DomainTools Blog

Guy Kawasaki sent me a free copy of his book before my vacation so it is on my list of things to read while sitting by the pool in Mexico. I came across page 35 the other day and I made a note to review it. The author, Guy Kawasaki runs Garage Technology Ventures in Silicon Valley and he funds start ups in the early stages. Guy was on the team that invented the first Macintosh, but since then he went on to start a VC company in 1997,  Garage has funded dozens of startups over the years. The advise he gives in his book was right on, so rather then summarizing it I thought I would share this page from his book.

Don’t Compromise On Your Name

A remarkable name for your organization, product, or service is like pornography: It’s hard to define, but you know it when you see it. Coming up with a good name is easier than creating a product or service, but you wouldn’t think so based on the atrocities out there. Spend the time and effort to come up with a good name – it makes positioning easier. Here are some tips for the process:

Have a first initials that’s early in the alphabet. Someday your organization’s, product’s, or service’s name will appear in an alphabetical list. Better to be early in the list than later. Imagine, for example, a trade show with a thousand exhibitors. Do you want to be in the first third or last third of the show’s directory? Also, avoid words that begin with X or Z because they are difficult to spell out after hearing them. For example, if you heard “Xylinx,” would you think that it’s spelled “Xylinx” or “Zylinx”?

Avoid Numbers. They are bad ideas for names because people won’t remember whether to use numerals (123) or to spell out the number (One Two Three).

Pick a name with a “Verb Potential.” In a perfect world, your name enters the mainstream vernacular and becomes a verb. For example, people “Xerox” documents – as opposed to photocopy them. More recently, people “google” words instead of “searching for them on the internet.” Names that work as verbs are short (no more than two or three syllables) and not tongue twisters. AWOA (a word on acronyms): Avoid multiple-word names unless the first word solid verb potential (for example, “Google Technology Corporation” would still be fine) or the acronym spells out something clever. For example, the name Hawaiian Islands Ministry, a parachurch organization that trains pastors and ministers, becomes “HIM” – a clever homonym with “hymn” and a play on “Him,” that is , God.

Exercise See if the name your’re considering works in this sentence: “______________________ it.”

Sound different (as opposed to “think different”). The name should sound like nothing else. For (a bad example: Claris, Clarins, Claritin, and Claria. It’s hard to remember which name refers to software, cosmetics, antihistamines, or line marketing. Even if you did remember, it’s likely that you would associate all four words with one category, and that can’t be good in three of four instances.

Sound Logical. In addition to sounding different, your names should also sound logical. That is, they should “match” what you do. A good example of this is the most clever examples of naming that you’ll come across. Take Geodude and Lickitung, for example. Ask your kids to show you the cards of the characters Beautifly, Delcatty, Flygon, and Huntail, and you’ll see what I mean about logical names and good positioning.

Avoid the trendy. With hindsight, we made two mistakes naming Garage Technology Ventures when we started in in 1997. First, we initially called the company, garage.com.” Unfortunately, dotcom acquired negative connotations when the Internet tide went out because it came to stand for companies run by people without business acumen in markets without business models. The second mistake was lowercasing the “g” in garage.com. It was silly act of pseudohumility, but those were silly times. The problem with the lowercase “g” was that it was hard to pick it out in blocks of text. The visual cue that the word was a proper noun wasn’t there – you’d think that someone named guy (sic) would know this. Also, no one could really figure out what to do when a sentence started with “garage.com” – should it be capitalized or not? The bottom line, in hindsight, is that you should come up with a name that will endure for decades, and save your cleverness for the features of your products and services. On the other hand, consider the name Krispy Kreme. It doesn’t start with a letter early in the alphabet, and both “crispy” and “cream” are spelled incorrectly. Furthermore, the company’s donuts are neither crispy nor creamy. What his proves is that if you have a truely great product, it can overcome anything. One last example: I saw a great name for a company in a restroom at the Calgary International Airport. The company sells billboard advertising space in restrooms, and its name was Flushmedia. Brilliant.

