I love the suggestion that the domain name doesn't matter. A big mental shift for me, but the examples are compelling. Most people find sites with a Google search and not by direct navigation anyway. Easy to spell and pronounce are really important. If people aren't comfortable talking about your company, they wont talk about it. We named my first company Voila! Software, and that was a really dumb name. People were afraid to say or even type it.
Quantcast is the best company name I've used, and that was actually suggested by Godaddy. Imagine that.
I think this point is lost on a lot of first-time founders.
Finding an abstract name that flows well and is unique is so much better than looking for random synonyms of a word you wanted (or even worse, mis-spellings of said word).
> Most people find sites with a Google search and not by direct navigation anyway.
As a technical person, it always throws me for a loop to see so many people open a web browser and type either domain names or the full URL into a search bar. I think that as browsers like Chrome continue to gain popularity, the line between the "address bar" and the "search engine" will continue to blur, until there's no difference at all.
In the startup world, a name isn't everything -- you can't succeed just because you managed to snag `awesome.com`.
That said, if you think "cinerjie.com" will ever work out, you're sadly mistaken. [1]
[1] It's supposed to sound like "synergy." I'm lame, and I apologize :)
Unique on Google I would see as sufficient, but not necessary. But, as was commented earlier, don't name & spell your project after something extremely common (e.g. Rastafarian).
Given that, Python seems to have done remarkably well given these constraints. Having a superior project speaks volumes, apparently.
At least "wayfarer" is a word. I worked at "Adapx". Don't feel bad, everyone except the employees pronounced it wrong. The fact that the marketing company that charged them for it wasn't laughed out of the room amuses me. The decision makers had to have asked, "how do you pronounce it?" And they wrote a check anyway.
("Adapts" or maybe "adaps" is the intended pronunciation, I'm still not exactly sure and I worked there.)
- Distinctive
- Easy to spell
- Easy to pronounce
- Fairly unique on Google
- Abstract is better than meaningful
I love the suggestion that the domain name doesn't matter. A big mental shift for me, but the examples are compelling. Most people find sites with a Google search and not by direct navigation anyway. Easy to spell and pronounce are really important. If people aren't comfortable talking about your company, they wont talk about it. We named my first company Voila! Software, and that was a really dumb name. People were afraid to say or even type it.
Quantcast is the best company name I've used, and that was actually suggested by Godaddy. Imagine that.