The Startup Ideas Podcast - The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)

Starting point is 00:00:00 Okay, this is going to be a fun one. Today, I just need to get something off my chest. I think that the name of a startup is more important than ever. There's a lot of bad names out there. So I don't want you to be naming your startup something bad. I want you to name it something good. And why does it matter more than ever? It's because you need a name that's going to be scroll stopping. So in today's podcast, I'm going to just walk you through how I think about names, some of my frameworks. And if you stick until the end, I'll even tell you a few of some names that come from my list that you can have. So this is going to be a tutorial on how to name your startup, how to come up with a good name. I believe that there's three types of names, bad names, good names, and what I call tofu names, which are kind of like mid names. So what I mean by that is it doesn't really stick out. You know, tofu takes on the sauce of whatever is around it.

Starting point is 00:01:26 It's kind of bland. So it's kind of a bad name, but it's not offensive. And I do have a framework for naming. I took this from our membership community empire.com. And there's three ways where you can actually, you know, I come up with names. So the first thing is I come up with a descriptive name, a phrase, or a funny name. and I'll explain exactly what I mean by each name. So a descriptive name is something like the Instagram account

Starting point is 00:01:57 at somewhere I will live. So if you go to that Instagram account and we can put it up on the screen, I think it has like millions of users or millions of followers, 838,000 followers. And what does it mean? You know, when I quick follow, like, what am I getting? Well, I'm getting beautiful photos of somewhere I would live.

Starting point is 00:02:22 So this is also a takeaway, which is the name of your startup could be the name of your handle. And, you know, or could not. And you could have a separate process for coming up with the name of your handle. But having almost a million people who are interested in somewhere I would live, you can sell them a lot of things. You can sell them real estate. You can sell them furniture, interior design services. So I think that having a descriptive name is really important nowadays and just works really well because people see it and they're like somewhere I would like to live.

Starting point is 00:02:57 Yeah, I could use some furniture, interior, house, inspo in my Instagram. I'm going to click follow. So descriptive names, super underrated and something I use a lot. Phrases. So what do I mean by a phrase? So a phrase could be something that is starting to take off in the cultural zeitguise. So, you know, a few years ago, I'll just pull up Google Trends, there was a popular term and is now less popular, but it was called Boss Babe. So as you can see, on my screen, let's go to Max.

Starting point is 00:03:41 And this is, you know, Google Trends. and I use a tool called Glimps to just give me some more information and just some related terms. So a friend of mine, I think it was around 2013, sort of picked up on this name Boss Babe. She grabbed the handle,

Starting point is 00:04:02 created a meme page, theme page called Boss Babe on Instagram. And it's just, you know, started to, you know, grow as searches for boss babe grew. And she started sharing, you know, quotes, you know, for female entrepreneurs and empowerment, female empowerment, and just really started to go up. And she created an account with millions and millions of followers. I think it's about six point, six or so million followers and was able to create, you know,

Starting point is 00:04:34 a five plus million dollar year business on the back of it. So a phrase, one, you know, when a. phrase starts being on the come up, you really do need to just take stock of it, see if you can grab that handle, see if you can buy that handle, create a business around it. I think phrases are underrated. I've had another, and he's actually been on the pod, a friend of mine who had a phrase that he owned called At the Most Famous Artist. So he was an artist. No one was sort of listening to him for a while, so he just decided to be called the most famous artist, so that when you would Google him, he would come up. The most famous artist. Just Google him

Starting point is 00:05:22 for a second. He's literally the number one person that comes up ahead of Pablo Picasso, ahead of Rembrandt, head of Leonardo da Vinci, Vincent Van Gogh, Savador Dali, Michelangelo, these people, he's the first person. His name's Maddie Moe. And phrases, you know, if you own a phrase, it's super, super valuable. And then there's humor. The internet revolves around funny memes and stuff like that. So if you can pick a funny name, it will go far and you will get a lot of dividends of that.

Starting point is 00:05:58 There's a lot of examples of that. I think the whole manscaped brand, you know, is they, Their content is, you know, their social is a little bit around, around humor and stuff like that. I think they did a pretty good job at it and just leaning into it. Shh, don't tell anyone. But I've got 30 plus startup ideas that could make you millions. And I'm giving them away for free. These aren't just random guesses.

