Helpful words

Glory Holes, and other terrible names to give your donut shop

Bad names are everywhere. From the corner store to the corner office, people find themselves giving terrible names to the things they love, and no one seems to be able to stop them from doing it. Well, um, stop it. We’re tired of seeing neat things with lame names. That’s why we’ve set up an…

naming-matchbox

Matchbox

Steve Marcus is a Boston venture capitalist who went to the other side. He sits on the admissions committee for the Sloan School at MIT–and saw how crazy the admissions process was from the inside. You know how you fill out all the applications on a computer? Well, it all winds up in paper files…

Finders keepers, sort of. How to name your new species.

Any person who discovers a new species has the right to choose its scientific name, and to party as best as scientists can. After the celebrations, it’s time to find a name for that new fern you found. I’m sorry to say that My Little Ferny isn’t going to pass the test. Rules stipulate that you…

Matchbox at MIT

  • About: Naming

Matchbox is being put to the test at MIT. The iPad-based admissions software is managing the 5000 applications received every year by MIT’s Sloan School of Management. Founder Stephen Marcus spent several years on the Sloan admissions committee. Rod Garcia, the Director of Admissions at MIT Sloan, asked Steve to build an application that would…

Wherewithal goes live

WHEREWITHAL is changing the way people invest with a strategy based on meeting real goals, not hitting some magic number. Because as much fun as gambling is, when it comes to the future some of us want a little more than luck. Wherewithal is all about offering a real alternative to the myths of mainstream…

9 Hilarious Amazon Product Reviews

Product reviews: They can be an endorsement of something extra special, or they can offer an entertaining way to rubberneck at the carnage along the highway of online shopping. The standard application of the product review is pretty self-evident. It’s the medium by which you can rave about a favorite new juice processor or rant…

Startups: If we only had a brand

When you’re out to change the world, things are happening fast. Between raising money, finding good people, building a product, and dodging bullets, there’s not a lot of time to think about branding. By the time you finish reading this, you will start making the time. Because how well you tell your story in a…

100M helps you get the lead out

  • About: Naming

Losing weight is not a game. 100M names a company that cuts off the escape routes and promises to help you return your stats to the manufacturer’s spec. The name: RETROFIT. Check it out here. Press release here.

McDonald’s, McRibs and McIndigestion: Why we eat crap in a bun

There are only a handful of American traditions that people will dare to truly question: Why should I have to pay taxes? Is everything really bigger in Texas? How can you be too old for American Idol? Yet the question that prompts the most soul searching, the most gut-wrenching existential doubt in the heart of…

Lost in translation — why having a pronounceable and spell-able name matters less than you think

Everyone wants the perfect name. They want it to be edgy, imaginative, and inimitable, but only so long as it’s also easy to spell, easy to say, and impossible to forget. The only trouble being, easy and evocative are natural enemies. And nothing is so sure to slip between the ears undetected as the word that requires no effort…

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