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How To Pick The Perfect Name For Your Startup

March 17, 2011 | Leave a Comment

I’m often asked by young entrepreneurs whether it’s important to find a strong name for a new startup.

The name is important, but the process to come up with a unique name can easily distract you. For example, it took us nearly 50 hours to come up with “crowdSPRING” – time that would have been better spent focusing on developing the core business.

If you don’t have time too invest in coming up with a great name for your new company, you can leverage crowdSPRING’s community of more than 87,000 creatives to come up with your company name or a product name.

Whether you work on your own to come up with a name or leverage crowdSPRING’s community, let me offer 10 useful tips that should guide this process:

1. What do you want your company name to convey?

Your company name is an important part of your company’s identity. The name will appear on your business cards, letterhead, website, promotional materials, products, and pretty much everywhere in print to identify your company or your company’s products and/or services.

Service oriented businesses should consider whether it will be easy for their prospective customers to recognize what services the business provides, based on the name of the company (example: Friendly Dog Walkers or Bright Accounting). This is especially important early in the life of your new company, when your brand is not well established and people don’t know who you or your company are.

Businesses located in rural areas and serving rural communities may want to project a smaller, hometown feel with their name. However, businesses planning to focus on bigger markets or bigger customers might want to project a larger, more corporate image with their name.

2. Brainstorm to identify name possibilities.

Start by thinking about words that describe your industry or the products/services you plan to offer. Think about words that describe your competitors and words that describe the differences between your products and services and those of your competitors. Consider too words that describe the benefits of using your products or services. Finally, think about words (and phrases) that evoke the feelings you want your customers to feel when they see your company name.

Tip: while brainstorming, look up Greek and Latin translations of your words – you might find new ideas from doing that exercise. Look at foreign words too (we spent some time with a Swahili dictionary looking for strong names).

3. Short, simple, and easy to write and remember is best (and consider acronyms of the name).

Obscure business names are often difficult to write and even more difficult to remember. This is a problem because for most startups and small businesses, word-of-mouth advertising is the most successful form of marketing. If your customers can’t remember your name or can’t spell it for others, it will make it difficult for them to help promote your business.

Think about the names of companies you admire. They typically have a few things in common: their names are short, simple, easy to write and easy to remember. (Examples: Apple, Google, Virgin, Southwest).

While it might be tempting (some startups think it’s cool to do), avoid using a “K” in place of a “Q” or a “Ph” in place of an “F” when coming up with your company name. Such letter substitutions makes spelling the name very difficult and will only cause confusion.

Also, don’t forget to consider the acronym of your company name (an acronym is composed of the first letter of each word in a phrase). You might not use an acronym, but your customers might refer to your business by an acronym. A name such as Apple Support Services can result in an unfavorable acronym – ASS.

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Do You Count Every Hour In The Day Or Make Every Hour Count?

March 15, 2011 | 1 Comment

Over the past five years, I’ve talked to thousands of entrepreneurs pursuing their dreams to build a successful startup. The most successful entrepreneurs had a number of things in common – including a deep understanding of how time constrains us.

Here’s the rub – those who were not nearly as successful also believed that they understood the constraints of time. They didn’t.

By definition, we are all constrained by time. There are 24 hours in a day, seven days in a week, and 365 days in a year. We need sleep and time to eat. We need time to relax and time to spend with friends and family.

How is it possible that people perceive the constraints of time differently? Why do some succeed in managing their time and others fail?

I believe the difference is simple: some people count every hour in the day while others make every hour in the day count.

How we prioritize our time defines what we do, when we do it, and how we do it. It’s the difference between successful people, including entrepreneurs and startup teams, and those who fail.

The notion that you don’t have enough time in the day is a lie. You have the same amount of time per day that was available to Albert Einstein, Michaelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, Hellen Keller, Marie Curie, among many others.

It’s all about priorities and what we do with our time. If the task is important to us, we make time. If it’s not important to us, we make excuses.

When we say “I don’t have time for this”, what we really mean is that “I don’t think it’s important enough for me to spend my time doing that thing.”

Some people prioritize their time by playing games on Facebook, watching television, spending time with friends or family, reading, writing, and in many other different ways. There’s nothing wrong with any of those things if they make you happy. But you have to understand that spending hours on Facebook or focusing on other distractions will lead you to count every hour in the day. Simply put: you’ll have fewer hours left to accomplish other things.

Other people prioritize their time obsessing about others. But as Steve Jobs smartly cautioned:

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

The next time you find yourself wanting to say that you don’t have time – stop and consider your priorities. You DO have time. But instead of counting every hour in the day, make every hour in the day count.