Starting point is 00:06:32 They're validated concepts from entrepreneurs who've built $100 million plus businesses. I've compiled them into a one simple database. Compiled from hundreds of conversations I've had on my podcast. But the main thing is, most of these ideas don't need a single investor. Some cost nothing to start. I'm pretty much handing you a cheat sheet. The idea bank is your startup shortcut. Just click below to get access. Your next cash flow. Your next cash flow business is waiting for you. So a funny name, you know, I'll give you a couple of examples of what that could look like. When COVID happened and people couldn't get their haircuts, actually as a fun side project, 24 hours, I launched this thing called, You Probably Need a haircut. And it was basically

Starting point is 00:07:26 a tool that connected barbers in Brooklyn to people who needed haircuts. And they would like coach you on how to cut it yourself. And it was funny because obviously you needed a haircut because, you know, it'd been a couple months. And it got picked up by like, Good Morning America and everywhere, millions and millions of visits to the website, all from making people laugh and smile. And that was a really fun one. And we actually used that same idea. We created sort of an AI automation business called You Probably Need a Robot, which is that same idea. And we've gotten free traffic, you know, the same way. So humor. goes a long way.

Starting point is 00:08:10 And these are like the three sort of ways to think about how I think about creating a name for the internet that's going to go super, super far. And then I want to just show examples of what could good names be, what would bad names be, what would tofu names be? And then I'll talk more

Starting point is 00:08:27 about hacking your way to a novel name. But let's go into some bad names. So I actually think WhatsApp is a garbage name. It's a garbage name because, first of all, it's like, when they were first starting and they were trying to get product market fit, and it just basically didn't pass the telephone test. Now, what's the telephone test? It's when you call your friend and you're like, you need to download this app called WhatsApp, and then they go to the app store, and then they try to download it, and they spell it wrong. What's that, right? So, you know, passing the telephone test is pretty

Starting point is 00:09:07 important, just easier. Obviously now it's a success. So it kind of doesn't, once you're like mega successful, it doesn't really matter what your name is, but it is probably one of the worst names. GameStop is a pretty bad game stop.com is a pretty bad name. So game is good to have in the name. They sell games, although now they're selling like collectibles. So it's not perfect. but you don't want to stop. You want to, you know, it should be game start of anything. You want to play the game. So you don't want to have negative vibes, negative sort of,

Starting point is 00:09:51 you don't want people not to do the thing that you want them to do. So GameStop, I think, is actually a pretty bad name. This name was changed, but Google Gemini, their Chad GPT competitor, was originally called Google Bard. barred literally sounds like I'm throwing up. When I throw up, I sound, I just barred all over the place. So I'm happy they changed it. Gemini, to me, is a tofu name.

Starting point is 00:10:19 We're going to talk more about tofu names in a second. But just, yeah, just not a really good name at all. I just tweeted about this app called Social AI, which went viral, which is this idea around. It's basically like a Twitter app except you have zero human followers and they just give you like a million AI followers and you post and then you get like thousands of replies

Starting point is 00:10:46 all AI generated. But it's called social AI and it's like the least social thing it is. To me, you know, what's a sort of phrase? Like what would I call this? I'd probably use a phrase and I'd call it main character.

Starting point is 00:11:01 dot AI. It makes you the main character. So I just think that this is, this feels a bit tofu to me. It doesn't really, you know, I don't really get it. But main character. That AI, you know, I totally get. Clode. clode.aI is, you know, on one hand is good because it's like a person and a brand and you can kind of see it. And it's French. So maybe it's like, I don't know, higher quality. But it's hard to spell for Americans. They don't really get it. You know, so I think that they were on the right track, but, you know, maybe pick Pierre over Claude, easier to spell.

Starting point is 00:11:47 And also, like, come on, Claude, people. Like, where's the vibe here? Like, where is the brand? This just feels so lame. It's like that gray could be so much more. They could be, like, making a bigger brand, you know, a more lovable brand. lovable product here. And by the way, I'm sharing all this stuff so you just get in my head,

Starting point is 00:12:06 so you become like the biggest, best name expert on the planet. I have some of the biggest brands call me up and they're just like, hey, Greg, I need a name. They know I'm the name guy. So trying to give you all that alpha free. I think perplexity is a really good name. Perplexity. at AI, the search engine, because, like, you know, being perplexed is, you know, you don't have the answers. So here is where the answers are. And I think, I don't know if you all have seen, but the perplexity ads are, like, they go hard. Like, here, look at this, perplexity, know it all, search and discover with AI. So this is their, I guess there's, you know, splash, well, it's not a splash screen. It's really just like, yeah, it's a kind of a log

Starting point is 00:12:53 out screen on web. And it's beautiful. And it gets you connected to the perplexity brand. I think they do a really, really, really, really good job here. And probably one of the reasons why they're, you know, I think their last valuation was $3 billion. Like the brand matters. The name matters. This is an app called Bump.

