ones and they or they're using
them I own a ton of premium twitter
handles I have at Jason I've got you
know at Santa Monica I've got at
questions I've got a dancer's I've got
all these great handles I'm not giving
in them away don't email me and ask for
it however I put them to use and I have
at video games all these great ones just
because I happened to be there early but
then people don't use them so Twitter
actually has a process you can go look
on their site for asking them to release
them very difficult thing to do you're
probably not going to get the handle you
want so what you want to do in that case
is
just put a go or get in front of it or
you can put do TCO em at the end it's
kind of ghetto but it works so there's a
lot of options on how to handle the
Twitter space now with the twitter
twitter namespace you also have to keep
in mind that it's illegal or I should
say illegal the police aren't coming
it's against the Terms of Service to buy
and sell Twitter handles yet it happens
all the time
if you try to buy one you have to be
discreet about doing it so the way you
do it I've heard is you say to somebody
hey you have this great Twitter handle
at inside calm or at cars I would like
to buy at cars from you however I can't
buy from you so I'd like to hire you as
a consultant to teach me how to do
social media for $1,000 and as part of
that I would love it if you gifted me at
cars and the person says I get it wink
boom what really Twitter should do is
just allow an open marketplace for it
so pairing words together is fine and
coming up with fake names I think is
dangerous so I would rather see you use
something super clean but not have a
great domain extension for now then come
up with a wacky name that nobody can
pronounce and this is one of my final
tips if the person cannot say the name
to another person over a bad cellphone
connection and have them be able to pull
it up on their computer or phone you
have failed so in the original version
of delicious people would have just
given up trying to say it over the phone
it's de L dot IO you as a dot you add
like come on stop with flicker you could
say it's flicker without an e dot com
and the press would say okay so FLI CK
are calm you sure that's what it is yes
I'm sure it would pass the over a bad
cellphone connection test for the other
person to type it in and you want people
to type it in without having to repeat
themselves
that's where length is sort of a problem
and misspelling stuff on purpose can
work against you so it's one thing to
misspell something you know in a minor
way that you can explain quickly but you
don't want to have like seventeen
misspellings and it's okay to like
double a word double a letter or take a
letter out those are okay solutions to
but you don't have to panic about it
what you really want is a name that
is beautiful and simple and clean you
don't want to have one of these weird
names where and I see this actually in a
lot of non-us companies so I'll see
companies from you know Germany or
Israel or Taiwan and they're looking at
the names in the US and they can't get
the domain name so they keep trying and
say whatever domain name I can get com
is what it's going to be which is
absolutely ensures your name of your
company will suck name the company and
the domain name should approximate that
it doesn't actually have to fit it so I
had this talk
a couple of times in my career uber taxi
was the original name of uber and when I
first heard that I was like dropped the
taxi because it's not actually a taxi
and they were able to fake it until they
make it and now everybody knows it just
as uber Pando daily came out and they
had daily there and I guess they didn't
have panda comm they operated like that
for a year or two and then Sarah Lacey
was able to get panda calm and how they
call themselves simply panda calm and so
these are great ways to wait it out and
figure out when it's your turn another
possibility is to look at how other
people are branding and adapted so
Zendesk an amazing company they put Zen
in front of a very basic word so it
evokes something in us an calm peaceful
great so you can put Zen in front of
payroll and there's a Zen payroll now
you can put Zen in front of anything and
you know Zen payments I'm sure there's a
Zen payments and so what you gain in
that is the credibility that the
original brand created so you get this
like grade Oh Zendesk is known as being
awesome and loving great but what you
lose by putting drop in front of
everything Dropcam did okay but I will
always associate Dropcam which I love is
a great startup with Dropbox
I think Dropcam is part of Dropbox and
then other people will take the
TechCrunch name and do something crunch
as a matter of fact I saw a card
munch or card crunch I can't remember
but people will do that as well if you
do that and you leverage somebody else's
name like that
they will probably hate you and resent
you and they may sue you so you have to
be careful there so that's a toss-up you
have to really start to think about that
now some words you can really own and
build a lot of brands around so we did
this with a word called squad at web
blogs Inc we love the idea of teams of
people blogging so that was where Brian
Alvey came up with this idea was we were
talking and we're rapping out and when
doing our whiteboard session and I was
like okay well it's a team of TV
bloggers so it would be like TV heads or
TV team or team TV and he's like yeah
it's like a what's another word for team
and we're type it in a squad and it was
like TV squad oh that rolls right off of
the tongue right and that's when you
know you've got it when you say it out
loud a number of times and that's why
this is a group participation type of
effort when you're naming a company
don't beat any ideas down let them all
come out get them all on the white board
and then you start consolidating them
down you have to go with your gut at the
end of the day when you name your
company if it's personal that's great
people love that and if it's clever
people love that so clever
Pinterest it's just so clever isn't it
you're pinning your interest Pinterest
so somewhere somebody was putting words
together and then trying to combine them
and make a compound where it's a
compound wording another great option
and take your time and don't be a slave
to what's available in the calm because
calm to way in space 25 years later
you're not going to win that free
yourself come up with a name that you
love do a little background make sure
you're not stepping on anybody's toes
take a couple of chances you can always
change the name later but put the work
in come up with a lot of options save
them out loud and you're going to do
just fine
I guess that's it that's as much as I
can tell you about gaming your company
in 15 minutes so let me stop for a
minute and let you know that we're doing
a whole bunch of these how to raise
money how to hire people how to fire
people all these hard hard things that I
hear from the 75 companies I've invested
in yeah that's a lot of companies and I
always tell CEOs of my companies my
companies of their company so the
companies I'm lucky enough to invest it
I tell them
with your heart issues you know what
they call me and I have these
discussions over and over again with
founders so in this series the startup
basics series brought to you by our
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you so much for sponsoring this Wilson
Sonsini it's been a great pleasure work
with you guys over the years this is
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there's a lot more where these came from
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always reach me on Twitter I'm at Jason
or Jason at inside comm see you later