A guide and case study for naming a business.
Jake Knapp, John Zeratsky and Braden Kowitz, three partners with Google Ventures, released a new book Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days earlier this month.
They’re giving away a free guide How to Name a Company in 8 Hours to anyone who buys the book. It discusses how to name a company in a day, and gives a real example of how they named Element Science.
Out of fairness to the authors, I’m not going to recap the entire guide. But I’ll highlight some interesting takeaways from it.
Names that are too specific can be problematic. The company considered its long-term plan and decided to avoid anything descriptive of its current technology so it wouldn’t pigeon-hole the company in the future.
Come up with themes before individual names. Rather than immediately brainstorming possible company names, the team came up with themes or concepts for the company, such as mythology, data words and superpowers. It used these to generate specific names.
Don’t look at domain availability early on. It was interesting to see that they didn’t look at domain availability until late in the process. At that point, they took the names, considered suffixes and prefixes, and checked availability.
The kicker: the team was able to hand register ElementScience.com.
I just ordered Sprint today, so I haven’t had the chance to read the book. But I think the naming guide and case study is worth the price already.
(Thanks to Lisa at myRollcall for the tip.)
Joseph Peterson says
The 3 pointers you’ve highlighted are all good advice.
Still, I’d be more persuaded if I actually liked their name: “Element Science”. They make test tubes and sell titration kits, right?
What a thrilling name. Is anybody’s reaction more than tepid? Can’t help feeling that “Element Science” is rhythmically clunky and too abstract. It’s polysyllabic and vague, rather like their tagline:
“Applying a patient-centric approach to the development of life-saving therapies.”
Whittle that down, guys! Ditch the lingo & the hyphens! 23 syllables later, and we still don’t know what you do.
Q: “How to Name a Company in 8 Hours”
A: “Don’t be ambitious. Settle.”
Andrew Allemann says
Their target market is medical doctors. Not a fan of marketing-speak, but I also won’t proclaim to be their target market.
Joseph Peterson says
Even if their audience enjoys phrases like “patient-centric”, their verbiage could be condensed:
Compare
“Applying a patient-centric approach to the development of life-saving therapies.”
to
“A patient-centric approach for life-saving therapies”
That reduces 23 syllabes to 14.
Better yet:
“Patient-Centric … Life-Saving”
Just 8 syllables & symmetrical. None of the missing words contribute much. Meanwhile, the lingo and hyphens are still there to please lovers of jargon.
Doesn’t “life-saving” violate their principle – “too specific can be problematic”? What about therapies that improve quality of life but don’t cure death?
Acro says
One of the biggest challenges of copywriting is the ability to simplify pompous statements for the targeted audience. Good point!
Logan says
Uh, how about:
ElementScience
Our Therapies Save Lives.
or,
ElementScience
Saving Lives through Therapy
or, my preference:
ElementScience
Better Therapy for a Better Life.
Joseph Peterson says
@Logan,
All better than what they’ve got.
Jack Carter says
Q: “How to be a pompous ____ in 8 hours ”
A: “Hire Joseph Peterson.”
It will actually only take a few minutes for him to teach you what needs to be said with as little tact as possible to make someone else feel like you’re a pompous, know-it-all who debases others while seemingly raising your own thoughts and action. Trust me, Joseph Peterson, you are not coming across smelling like roses.
Consider offering constructive criticism, rather than just criticism. Or better yet, stop providing input where no one asks.
Joseph Peterson says
@Jack Carter,
Oh, the irony!
“Consider offering constructive criticism,” says the guy calling me a “pompous ____”!
“[S]top providing input where no one asks,” says the guy who tells me to shut up in 3 unsolicited paragraphs!
First of all, this is an article about naming, written for the domain name industry. Why should criticizing names be taboo here, of all places?
Second, I explained the flaws in their tagline and rewrote it. If that’s not constructive, I don’t know what is.
