Nick Davis

  • The 7(ish) Day Startup: Day 3 (Business Name)

    Welcome to Day 3 of my experiment in launching a startup in 7(ish) days by following (and / or making a mess of) the method described in successful startup founder, Dan Norris’ The 7 Day Startup book.

    Missed a previous day? Reading this from the future and want to browse Days 4, 5, 6 and 7? See the links below:

    Day 3 Task – Come up with a bunch of potential business names and evaluate them against the criteria above. Choose whichever one makes the most sense to you and run with it. Grab the best domain you can for that name.

    Compared to some of the ‘pain’ I went through in Day 1, Day 1.5 and Day 2, I think today is going to be easier.

    Why?

    Because I already have two names for each of my business ideas. However rather than just run with them blindly (and in order to Respect The Process), I’m going to run them against Dan’s method and make sure I still like them / they seem like good choices.

    If not, I’ll come up with some alternatives.

    Let’s go.

    Criteria #1: Is it taken?

    ThemeValet – I own the .com and I have the Twitter username, the other social media account names I believe are available but aren’t deal breakers for me either way.

    WP Owner – I own the .com. I don’t have the Twitter username (I’m using @WPOwnerHQ) but that’s not a deal breaker for me as the person who does have @WPOwner is not active so there’s a chance I might be able to get it in future anyway. I’ve already ‘registered’ the /groups/WPOwner/ Facebook Group URL (not important but nice to have) for the member only group.

    Criteria #2: Is it simple?

    ThemeValet – Yes, yes it is.

    WP Owner – Well, it’s short. It uses WP in the name which is a common industry abbreviation for WordPress (I can’t use WordPress in the domain for trademark type reasons).

    Criteria #3: Is it easy to say out loud?

    ThemeValet – Yes.

    WP Owner – I would say yes, reasonably clearly, though because the name sounds a bit abstract you might get someone asking you to repeat it.

    Criteria #4: Do you like it?

    ThemeValet – Yes, yes I do. I think it’s good. I also kind of like the fact it doesn’t have WP in the name even though it’s aimed purely at setting up WordPress themes. There are a lot of WP- or -Press names around in the WordPress space which is understandable (including WP Curve being a very successful example of one!) but for me I prefer ThemeValet to one of those types of names.

    WP Owner – Not as much as ThemeValet but I think it’s pretty solid. The business is aimed at business owners who have a WordPress website. Likely solo founders or small companies where the founder / founders can be quite hands on. I feel that the ‘owner’ part of the name helps distinguish itself in that way. Also the idea of owning the outcome perhaps (instead of relying on developers / consultants to achieve simple things with your website).

    The WP part, as previously mentioned, is commonly associated with WordPress (at least by those that are familiar with that industry). Because the business is aimed at people who already have a WordPress website or those who have decided they want a website on WordPress specifically, I think it will resonate with enough people to have some value (without hopefully confusing anyone who doesn’t know or care what WP stands for).

    Criteria #5: Does it makes sense for your idea?

    ThemeValet – Yes, WordPress theme setup and a theme recommendation service.

    WP Owner – Yes, again perhaps not as much as ThemeValet but I think it’s hard to spell out “a membership website which provides a comprehensive and frequently updated set of guides, advice and techniques for ‘levelling up’ your WordPress based online business without having to hire a developer” in a catchy and meaningful name (or maybe I’m just not trying hard enough).

    Criteria #6: Broader is better

    ThemeValet – Another reason I like ThemeValet. Maybe ThemeValet could eventually set-up other types of themes Tumblr, Joomla, SquareSpace as well. I could do that without changing the business name. Perhaps it could also expand to doing small tasks as well, again the valet name suits that. I guess it’s possible to be even broader but I’m pretty happy with ThemeValet.

    WP Owner – Clearly this is not as broad as ThemeValet, the WP pretty much makes it super specific to WordPress. This means I’d likely have to change the name if I wanted to cover advice for non WordPress based based names in future or make some other kind of pivot. I don’t think it’s a deal breaker at this stage though.

    Conclusion / Alternatives

    ThemeValet

    I’m not even going to do an exercise in trying to think of other names for ThemeValet.

    I did that originally when I came up with the name last year and I can’t think of anything then or now that I’d rather use for it.

    I guess the only thing to consider is a space or no space in the name (Theme Valet or ThemeValet). Rather than spend a whole lot of time worrying about it though, I’ll go for the latter which just looks better to me right now (#firstworldstartupproblems).

    WP Owner

    As you can probably tell from the above I’m not sure this is such a strong name as ThemeValet though I am pretty happy with it and I have moments when I really like it (it is after all WordPress (WP) advice for business Owners).

    I could’t think of a good non-WP version of the name, but my other ideas are WP Founder (I already own the .com) and WP Buddy (no .com available but there are other variations of course).

    WP Founder I quite like. It’s more ‘startup’ and perhaps more cool therefore than WP Owner, but to me it kind of implies just starting a business with WordPress. I feel WP Owner is perhaps more solid.

    WP Buddy is perhaps more catchy but I don’t feel really describes the service.

    All in all, I’ll stick with WP Owner and go from there.

    PS If you’re not already, why not subscribe to my email list and join me on Day 4, when I’ll  be exploring setting up lean websites for each of the startup ideas.