 

 

Social Media and Ant Colonies

July 30, 2010 | 4 Comments

Dozens of articles are written daily about ways that businesses and individuals can leverage Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, MySpace, and other social networks. Many of these articles assume that one-size-fits-all when marketing on social networks. But for every individual or company that has successfully marketed on social networks, numerous others fail – even when supported by vast marketing budgets and expensive consultants. For example, Cisco tried to imitate Old Spice’s viral social media campaign and nobody noticed.

Why? And what do ant colonies have to do with social media and social networks?

Ants are fascinating insects. E.O. Wilson and Bert Hölldobler, in their 1991 Pulitzer Winning book The Ants, described an ant colony as a superogranism – a vast social network. The ants in the colony communicate with each other by following chemical trails left by other ants.

(Photo by aristeos)

In one sense, the strategy for success on social networks is not vastly different from the chemical trails that ants leave to guide other ants. Companies can leave digital “trails” by connecting users with each other and by engaging users in a dialogue with and about the brand. Old Spice successfully did this in their recent campaign.

If people were like ants and followed “chemical” trails, it would be easy to predict the success or failure of marketing efforts.

People are not like ants. People aren’t “programmed” to follow digital “trails” in the same way that ants follow the chemical trail left by other ants.

There are vast opportunities on social networks. They don’t all revolve around widgets, fan pages and viral videos. If you’re developing strategies to market on social networks, consider how you can differentiate yourself from others, not just in form, but in substance. Bring something new to the conversation. Find a different way to engage your customers. Develop a unique voice. Challenge yourself and your consultants to build new “trails” – like Old Spice did in their campaign – and not to merely recycle those left by others. Don’t feel compelled to do something merely because others are doing it.

How Often Do You Ask Why?

July 27, 2010 | Leave a Comment

Why do birds fly? Why is the sky blue? Why do you drive a car? Why do I have to wear shoes? Why do I have to go to bed?

Toddlers are relentless in asking “why?” questions.  The questions are driven by sheer curiosity – they want to know about everything and it’s not unusual to hear dozens of “why” questions from a toddler – even if you think you’ve answered their question.

As toddlers become older, they stop asking “why” questions. They’re not less curious – they just assume, more often than not, that they understand “why”.

We all tend to assume – more often than not – that we understand why something happens. In delivering customer service, for example, many people try to correct a problem but rarely try to understand why the problem occurred. When a piece of code breaks, many developers implement quick fixes but often neglect to ask why the code broke (poor Q/A practices? never worked in the first place?).

Toddlers want to be heard and they want to listen. They often don’t really care that you answer their question – but they do care that you listen and they really care when you engage in a discussion with them. For example, a question: “why is the sky blue” can be answered in different ways. One could say that it’s blue because that’s the way the sky looks during the day. Or, one could take an opportunity and talk about the sky being blue on sunny days, gray on overcast days, and gray/black at night when the sun is sleeping. And sometimes, it’s orange or pink.

This is an important lesson for all of us and one we should not forget, particularly when talking to other people, and for those of us running businesses – when talking with our customers and our employees. We should never forget to ask why. If a customer or employee is unhappy and complains, asking a few “why” questions could uncover deeper problems than merely what appears to be the source for that unhappiness. When we answer questions, we should take the opportunity to explain, to probe further, and where possible, educate (if appropriate).

Our customers, employees and people around us want to know that we care about them and their problems, and that we hear them.

We can learn a lot from toddlers.

Do you celebrate incremental success?

July 26, 2010 | Leave a Comment

Entrepreneurs interpret goals and measure success in very different ways. While most people appreciate huge wins, many have difficulty appreciating smaller accomplishments. After all, most of us are conditioned to believe that success in founding a start-up is met only if you sell the company for hundreds of millions of dollars. Many think that success in starting a blog is meaningful only if we have 50,000 subscribers. Some believe that success on Twitter means a minimum of 50,000 followers. Some think that being a successful graphic designer means being able to charge tens of thousands of dollars for a logo.

Setting very high goals is important – we do it as a company at crowdSPRING and I set high goals for myself as an individual. In fact, I believe that it’s impossible to become an industry leader and to innovate unless you push yourself. But setting very high goals can also paralyze because it takes an incredible amount of effort to achieve such goals. And while that effort is ultimately well-spent when you achieve your goals, it does limit what else you can do while you are trying to get there.

Success need not be a zero-sum game. Think of success as an incremental process.

