What's in a company name?
I've been reading lots of articles about
choosing a company name lately. Basically nobody agrees on most of the
rules, but at least it's been entertaining to see what they disagree about.
Here are my own rules:
1. It has to be unique enough that a Google search will find it in the top
few links. My last company called itself Net
Integration Technologies Inc. (NITI), and to my stunned amazement, it is
now the top Google hit for Net Integration.
This took years and comes after way too much effort, including lots of press
and chrisk's excellent Search
Engine Optimization efforts (all clean and ethical, of course). This
name was a bad idea. Don't do that.
2. Despite what people will tell you, the actual domain name is irrelevant.
Nobody actually types domain names into the URL bar anymore, because 99% of
the time they get spam or domain squatters. For years, NITI was at "net-itech.com", quite
possibly the world's most horrible domain name, and none of our customers
seemed to care.
3. Don't pick a long name whose acronym sounds like the British word for
"infested with bedbugs." Or, if you do, be sure to make the joke before
anyone else does. Trust me on this.
4. Don't use names that are completely meaningless outside of their expected
context. sfllaw eventually
came up with our product name, Nitix, which actually follows this rule
perfectly: if you call the company NITI, then it's obviously a NITI product,
and if you know anything about Unix, the "ix" makes perfect sense. But word
to the wise! Random two-syllable words from other languages that end in "a"
are not automatically meaningful to people in your target market!
5. Don't use names that people actually have to modify their
punctuation-stripping search engine algorithms in order to query. (I'm
talking to you, .NET and C#!)
6. Don't use acronyms. People can't remember acronyms. Sure, there are
plenty of famous companies (IBM) whose names are acronyms; but they were
famous before everyone started using the acronym. (I discovered this
rule, with great examples, in an excellent book on market segmentation from
the 1980's whose name I've unfortunately forgotten.) Also interestingly,
note that IBM is three syllables (annoying to pronounce), Nitix, which looks
longer, is only two. Pronounceable acronyms are sort of okay, but don't be
surprised if people stop treating them as acronyms (ie. the NITI in Nitix
isn't capitalized anymore).
7. Don't use someone else's name and just change a letter or two to make
yourself "unique". If you're just avoiding some stupid domain name
squatter, then okay, because they'll never be a good Google hit like you
with your real company. But if real companies already exist with similar
names, avoid them, even if you can legally get the trademark.
Trademarks are kind of worthless. Google hits are valuable. We considered
calling our new company Banksoft or Bankware (because we make banking
software! Pure genius!). But there are already zillions of such companies,
including Bancsoft, Banqsoft, Bancware, etc. Who wants to compete with
that? And don't even talk to me about World Vision.
8. Use a name that people can spell. It's not Intergration, it's
Integration, darn it! But they never learn. You should.
9. Don't use a "temporary" name "just for incorporating for now" that you
plan to fix later. You won't, because the original name will always be
"good enough," and as time goes on, it gets harder and harder to change your
name. I've fallen for this trick at least twice. If you need a temporary
name just for incorporating, just use a government-assigned unique ID number
company. Trust me, it's worth it.
Where Versabanq came from
So while we're here, where did the name Versabanq
come from? Did we follow the above rules? And what's with that Q?
Like I said above, we actually thought about keeping it really simple, ie.
Banksoft or Bankware or something, but that had been done to death. We
tried making up words, but that made them hard to remember and they didn't
sound at all banking-related or give you any idea at all what we did. If
your name gives people a clue, it can get you past the blank stare and
into an interesting conversation.
So we really wanted to have "bank" in the name. But we couldn't spell it
"bank," because we're a subsidiary of a real
bank which is heavily regulated by, uh, the banking regulator dudes, and you
can't legally call something "bank" unless it's a licensed "bank." We make
banking software, we don't do actual banking, so no dice. (Yes,
there is a banksoft.com and a bankware.com. But they're not subsidiaries of
banks. This is sort of like how you can call yourself a "sanitation
engineer" on your business card, even though "engineer" is a legally
protected term, because the regulators are happily ignoring you anyway.
They're not ignoring us.)
So, banq with a Q. It works in French too. Don't ask me what the French
regulators think about that idea. Oh, and the q looks pleasantly like an
upside-down b in a sans-serif font. That's why we don't capitalize the b.
And the "versa"? Okay, I admit it, I went on a random prefix hunt. But it seemed fitting
because the whole point is to "make
banking fun", ie. faster-moving and, well, versatile. So I like it.
And "versa" is a very underused prefix. In fact, a search for Versa shows
no interesting hits. (There are presently 56 million uninteresting ones,
however :)) So there's definite growth potential here.
March 12, 2007 16:31
