19
06/07
11:01 am
Time for a name change – Help Wanted!
I’ve noticed many people renaming their companies and I think my time has come.
There’s something that’s been bothering me for a while with my company name “Comma Induced Software“. It just doesn’t flow. It’s not something that people can easily remember and it doesn’t even make sense.
I knew all these things when I initially registered the name, but I thought it would grow on me. 6 months later, I’m starting to regret that decision.
Now is the time for me to admit that Michael McDerment was right. I should have put much more thought into the name. Luckily I have yet to release a single piece of software under that name. I also don’t have any stationery, business cards or logos printed.
So far, my partnership with Nerd Studio has been a very good move. For that reason, I would like to rename my company to “Nerd {something}”. I know it seems somewhat submissive, but it has many advantages for us. For example: I could operate with 1 business card instead of 2 (nerd + comma), no need to have an entire brand/identity/logo created for my company, everyone knows I work with Nerd so a derivative of that would only be natural.
Nerd is a very ubiquitous word and in Canada there are at least a dozen other companies using it (i.e: Nerd Alliance Inc., Nerd-o-Tech, Nerds Records. I will need some creative help with this one.
I plan to follow Scott’s advice in the selection of my new company name, but I would still love to hear some suggestions. If you have any ideas (lame or good), please post them in the comments below. It should be a fun process so don’t be scared to make us laugh.
Cheers!
Ian
June 19, 2007
1:31 pm
+1 for changing the name, -1 for calling it anything Nerd… . The main issue is that you do work with Nerd Studio. It will be way to confusing to have your company named the same as theirs. Unless you’re a subsidiary of theirs you should have your own identity. It will make everything easier, especially your work with them.
Can you imagine the phone calls with customers?
No not Bob from Nerd Studio it’s Alex from Nerd Ranch. Huh?
No good at all.
Scott Meade
June 19, 2007
2:00 pm
Alex – I recommend going through the process Micheal outlined. It does take time, but it’s worth it. I also agree with Ian and think using Nerd would confuse things. Start with words from your website tagline (/web/developer/IT/guru/entrepreneur/) , list synonyms for these, and see what combinations make sense. Use nameboy.com to easily enter two words and see what synonym combinations come back and are .com available.
Alex
June 19, 2007
4:50 pm
@Ian: The word subsidiary killed it for me. Now I definitely don’t want to be called Nerd Something ;) Thanks for putting that into perspective :)
It feels like starting from scratch but I know it has to be done.
Thanks for the advice guys!
ColinM
June 19, 2007
9:59 pm
DorkSoft.com is still available :)
I also kinda like NetSpeck.com
Alex
June 19, 2007
10:03 pm
DorkSoft!!!!!!!!
I said you can make us laugh not cry! lol
Scott Meade
June 20, 2007
1:04 am
Colin may be onto something. Also available:
dorkpreneur.com
gurudork.com
dorkalistic.com
neodork.com
_Now_ we’re crying!!
p.s. I’ll email you a blank version of the Excel spreadsheet I recently used for this exercise.
Mike McDerment
June 20, 2007
4:38 pm
Be careful using the word “nerd” in the context of a close partnership like this…it’s “line extension” a concept fleshed out in the book “Positioning” that I mentioned in ThinkVitamin article you referenced above and line extension is not optimal. Basically it’s ideal to have a distinct brand…using nerd would not make you distinct.
Good luck with your naming!