How to decide your start-up name?

13/2/2015

After much consideration, you decided to start your journey as an entrepreneur by finally choosing your line of business. Now, it is the time to decide and design the name of your enterprise. Please don’t take this exercise lightly because a good name plays a vital role in making your business a success.

It is a one-time investment of which you can reap the benefits till the life of your enterprise. For this, you have to be creative enough to decide your start up name which should be unique, catchy with right combination of colors which should be appropriate to your line of business. Therefore, every entrepreneur must spend time in deciding and designing the name of the start-up. Always remember that your company name is the first thing that comes out of the mouth of every customer.
There is likelihood that the name you have decided for your start up might be already taken by somebody else. Don’t get disheartened; try to find the synonyms of your start up name.
The following are the points, which you must consider before deciding the name of your start-up:

(1) Do not limit yourself to the language barrier

You can try your start up name by combining two different languages one which is widely spoken and understood like English and other which is local or vernacular to that area or region like Hindi.”Cake bazaar” can be one of the examples; the people of the particular locality or region will feel connected and can relate themselves with these kinds of names. Or you can simply choose name in your vernacular language like these well known examples, Yatra.com or Naaptol.com.

(2) Be far-sighted

Your start up name must have room to accommodate the other related products of your business line if you are planning for expansion in near future. Let us suppose that you plan to start a cake making business. You named it as “Cake Town”; yes, it is a good name which clearly says that it is place where you can have various types of cakes. After few months of successfully running this cake business, you plan to include other products like cookies, pastries, rolls and muffins.Although, these products and your existing product i.e. cake are from the same business line but your existing name “Cake Town” does not anywhere tells about the other products. What about the name “Bakery Junction”, yes, in addition to cake, it has the room to accommodate other bakery products which are mentioned above. So, crux of the matter here is that you should decide the name of your start up by taking into consideration of your future plans.

(3) Keep it simple and short

A simple and short name is always easy to remember. Understand that if the name is too long or difficult to pronounce, then it is most likely that they will forget the name, will try to avoid it or will not refer to others. This will definitely affect your business.

(4) Try to make it timeless

In nineties, there was a time in India when VCRs were in huge demand but they got extinct gradually from the Indian market once DVDs, CD players and Cable television spread their network across India.
What if you named your start up as “VCR world”, this name would have become obsolete with time.
And what about the name “Electronics world “?
Well, this name still has same relevance as it were having in nineties.

(5) Do not use acronyms

Acronyms generally do not give personal touch and feeling. Let us suppose that you are hungry and you are asked to think about the two names, one is “YK food point” and other is “Delicious food court”. Both of them are totally new to you, and then which one will you choose?
Your senses will automatically push you towards the food joint which is having mouth watery name that is “Delicious food court”.

(6) Use right mix of the colors

The colors are the non-verbal mode of communication. A right combination of the color with your start up name can tell everything about your product.

Red color is associated with energy and excitement. The red background of McDonald, Red colored cap of Pizza Hut and the energy drink Red Bull, all these are in food and beverages business and the red color indicates that a person feels energetic after having their product.
Green color represents growth, harmony, hope and in harmony with nature. The companies like John Deere, Holiday Inn hotels and resorts, BP solar are having green background in their name and all of these are associated with nature in one way or other.
Blue color is associated with communication and wisdom. The companies like Samsung and Intel, are having blue as their background color and these companies are in communication business.

These are the main parameters on which you should decide and design your start-up name. Obviously, you can devise new parameters which are totally based on your creativity.