I think Guy is right on. Further, if you want to start a company I suggest reading the whole book, The Art of the Start. I already have a few companies that are past the start up phase but I was still taking notes on things I could improve and concepts that I could simplify. I think the second thing a company needs is a good domain name. The first thing need, the nameless company needs is the product or service. A new company is dead in the water without a good domain/name. I will touch on some of the worst domains I saw last week while at TechCrunch 40 in SF last week in a future blog post. You can almost predict failure by how bad a name is for a company.

Microsoft Surface Computers are the neatest thing I have seen in at least a year. It blows me away that a surface can be so interactive – I was watching the demos at Surface.com and it truly is amazing. The table top surface can sense when you put something down on it and then display graphics and stats next to it. For example, you put a drink on the surface computer and it sends a ripple effect across the whole surface. Or you could display a visual photo album and drag and drop with your fingers, that is another example they show which had multiple people doing it at the same time. Surface Computers are going to be awesome for games! Cardboard Board Games are Dead, Microsoft Surface just killed them.

But now down to business! Let’s talk domain names. Microsoft registered Surface.com to complete its Surface branding Strategy. But we need to back up to January 29th of this year to see how their team attempted to pull this off. A corporate proxy service at Register.com registered Surface Computing.com, Surface Computers.com and Surface Computer.com. We know this is Microsoft’s proxy. I have to say it is a brilliant brand and people will have no choice but to use the word surface computer to describe any product like this. I suspect Microsoft left a lot of names on the table though. Ouch. I have subscribed to a Mark Alert on the word “Surface”. I will get to see all the clever people that rushed out to buy Surface names. And there were plenty, here are just a few names that I just checked, and all of them were registered hours before me! Cheap Surface.com, Computer Surface.com, Surface Board Game.com, Surface Board Games.com, Surface Game.com, Surface Games.com, Surface Skin.com, Surface Widget.com. The rush is on. Microsoft should have turned their Brand Launch over to our firm. We have historic records of previous rushes and know what names will be pounced on.

I have to give Microsoft Credit, at least they got major names like “Surface.com” and “Surface Computer.com”. But they missed domains like Microsoft Surface.com. How could they do that? There are so many names they left on the Table Surface.

George Eastman’s revolutionized film and cameras in the 1800′s. The Eastman Company was able to take a leading position in a photography industry of more than fifty competitors by selling his patented “point and push” technology. Everyone was competing for the consumers’ pocketbook, but Eastman just had better and simpler products that everyone preferred. His slogan was, “You press the button, we do the rest”.

What Eastman also did was invent a new word, “Kodak”. By branding his product under a trademarked name, everyone knew what a Kodak was. Those five letters captured everything people learned about his product and allowed them to say it in one breath. Eastman was a fan of short, simple words for Trademarks. It was easy to say and easy to spell, so it allowed for people spread his idea virally. Eastman built a lot of Brand Loyality in that word.

Everything was going great for Kodak until they bumped up into the digital age. The Kodak’s technology sucks when you compare it to the digital stuff we have now. Ask any consumer if they want the old “Point and Push” stuff or the new digital “Point and Click” cameras and people overwhelmingly respond by saying, “Digital”. But all is not lost for Kodak. Their technology is crap but they still have their name – their famous brand. Now, this is where I compare Kodak to Domain Names. Watch closely!

Kodak can suck as much as they want. They have a brand which is estimated to be the seventh most famous brand in the world and worth $4.4 Billion. Billion with a “B”. To take advantage of their brand, all they need to do it slap their “Kodak” name on a generic digital camera made by any number of Chinese factories and it is instantly able to sell for a lot more. A Brand’s mental traffic is the same as a generic domain’s physical traffic. Generic domains will be able to slap their name on APIs and white labeled products and it will create instant profit for the domain owner and the other company.

Parking pages on Generic domains are crap, we all know it. But the key to the real value in this equation is in the name. Everybody who owns a Generic Domain name gets an infinite amount of Re-Do’s. Keep playing with the backend (Yahoo/Google). Parking pages in 2007 may be crap. But parking pages in 2020 may be full blown portals that keep visitors coming back. Only one person can control the name, and if you do, you may be selling yourself short if you ask for only a few years revenue.

Eastman Co. can sell the “Kodak” brand and trademark to Sony for $4.4 Billion. How much can you sell a Cameras.com or DigitalCameras.com for? Recently it was about $1 Million. Hmmm, I think $1 Million looks dirt cheap.