Company finds a good .com for under $3,000.
Remember Congo? The company that started its lawyer-match service at Congo.io, and then balked at the “egregiously overinflated” asking price of $750,000 for Congo.com?
Although I disagree about its characterization of the Congo.com asking price, I like the contest it proposed: find us a .com domain name we can buy for less than $3,000 to make our new brand.
When people say “all the good .com domains are taken,” they usually mean they can’t be hand-registered. The reality is that there are millions of existing .com domain names available for purchase for under $3,000.
Congo offered a $1,000 award in the contest. It claims it received 700 submissions (surely more than one from some of the submitters). In the end, it picked a domain it came up with itself: Lawbooth.com.
It bought the domain name for $1,780 from BuyDomains.
I think Lawbooth is a fine name for the company. Frankly, it’s better than Congo. (Especially since one of the alternative names the company registered was Con-go.com. Are the lawyers con-men?) The only problem* with the name is the logo, which makes you think the site is a dating site for lawyers.
* There might be another problem: there’s already a company with a registered trademark providing legal services under the name “The Law Booth”.
First the domain name . Now the logo and trademark. Awesome.
Not a very smart company it seems. They are in the legal field and did not check for trademarks? What the hell?
Personally, I hate the name LawBooth.com. It does not pass the radio test very well either, but whatever. This kind of thing never stopped many companies from choosing a bad name.
I will say though they did better then choosing Congo.com in this instance unless they are planning on going really big.
The new name sucks!
and who are you? such a simplistic answer, you must have wished you came up with the name first. if you want to make a criticism it should be more specific, as in why do you think it “sucks”. just curious where this comment comes from as the company seems to be garnering a lot of positive attention, so I can only guess that you are a competitor. if you have constructive advice you should share it with them, you just sound envious.
A Dr. who is too lazy to use the shift key, that’s interesting. My question is why did you write such a long response and conclude so many things from such a simple statement? I don’t think anyone here is envious of them lol, they seem pretty dumb if you ask me. They chose a horrible name and an ugly logo. Other than those couple of things, everything looks fine, but you really have to question how much continued success they will have when they made those decisions.
LawBooth is a terrible brand. ZenPayroll.com rebranding to Gusto.com is a great example of what companies with marginal 2-words brands should be doing.
And their $3k budget is a joke. LawBooth execs just seem clueless overall about marketing.
and who are you? just wondering since your comment is so unprofessional. there’s being cheap and there’s not wasting money on a website name when your business model is sound.
sorry but your comment sounds like sour grapes.
@Todd & Adam,
Out of curiosity, what do you dislike about the name LawBooth?
Personally, I think it’s pretty good. But I’m always interested in how others perceive brand names.
These guys have gone about choosing a domain the wrong way … every step of the way from the very beginning. And the trademark issue sounds potentially fatal. But the name itself seems alright to me.
@JP
As soon as I saw it I thought of a kissing booth. Having the heart in the logo doesn’t help much either from getting that picture out of my head. I like brands that have keywords in them but in my opinion Law and Booth don’t feel right together.
@Todd,
Interesting.
Generally I try not to look at logos when assessing names, since the visual affects our sense of the verbal. Logos can be changed later on, but the brand name tends to be more permanent. Plus, the name will often need to appear without the logo (e.g. when spoken or written about), whereas a logo rarely appears without at least suggesting the brand name. Still haven’t seen the logo these guys are using …
If they have a heart in their logo, then that may be why you thought of a kissing booth first. For me, the first associations were information booth, ticket booth, toll booth, and telephone booth. And I’m guessing they derived the name LawBooth primarily from the associations with information and access.
@JP
I normally don’t judge a name by its logo but unfortunately it was the first thing I noticed when I read the post. I get the association with toll booth, phone booth, etc…..but I can’t imagine getting any serious advice from a Law Booth. Simple name though so it may work out for them. Anything is better than the Congo of Law.
Once you’ve seen it you’ve seen it. Senses entangle quickly. And our first impressions are beyond our own control.
For starters, if you say it over the radio it sounds like LawBoot.com. Actually, that would have been a better domain/name.
They will have to spell this domain for many people even in conversations.
It sucks as a domain for a company.
@Adam,
Thanks for that feedback. I wonder if “booth” would sound like “boot”. In my dialect, probably not. But English is wonderfully diverse; so I can’t discount that possibility entirely.
Let’s hope they don’t dare go after Booth.com 😉
LawBooth doesn’t seem like a terrible name, but generally when looking to re-brand a company will go after a shorter and more memorable name not a longer one. This one just doesn’t roll off the tongue with excitement.
I am also curious if they are going to run into issues with thelawbooth.com which does have a trademark I believe.
I think the name “Law Booth” is fine. But as the supreme IP counselor doth say, if you want to check about trademarks, Google the name first.
I guess the Congo team didn’t see thelawbooth.com pop up #1 in Google as it did when I did a query on “Law Booth”.
TheLawBooth.com was founded by a group of lawyers in 2014, and they provide similar services that Congo (aka Law Booth) proposes.
