So you identified the need for your company. You have assembled a crackerjack group of people to join you. Now it’s time to name this little journey.
In our case, we had everything in place, except a name. The deliverables were easy to come by, the reports were easy to design and distribute, even finding office space was easy. But finding a name turned out to be more difficult that any of us had expected.
We had high expectations for our name. We wanted it to be smart, intriguing, innovative, slick – basically we wanted it all. We wanted the “Google” of names (which invariably caused much of the delay in our deciding on one).
Process: So for the first couple of weeks, we spent an hour or so per day brainstorming ideas to be added to an ever-growing list. We then immediately checked to see if that URL was: 1) available for purchase; and 2) was easy to say and type. This was probably the most difficult part of the process. There are so many already taken, especially if you want “.com” at the end.
But, by using sites such as www.networksolutions.com and www.godaddy.com we were able to type in key words that we liked to see what website addresses were available. Through this process we came up with some great names. Equally as important, we realized that some weren’t that great based on how the web address was used.
Being a social media company, as we came into the homestretch we wanted the input of those around us. We emailed the names list to our friends, former colleagues, and family asking for votes and input. This was great in helping us get outside of the bubble and hear honest feedback. It is important to get outside of your “group-think” office atmosphere to hear what the world around you is saying.
So for three weeks we continued to add names and get feedback, not really deciding on any of them ourselves just yet. We didn’t want to halt the “creative process” (which in turn created a roadblock for ourselves in moving forward). We had put so much pressure on making sure we had “The One” we ended up making the creative process more important than the name itself.
In the end we came up with Three Ships Media. It met our criteria, but most of all it gave us some glue to get our message out there. The name gave us a common thread to share our vision with our potential clients. The name symbolizes our message to our customers and gave us a snazzy tagline “The New World of Emerging Media” that really drives home our company’s purpose.