Starting point is 00:13:14 It's a location sharing app. And when you're with your friend, you like shake your phone. and you bump, and basically that sends a notification to all your friends who are following you, so you bump when you're together. I think this is, and it's starting to take off like 79th in social networking in the U.S. I think this is really cool as a name because it's the action that they want you to do. So thinking about if you're doing an app, you're doing a consumer app, consumer app, consumer software, like picking the verb is a pretty smart way of naming an app.

Starting point is 00:13:56 I had to throw this one in here when I was like, Claude is like kind of a not great name. Most of you probably don't remember this search engine. It was in the 90s. It was called Ask Chiefs. And they took out all the branding here. But like back in the day, it was this dude. It looked like this.

Starting point is 00:14:16 You showed up. And you went to, to Google something and you had this legend right over here and it was like Ask Jeeves and he was like handing you the the results on a silver platter. Love that name. Can do a lot with the brand and definitely goes viral. This is an app. I'm actually going to bring the founder on the pod as well. So depending on when this is this goes live. Check it out. His name is Chris Joseph's. So autopilot's this really cool thing. And they started off with like a Twitter account, like the Nancy Pelosi tracker,

Starting point is 00:14:54 where they would see what Nancy Pelosi would trade. And then they started doing Michael Burry, the dude from the big short. So they created an app based on these, you know, Twitter, I guess, an Instagram handles. And they said, like, do you want to copy these people's trades? Like, go for it. And I think autopilot is such a good name because it's like just you're not going to,

Starting point is 00:15:21 I don't care how good of an investor you are. You're not going to outcompete Nancy Pelosi. We all know this by now. Don't even try. So pressing a button and just copying trades, I think is really, really smart. And calling it autopilot. Just like I get it.

Starting point is 00:15:39 Last good name. This is a, it's like a sauna slash ice bath slash like breathwork company. They started off in Toronto. Now they're in New York City. And then they built an app that became quite popular, which is, you know, just you can tune into these breathing exercises. And it's called OtherShip.

Starting point is 00:16:03 And OtherShip, I have no idea really what it means. I just know that like the people that go to this are the types of people that are sober, that care about their health, that talk about clean living. and it just feels like other ship. It's like a ship that's like another ship that you probably should be on. It's leaving, you know, it's leaving the marina, go jump on. And it's just like other lifestyle that you can go ahead and have. And, you know, I've actually been to one of these and the Toronto one.

Starting point is 00:16:37 And it is like a very unique experience. It's not just like a, it's not just like a steam sauna place. it's more than that. And it's just like an other experience. So I think they did a good job. Now, what's an example of a tofu brand? Allo. It's like, what?

Starting point is 00:17:02 It doesn't speak to me. I don't really connect to it. And I know I'm not like the target audience, obviously, for this. But I just don't think it's like a memorable name. And when you don't have a memorable name and you have a tofu name, your job gets harder. Your job gets a lot harder and who needs it. Building a startup is hard as it is. You need all the luck on your side.

Starting point is 00:17:30 So I think that's a pretty tofu name. We actually changed the name. Before we were Design Scientist.com, which is like a design agency that is like part copywriting agency, part marketing agency, part design agency. We create design assets that convert. And before we did that, we were called such a tofu name. It was called dispatch. Dispatch could be literally a coffee shop. It could be a recruiting agency. It could be a design agency. So it didn't mean anything. We change it. And as soon as we change it, revenue, conversion, everything went up. So put together a little kind of checklist around how do you hack your way to a novel name?

Starting point is 00:18:19 So step one, create a note on your phone. I call it the name game, just like on your iPhone or whatever. Call it the name game. And then as you're going along life, you're going to hear a word that is going to captivate you. Or you're going to be like, that's super catchy. So, for example, maybe you get poured a Coke and you start drinking it and you're like, oh my God, that's a flat soda. And then you're like, whoa, flat soda, that's a good name for a startup. Boom, put it in.

