Found+READ: Comments on stories by Xavier Casanova

Raj Badarinath — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 06:15:13 GMT

Another couple of lessons learnt: * Life changes: if one of the co-founders decides to change from working part-time to full time on the project, and the other doesn’t it leads to conflict. * Business strategy: decide on when you want to launch. No enhancements until the first customer signs, and not get into the loop of enhancing product everytime a prospect gives you any feedback… * Strengths: if co-founder has a set of skills in say operations for the last decade, its unlikely for him/her to appreciate marketing or sales (not just generically, but the process and tactics). Careful when you assign responsibility… ensure they align with the co-founder’s and your strengths.

Remember – time’s ticking!

Christina Wodtke — Tue, 29 May 2007 23:32:35 GMT

I thought the advice given by Andrew Frame in a recent podcast was awesome http://www.stanford.edu/group/edcorner/uploads/podcast/fr…

He speaks on hiring those early executives, and says to design a team that scales you have to find people who have worked in big companies, and small, have had big successes and big failures… his reasons why illuminating. Worth a listen (the whole series is. it’s pretty awesome, if you don’t know it.)

craig hewett — Sat, 12 May 2007 08:46:17 GMT

I wish I had read this blog before I dashed off and registered my start up’s name

2 years ago – I was scratching my head trying to come up with names which were available as a .com domain. Out of frustration I made up a misspelling of the word “berserk” as I was going Berserk search for names – at the time www.bezurk.com seemed like a good name.

We have a successful business now – but we still loose out on customers not finding us as they type berserk or bezerk looking for us. We are now forced to spend more on SEM and SEO.

If I ever do another start up – I am going to map out my naming requirements properly and consider misspellings . You live and learn

William Smook — Fri, 11 May 2007 01:21:16 GMT

A good domain name works for you while you are sleeping. It’s most important.

The right domain name is the startup for startups. I read and browse the internet, magazines, ads etc. and start thinking and checking what’s available. Create a name, put names together. You are inventing a new business, this is step one. Don’t turn the page till you’ve got a domain name you like. Talk to friends, talk out loud, keep talking. It does come sometimes early, sometimes later. Use aids, like dictionary.com and it’s components to start working it. The domain must NOT be spelled differently than spoken. You don’t want to explain how to spell the domain name each time you say bob@spellthedomain.com.

David Smit — Tue, 08 May 2007 04:32:11 GMT

This is a pretty cool naming service. It costs money, but its well worth it.

http://grabagooddomain.com/

Daniel Gibbons — Tue, 08 May 2007 04:22:22 GMT

I’d say there are two sets of criteria. First it has to pass the easy to say / spell / explain test, and you have to be able to get the domains. But I’m not a fan of research or focus groups (except the informal kind Xavier describes, which I love), since they’ll never produce a name about which the founders are passionate. Fundamental comfort with the name is in a way more important than any meaning others might attach to it, since your life will become inextricably bound up with it.

We picked ‘Gaboogie’ despite some feedback that it was ‘dumb’ or didn’t mean anything, because we liked saying it and it was easy to attach what we were doing to the name. Oh, and because it works well as a verb. Nothing more, nothing less.

Xavier Casanova — Wed, 02 May 2007 22:28:07 GMT

Other than being your last name (something I don’t I could do ;) Trossen Robotics is also pretty good because I’m guessing your clients (in the robotics industry) call you “Trossen” (not Trossen Robotics), right? (which does back to short, etc).

Another concern we had when naming Wambo was bad connotation. Prior to deciding on polling people, we would run a few names and run a search on the Urban Dictionary to check that. There are LOTS of slang words and I highly recommend checking these out…

Example: we liked “hify”. Sounds a lot like “Hyphy” – the rap word…

Matt Trossen — Thu, 03 May 2007 00:25:54 GMT

Yes, that’s true about the icebreaker. Unfortunately I was trying to do phone sales on the one hand, on the other it was meetings where people had furled brows wondering why I’d used such a harsh negative word in a name.

Virulence: The quality or state of being virulent or venomous; poisonousness; malignancy.

If I was selling weed killer it might have been appropriate. BTW- the word choice, it was a whole concept about breaking something down to rebuild it… yada yada. Let’s just say it didn’t go over well.

You just mentioned something else that makes a very good point. We are now Trossen Robotics, we used to be Phidgets USA because the company started as a reseller of a product line called Phidgets. Naming your own company after another companies product line is a HUGE no-no. You have immediately locked yourself down to being identified with only that product. It also is very confusing to everyone else who thinks you are the same company. So listen up dear readers, don’t do that! ;)

After having two experiences with bad name choices I kept it simple and conservative this time around. Trossen Robotics is pretty darn to the point.

Xavier Casanova — Thu, 03 May 2007 06:07:53 GMT

Matt – interesting you say that, “deep philosophical explanation for it”, since I have noticed a few people do talk about where their company name is coming from when you first meet them. Sometimes that can be a good ice-breaker, or a “story”, but I don’t think it works if you are selling to the consumer. The other problem that I see, and that’s particularly true for startups, is ending up with name that doesn’t reflect what the company does anymore. That’s why my hunch is to go for punchy and short rather than smart (and long).

Matt Trossen — Thu, 03 May 2007 06:07:31 GMT

I’m almost embarrassed to admit what my first company name was. After reading a dozen business advice books which all had a chapter about not getting overly complex with your name I went ahead and did it anyway. I ran with “Virulence Industries”. No one could ever get it right over the phone. Just like you, I had a spelling & pronunciation nightmare every time. Not to mention the odd connotation of my word choice. I had a nice deep philosophical explanation for it, as if that should be something that begins every business meeting… The things we do when we are young and green! :)