To avoid potential litigation against a company owned by attorneys, I’d consider it prudent to go back to the naming board. Or maybe they can settle (buy the TM rights from “The Law Booth” .
This is not my area of expertise, just an observation.
Wow. You’re right. I just did a check of the USPTO — the company I mentioned, THE LAW BOOTH, has a registered trademark for “THE LAW BOOTH”, and the mark has been in use since November of 2011, for “legal services”.
I’m not sure how a startup, with seed funding, can miss that. Congo is a great name, but for legal services? No. Then trying to purchase Congo.com for 3 K? You’re kidding. I like the contest idea — that was cool. But now this? Purchasing a name and to rebrand, but overlooking a potentially direct competitor who’s been using the same name with only “THE”, for over 4 years.
Maybe TheLawBooth will assign the mark and goodwill for over a $ million, or pay 700 K for Congo.
http://www.thelawbooth.com
That’s hilarious 😀 … they offer a service to find a lawyer and they don’t even check likely conflicting TMs …lol
Anyway, my two cents and a free practical suggestion for a new name, brand and domain:
– your logo sucks, as Andrew said the heart is not ok, you’re not a dating or a medical site … change it.
– my quick tip for a better name, found in less than 5 min, with the corresponding .com available for 2,988 USD (buy now) at Sedo is LawCorner.com.
There are other companies with similar names (Law Corner) but no trademark issues.
BTW, I don’t know and I’m not associated in any way to the owner of LawCorner.com.
Thanks for another great article Andrew. I appreciate your perspective on the matter. And thank you all for your comments and concerns surrounding our new name, logo, and trademark.
Hopefully this clears up some confusion:
There IS a company in Florida called The Law Booth that has a federal trademark, but fortunately they disclaim all rights to the name ‘Law Booth’ (this includes ‘lawbooth’ as one word). This is listed under ‘disclaimer’ on their federal trademark.
Our team is happy with our new name and logo, and while we know it may not be the best, we are confident that our technology is.
Worst case scenario, we can always pivot to be a lawyer dating site.
Thanks and best wishes,
Willy Ogorzaly, co-founder of http://www.lawbooth.com
Let me tell you that, branding-wise, you look kinda confused …
It will be interesting to see what the owners of TheLawBooth.com do when they will also realize that a lot of their traffic leaks to LawBooth.com … 🙂 … maybe they will also specifically TM the term “law booth” …
Good luck with it …
Classic case of someone discounting their name because they think their product is so great. How many times have we seen this guys?
A product means nothing without good marketing, and you are just pissing on your product by choosing a bad name. I’m not trying to be crass, just honest.
You guys so far looks seriously unprofessional on all accounts, name, logo, etc…
Best of luck Willy. None of us wish you ill and I certainly hope that at least some of the comments provide you with useful points of view.
My two cents, I would recommend using a domain name consultant next time whether you went through an incubator (or PE firm) or arrived at the name yourself. Many domainers put in a great deal of time studying domain name markets both past and present. This includes many statistics and TLD trends that have tremendous use in helping select the right name.
Regards,
IR
I still don’t see how Lawbooth can possibly build a brand with a name that is so confusing close to the TM’d TheLawbooth, for the same goods and services?! What happens when Lawbooth wants to apply for it’s own trademark? I can’t see TheLawbooth just sitting back and doing nothing. Listen to Andrea Paladini guys, and do a quick name switch now, before you dig yourself in and TheLawbooth comes after you with a UDRP…
@Willy
Launching a startup is very risky. I’ve launched over 10 (with 5 fails), 2 wins, and 3 so so. One of the mistakes we made was not doing a trademark clearance in territories outside the USA, after we gained traction & revenues in the USA.
We lost significant revenues, in not being able to use the mark in those territories.
First, I like LawBooth as a name. Not as great as LegalZoom. In fact, I’d prefer a name that begins with Legal, rather than Law.
The company’s USPTO trademark may have a disclaimer of “law booth”, but this name could still create confusion with consumers.
What I’d do: sell the name lawbooth.com to the guys at thelawbooth.com. Maybe include them in your database as a good faith agreement.
I do sympathize with you. We were going to launch an app similar to yours a few years ago, and one of the biggest challenges was finding a good “legal” or “law” name.
Best of luck — I do like your site — well done — and user friendly. I’m OK with the logo, as well.
A great example of a brilliant startup idea quickly transformed in a marketing failure imo. You can’t call yourself Congo just like you can’t call yourself Brazil/Brasil if you sell women bras.
You can’t start your business on a crappy extension and once you get popular start moaning about not getting a .com country name for under $3k.
LawBooth-wise I also believe its a branding failure. I might be wrong but “Booth” sounds cheap-ish and not professional to me.
Thought the name LawBooth doesn’t sound too appealing,the term ‘booth’ is incredibly relevant to the concept.It reminds me of those military recruitment booths they used to put up in stadiums & fairs to spot potential recruits.The logo though could be a lot better,this heart just isn’t in the right place;)