My aim isn’t to sneer; it’s to analyze. If analyzing names seems pompous, then why are you reading an article about naming?
“Joseph Peterson, you are not coming across smelling like roses.”
I beg your pardon. I never promised you a rose garden.
FL says
If the _____ fits…which it does.
What I found ironic is that you give advice on how to be more succinct.
Joseph Peterson says
@FL,
Yes, I’m aware of my reputation for writing a length. That does irritate people who browse the web on cell phones or whose attention span stops short of 1 page.
Taglines ought to be succinct. Sentences not necessarily – just clear. The author of a book isn’t an asshole simply because he goes past a 1-paragraph blurb.
When I write articles that discuss 200+ domains, I spend hours on research and go into detail. The format itself obliges me to go long.
Now if it’s too much to ask that you read that much, fine. People are busy, and what I write can be dense sometimes. Realistically, I don’t expect anybody to thank me for the work I do. Actually, I expect them to spit at me, like you do.
After all, what I write is longer than “You’re an asshole!” Therefore I’m a pompous asshole!
Acro says
You can name a company in 8 hours, or even less. But it’s better not to do it. A brand should not only avoid the pitfalls of being confusing or negative, it should also be accurately presented. To achieve the amount of detail required in a new corporate name, constructively making use of time is a requirement. How much time? Definitely not 8 hours.
Andrew Allemann says
If you read the guide, they have a pretty compelling approach that involves many people. And, spoiler alert: after the 8 hours, they recommend sleeping on it, talking to friends, and making sure.
Acro says
Reminds me of the 6 minute abs concept, then of course you’re told it takes 6 minutes a day over the course of many days. 😀
DonnyM says
Yeah I guess it’s cool. If in a hurry and you have no experience in naming a company probably good to read. Though if it is a serious business you need to take at least 2 or 3 weeks and bounce ideas off people. It’s kind of like the get your eyeglasses done in one hour, well I don’t want them in one hour, I want them to take a few days and not rush it. I have not read the book but no matter how much you know if you pick up one thing in the book it is probably worth the read.
C.S. Watch says
Anyone who has been involved in naming a company will recognize a certain animal: there will be khakis, he leans back when he speaks, his apex joy is a group guffaw at an outlier, and no matter what the F buttressed data points you plot for him with the biggest crayon you can find, he’s going to stick with the name which he or his lumpenprole cronies brought to the table.
This kind of beige potato also nurses bitter resentment towards any ‘know-it-all’ who uses words which he has to look up. See the social dynamic supra. Peterson’s critical analysis of this product offering is perfectly in order here. The luxury of naming a product like ‘defibrillators’ is that certain risks aren’t that high—very specific field of trade, not B2C, and there’s some inherent patent protection to loll back on. But it is a bad name. In the event you ever want to market anything less obscure than defibrillators? Real trouble. Silent exsanguination.
Everyone is dropping the ‘science’ in press copy, so your de facto company name is ‘Element.’ If you don’t own Element.com, then that is simply an unnecessary marketing, global trademark, and SEO fail. And is ‘science’ the intuitive modifier here? Or is it ‘scientific,’ or ‘medical,’ or ‘technologies?’ How many times will your exhausted target decider punch that into Google before they tire of being underserved by self-absorbed millennial Marvelwanks who just do not get it. Your competition is Zoll.com, Medronic.com, see what they did there? (There are ~3000 trademark registrations containing ‘element.’ In the US alone. Here’s a headband, go wax a car for six months.)
Also, stick an intern or your stepkid in the corner and have them WHOIS every dotcom while you’re talking. Nobody leaves the conference room until you shell out the 10 stupid bones for every notably good dotcom that was still open for registration. And reg them in the team’s name. You child. Who told you that you could work with men.
This book may have other merits, but naming doesn’t seem to be their wheelhouse, and bad advice at that stage can be mortally expensive.
Acro says
Acidic and rambunctious! Love it! 😀