Especially in today’s chaotic economic climate, it’s important to understand how to measure your own success. You should never lower your goals merely because it would be easier for you to meet them. But you should celebrate incremental success. And then you should build on that success, step-by-step.

Startup Tip: Marketing One-To-One

May 5, 2010 | 4 Comments

When most people talk about marketing, they talk about broad, strategic tactics focused on large groups of customers or potential customers. Adwords, banner ads, print ads, email marketing – these are all common tactics used by many businesses to market their products and services.

It’s easy to forget that some of the most important marketing opportunities arise when you deal with customers or potential customers one-to-one. The one-to-one marketing opportunities (while providing customer service, answering email, talking with people on social networks) are sometimes far more valuable than broad marketing tactics. Here’s why:

Do you agree?

Goals, Strategies and Tactics

April 26, 2010 | 5 Comments

It’s not uncommon for young entrepreneurs to focus on tactics at the expense of also setting appropriate goals and developing core strategies. It’s easy to fall into this trap when you see someone else successfully executing a tactic – and trying to duplicate their success by doing the same thing.

It’s not enough to understand your core business. Without clear goals – and strategies to accompany those goals – tactics could prove to be futile and a waste of time. Here’s why:

If you want to read more about this subject, you might be interested in today’s post on the crowdSPRING blog – New to the world: strategic marketing for startups and small business.

Do you agree that it’s impossible to succeed without clear goals and strategies? Are tactics enough?

How To Respond If A Customer Thinks You Run The Bunny Ranch

April 20, 2010 | Leave a Comment

The customer service team at my company, crowdSPRING, has answered over 40,000 requests from customers. Few have been as entertaining as a recent note which opened with: “hello whores” and then proceeded to discuss vegetarianism, good & evil, moral high ground, and my personal favorite – capitalist baggage.  I wrote about that unusual note – and our response – in crowdSPRING’s blog today: Whore, Vegetarianism, Moral High Ground & Capitalist Baggage.

Book Review: Rework

April 18, 2010 | 4 Comments

I admire 37signals because they make simple, easy to use web applications and because of their unique perspective on business.

Rework is a collection of short essays by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, focusing on doing less and embracing constraints.

Jason Fried co-founded 37signals and David Heinemeier Hansson later joined the company as a partner. Jason and David frequently write and talk about their business philosophy on marketing, hiring, culture, and productivity. If you haven’t read their blog, Signal v. Noise, I recommend that you do so.

If you’re looking for a business book on writing effective business plans or about strategies for finding investors, this isn’t the right book for you. Much of the advice in the book is contrarian to how most people think about startups and business. For example, while most entrepreneurs want to deliver more than their competition, Jason and David suggest you focus on delivering less.

The book is a short, quick read. The tone is confrontational and is far from the academic, dry tone you’ll find in most business books. It’s about 270 pages (the margins are fat and there are lots of pictures and white space). You can finish most of it over lunch.

A friend who has not read Rework but who skimmed a few chapters referred to Rework as a “fortune cookie approach to business advice.” Although I don’t completely agree, this isn’t far from the truth in one respect. The essays in Rework aren’t focused on giving you practical, step-by-step advice about what to do. Instead, Jason and David offer their perspective on business – a perspective that can change not only your attitude, but everything you do in your own business.

Bottom Line: Rework is an outstanding book for anyone who wants to learn about a fresh approach to business not found in other business books. If you’re looking to shake things up and to follow a path rarely traveled by Internet companies these days, you’ll learn a great deal from this book.

To Succeed, Don’t Obsess About Reasons You Might Fail

April 15, 2010 | 1 Comment

A few months ago, I talked about why startups must focus first on the problem, not the solution. A few days ago, I talked about the need to refocus from time to time.

There’s another side to focus that’s rarely discussed – focusing (and often obsessing) on reasons you might fail versus focusing on reasons you might succeed.

To succeed, don’t obsess about the reasons you might fail. If you do, you WILL fail.

The recent reactions from the developer communities to moves by Apple and Twitter underscored both the importance of making sure that you don’t tie your business to that of another company, and also the importance of making sure that you obsess about and focus on success – and not on failure.

At the end of the day, even if there are 99 ways you could fail and only 1 way you could succeed, there’s a very basic and undeniable fact: you can only succeed if you focus on the 1 way you can succeed. Focusing on the many ways you could fail will NOT lead to success. I discuss this in the following video:

What do you think? Do you agree that focusing on possible failures significantly increases the chances that you WILL fail?

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