Naming a Start Up and Branding

Sources: Kishore Biyani’s “It happened in India”, Internet and my online experiences.

I decide to play safe as I move ahead with my views and ramblings. As such whatever information you have on start ups or for that matter any other issue, you get it from some book, some site or magazine, but then if you write about them people hold you up for Intellectual property rights violation, however if you mention the source you are not offending the cause of the writer, thus this post begins with source’s list. Lest my segment on Start ups (along with the full blog) ends up even before it starts up. However as you can make out, a lot of reading has gone into creation of this article of naming and branding of a start up. (This usually is the case with my other articles too)
Coming to point... Once you have thought of going ahead with a start up, the first thing you do is think of the naming your start up. How ever what immediately crops up in our mind is “Why create so much fuss about naming a Start up and is it all that a serious issue worth a eight hundred word discussion?” I suppose yes it is. As a common man, we commit a serious mistake of ignoring the minute but obvious details of business. My personal learning of this issue comes from my experience with Google Adsense. Once you have an account approved you’ll get know that Google has gone to an extent of minimizing our eye movement as we read through an ad or an article. No wonder Google is a leader in its segment. Talking on same lines, giving a right name to a start up is one such detail. Actually a name is something with which a start up gets recognized with. Mark me when I use the word recognise. Actually the word “Recognize” not only means being known, rather it also refers to the brand that takes the onus of our product or service. Yes, that’s the point I was dying to mention, before naming your start up keep in mind a long term vision of your product or service going places and that it will be known by the brand name you keep now.
Thus a name like “sam’s cafe” or “tom dick and harry consulting” is a strict no no for any kind of start up. Rather a name should be such that it should be able to click some kind of curiosity in the prospective customer’s mind. Always remember that whenever you start up finds a new customer, it won’t be because the customer had a premonition that you have got a great product or service but it will be because of your branding and advertisement. What’s worth noticing here is that the name of your start up plays a prominent role in both brand building and advertisement.
So here are the few characteristics of good name:
1. The sole purpose of a well thought name for your start up should be creating a stir in the brains of customer and at the same time relate closely to your start up’s product or service. Just think, in one day how many advertisements do you come across? How many of them you actually remember? The names you remember would usually fall in two categories. First one, you come across a familiar name and the second one the name clicking the chemical process of thought and logic in your brain. However under any circumstances you will not even bother to recall what product or service the company named XYZ corp had to offer. So as an owner of budding start up I have just one of the two choices left, i.e. Going for a start up name that clicks logic and reasoning in a human brain. Cause becoming a familiar name for everyone is actually not possible for nascent start up.
2. The name should relate directly to product or service your start up has to offer. Don’t ever get emotional enough use your start up for carrying your family name or for that matter your kids’ name. However your name can also be used to carry forward your vision for your business, you society or country or your countrymen. Doing that will certainly endear your product to masses.
Once you have taken care of these two facts, I suppose your brand can have the potential to rename that product or service. Confused??? What the hell do I mean with renaming a product or service? Well then tell me what will you do when you want information on something on internet. Will you search it out or will you “GOOGLE” it out??? That’s what a name is!!!