Business Startup Guide to Naming

Any business startup guide should include advice on naming. Your company’s name is the first thing that most people will see or hear about it, and it’s important to choose wisely and find a name that gets across the most important aspects of your brand. As any business startup guide will tell you, branding is something that you need to work on as soon as you are developing your idea, because branding begins with a name. It’s essential to have a cohesive brand if you want to build relationships with investors and customers, and it’s much easier to build your brand at the start. Building from the name is easier than mashing pieces together later on.

Branding Can’t Wait

Company naming is probably the easiest way to illustrate why branding isn’t an expense a startup can afford to put off for later, when development is done and the company financial situation is more flexible. A bad name will haunt you from the beginning. It’ll appear on your business card, your storefront, or your site. It’ll keep your company from pivoting, it’ll confuse your customers, or it’ll blend in. Your company name is an important piece of information that you give potential customers and clients up front. It establishes a schema for what your company is and why they might want it their life.

Good Naming Requires a Brand Identity

Sure, you say, but I’ve already got the perfect name for my company. Why would I ever want to change it later? The truth is that early in the startup process, you don’t know if you’ve got the right name for your company unless you’ve clearly articulated the vision and personality that you’re trying to get across. Your name and brand are codependent. You’re looking for a way to connect with the right customers and clients, so you have to find out what appeals to them and choose a name as part of a cohesive package of characteristics that communicate what is unique about your brand.

Characteristics of Good Company Names

We wouldn’t leave our business startup guide to naming without some concrete advice about what makes a good company name. A good company name should be memorable and evocative. Shorter is usually better. Choosing a name that gets people asking questions about what it means is one of the most effective naming strategies, because it makes them actively engage to get answers. Most importantly, a good name does one or two things well. Your name can’t tell the whole story–that’s your brand’s job.

At A Hundred Monkeys, we’ve helped many companies at all stages in development come up with names and branding, or new names and rebranding, that help them connect to the people they want to reach. Whether you need a name for a finance company or you’re looking for healthcare naming companies, we can help. Contact us to find out more about our human-centered approach to branding and naming, and let us become your business startup guide.