Starting point is 00:18:50 Now, once every two weeks, see if that name is available on places like IG, Twitter, X, TikTok, you know, go and grab as many handles as you can. You can be a hoarder of some of these names. Don't worry, these handles, you know, nothing wrong with that. Quick ad break. Let me tell you about a business I invested in. It's called Boringmarketing.com. So a few years ago, I met this group of people that were some of the best SEO experts in the world. They were behind getting some of the biggest companies found on Google.

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Starting point is 00:19:59 Who does that nowadays? So check it out. Highly recommend Boringmarketing.com. And then like test the name out at dinner with your friends in conversation with your family, with your friends. Just like, hey, what do you think about this name for this thing? And the ones that resonate make a logo for them. Can the name be transferred into a visual representation of what you imagine? So that's like the path.

Starting point is 00:20:24 And if you don't, if you can come up with names by just like walking, going for a walk and things that are not hitting for you, I would say start with the community. Like, what are you building? For who? Like, who's it for? So if it's for dentists, what are the pain points that dentists have? What are some new phrases that they have? And then what's the essence of these phrases?

Starting point is 00:20:52 And just start brainstorming from there. I usually go to Claude. And I'm saying, like, I use this prompt. Then you can have it. I'm brainstorming names around XYZ topic. So, you know, as an example, I'm brainstorming names around an AI software agent that answers restaurants and takes orders.

Starting point is 00:21:15 What are some interesting, clear, direct names that speak to this community? And we can just do it live because we're live cooking. And I know you all love the live cooking. Let's do this. Do that. Boom. And then let's see what people, what it comes up with.

Starting point is 00:21:34 So we got like dine bot, order mine, cuisine assist, menu mate, foodie AI, serve logic, dish decider, bite bot. Bight bot's like pretty good because it's got that alliteration. But yeah, I think then you you see like, is this a phrase? Is it descriptive? Is it funny? And you could say like, I want more of a funny one. I want more of a descriptive one. Can you make a one word versus two words?

Starting point is 00:22:01 Do you want a three words? Do you want a short? Do you want a long? And then you just use Claude as your naming assistant, as your Greg Eisenberg. It's just me, you know, make Claude me, basically, and get feedback. And then put that on your nameless and get feedback. So that's most of what I got. I wanted to give you a few names on my list, on my name, my name game list, just as like, you made it here.

Starting point is 00:22:31 You made it here. I'm going to give you these names. So one is called After Party. I don't know what it's for, like what you'd use it for, but like the after party is something that a lot of people, you know, want to go to. It's fun.

Starting point is 00:22:49 Maybe it's exclusive. I think there's something there. And by the way, some of these you might not like and they might be bad. And that's the other thing is on your name game, list, it's okay to have bad names. And then you can just remove them or just keep them. Nothing wrong with that. Pretty perfect. Not sure what it would be before, but like the idea of pretty perfect. You got that alliterations. I think that it sounds pretty beautiful. What else we got?

Starting point is 00:23:28 Inventation only. You know, by invitation only. I think I saw that on like a wedding. invitation. Something nice about that. Maybe you create like a paid community that's invite only for a particular group. InCred. So it's short for

Starting point is 00:23:51 Incredible. You know, you want to create something that's incredible. InCred, you probably can get that domain, probably can't get Incredible.com. So that's kind of an interesting one. And maybe that's it for now. That's, I think, you know, If you like this, I'll share more ideas, more names.

Starting point is 00:24:16 I want you all to comment if, you know, what are some tofu names? What are some good names? What are some bad names? Hope this has been helpful. I love doing these tutorials because I think it really does hopefully make a difference in how you think about doing stuff, how you actually not just create startup ideas, but actually go and build the startup ideas. So that's what the channel is evolving to.

Starting point is 00:24:40 It's not just about ideas. It's about tutorials, about making things happen. It's about putting things into the world. It's about shipping. It's about getting customers. It's about building community. It's about building internet audiences. So if you like this, you can give me a little tip with a like, comment,

Starting point is 00:24:54 subscribe, share. And I think that's it for today. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. And happy naming.

The Startup Ideas Podcast - The ultimate startup naming guide (must watch for founders)

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