When to Name Your Startup

By 100m
January 5, 2010
Reading Time: 2 minutes
Filed under Naming

It’s easy when you’re working on actualizing your business ideas to start making infinitely long to-do lists of all the things that you need to get done—and fail to prioritize them right. Unfortunately, these to-do lists are pretty high stakes, so if you don’t attack the right things first, you might find yourself and your business in a bad situation.

Why Naming Your Business is a Top Priority

When people create their startup to-do lists, naming the business often falls down the list. This is tough because there are a lot of obstacles in the path toward any new company’s success, and a huge part of getting business ideas to start gaining momentum is effective branding. Guess what’s at the core of branding? A great company name that distills the essence of what your business is all about and makes an instant impression on your desired client base.

What Happens if You Don’t Name Your Business Right Away

With all the urgent business ideas to start implementing, many startup teams just choose the first name someone comes up with that nobody hates, and plan to rebrand later when they have gotten the essentials off the ground and have the capital to invest in developing a full-fledged business strategy. There are a couple of things that happen if you take this route, and neither of them are great options.

If you’re lucky, you’ll build a successful business that’s heavily invested in a hastily chosen name. Rebranding sounds easy enough when you throw it out early in the business development process, but the truth is, it’s not easy. Not only do you have to come up with a completely new spin on your company, you have to get the word out effectively to let your clients know that you’re changing your name. This takes a lot of effort. It’s a lot easier to just get it right the first time.

If you’re not lucky, your business will just never get off the ground. It’s a crowded market out there, and a company that can’t differentiate itself from others with a strong brand is almost always going to be dead in the water.

Prioritize Naming Your New Company

If you’ve come far enough with your business ideas to start working on a great branding plan, the best thing you can do for your company is hire experienced branding consultants to help you choose a name that will make a real impression. Contact the experts at A Hundred Monkeys today to find out more about our top-shelf branding and naming services.