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.
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.
For example. We can fix our site, but we also need to fix EVERY framework that we release to developers. etc. etc.
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?
I think landing pages are a good idea. Maybe have a possibility for comments so people can comment on any bad aspect of the name?
Posting it here in the comments was probably a good idea :)
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?
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!
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.
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.
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! ;-)
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.
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 :-(
-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/
