analysis Startups Names Stay Strange As Bad Spelling Proliferates

[koolishman]

Startups Names Stay Strange As Bad Spelling Proliferates​

Creatively misspelled words, long popular for startup names, continue to rank among the top choices for nascent companies. Other top naming trends include short brands, “ly” suffixes, puns and human first names, according Crunchbase’s latest deep-dive into startup brands.


“A lot of what’s driving things is people saying: “I really want to name it that but the domain is taken,” said Athol Foden, president of Brighter Naming, a corporate naming consultancy. Founders who can’t get their top pick commonly settle for something that sounds similar, perhaps with a different spelling or an added suffix.

For our latest Crunchbase News naming analysis, the methodology involved looking at all the startups in English-speaking countries that raised a seed round of $500,000 or more in the past 13 months

The goal, after poring through more than 4,000 names, was to piece together leading trends in startup naming. Beyond that, the hope is to shed a light on the prevailing mindset around how to create a memorable brand in a world overrun with companies old and new furiously competing for our attention.

 

[DomainNameFlow]

This is good article. so "If you can't get the best/ideal one, go for next one close to it." this general human tendency applies to domain as well. Every startup would love to have short/catchy/brandable domain specially .com, however available .com (and other top extensions) are sometimes too expensive for them initially before VC funding so misspelled or similar sounding cheaper domain would be their next obvious choice. That's a good strategy. However, having the money to acquire premium .com sooner and still not buying it would be a huge mistake. As later on it might be gone or they might end up paying lot more.

 

[F.E.]

Well, there's a slight problem with your thinking @DomainNameFlow, as from a branding and marketing perspective, which domainers are not taking into consideration:

Brand has been established and brand recognition is present at that typo, so owning keyword name is not relevant. If the brand recognition is strong and typo doesn't affect their strategy, there's zero chances of their marketing team to suggest going for full keyword.

Prime examples: Lyft, Reddit, Tumblr, Fiverr.

Once the branding strategy has been successful, its up to you to rebrand it, and most of the time you won't go that route, because that's additional cost. Justified? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Worthy? Nope, you've established well recognized brand, and what's the point on starting all over again.

Imagine if reddit rebranded to readit?

 

[DomainNameFlow]

Well, there's a slight problem with your thinking @DomainNameFlow, as from a branding and marketing perspective, which domainers are not taking into consideration:

Brand has been established and brand recognition is present at that typo, so owning keyword name is not relevant. If the brand recognition is strong and typo doesn't affect their strategy, there's zero chances of their marketing team to suggest going for full keyword.

Prime examples: Lyft, Reddit, Tumblr, Fiverr.

Once the branding strategy has been successful, its up to you to rebrand it, and most of the time you won't go that route, because that's additional cost. Justified? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Worthy? Nope, you've established well recognized brand, and what's the point on starting all over again.

Imagine if reddit rebranded to readit?

You didn't get my point completely. I didn't mention that they rebrand after getting premium .com, which of course is possible (depending on many factors like funding etc.). The main point is even if you are globally recognized brand on typo domain, you should still get the correct dictionary .com domain as soon as financial situation permits if available. The key advantage is not-only the direct type-in traffic but also not leaving it for future competitor. And, of course you will have a choice to rebrand using the correct dictionary .com domain if you ever want to! Even if a premium dictionary .com domain is not guarantee for successful global business, it will add lot of value in branding/marketing, would save good amount money/time, avoid customer confusion and likely will have higher resell value - just IMO. Thanks.

 

[F.E.]

I did get your point, and still my answer is same.

Lyft doesnt own Lift.com nor there is a point in that.
Reddit doesn't own Readit.com
and list goes on.

Why? Because type-in traffic for them is insignificant on exact keyword due to brand awareness ans recognition. There's 0.001% someone looking for Reddit and typing Readit. Investing hundreds of thousands, even millions in exact.com domain name after booming is baseless and waste of funding.

 

[redemo]

I thought of a social media brand name yesterday. Tweenr. Like you're an in-betweener with the controversial weenr word. Could be a social platform for trans folk or hermaphrodite folk. Controversy = publicity. Domain leads to blank page with no purchasing options. So sad.

 

[Radiotest.me]

I did get your point, and still my answer is same.

Lyft doesnt own Lift.com nor there is a point in that.
Reddit doesn't own Readit.com
and list goes on.

Why? Because type-in traffic for them is insignificant on exact keyword due to brand awareness ans recognition. There's 0.001% someone looking for Reddit and typing Readit. Investing hundreds of thousands, even millions in exact.com domain name after booming is baseless and waste of funding.

@F.E. , you brought up some big names with heavy marketing effort behind. This only means that typo brand names are not necessarily a stopper for a good startup. Bad spell-ability harms primarily new, developing names, counting on most lead generating channels, including audio marketing. Success stories, like Lyft or Reddit make them underestimate the importance of good spelling in a brand name and let them pick awkward names with little to zero added value.

 

[F.E.]

Reddit didn't have heavy marketing effort when started.

Lyft broke through to the market with guerilla marketing.

 

[Reallybigidea.com]

Tumblr owns tumbler.com as well.

Branadbles hard finding via google assistant so i would go with real words