Company name same as product name
I am currently in the process of forming a software startup. My first product is essentially finished. All that's holding me back at the moment is that I can't seem to find a suitable company name. Whenever I come up with something great, either the .com is taken, or the social media profiles are.
So someone suggested the following to me: Just name your company like your product! What you have to know here is, my product name is perfect for the product, a massive stroke of luck!
The product name also happens to describe fairly well what my company does. But the question is: Should I name my company like my product? What are the advantages and disadvantages?
Eventually, I will have different products, and one would be named like the company whereas the others would have vastly different names. Isn't that confusing for customers?
Getting Started Products Company Name
5 Answers
Your last point is 100% correct. There are several possibilities:
A) one company has only one product (e.g. LinkedIn or FaceBook) - then, no problem, it make sense
B) one company has one main product + derived products (e.g. Google with main product the search engine + other ptoducts like Maps, Docs...) then often, the derived products have the name "sticked" to the main product/company name like "Google Maps"
C) one company have several main products... I even can't see a case where one product has the company name and the others completely different name. IMHO in this case, it even has no sense.
And imagine (hopefully not) that your super-product is a fail... Than you can throw your company as well... !!! If the name of product is different then it doesn't really matter. Just forget the failure and create new product. And keep your company.
.COM problem: indeed, there is really small chance that something will be available. Especially if, as you say, the name has a REAL signifiance. Everything is taken. All one word expression and almost all meaningful two or three word combinations...
So in my opinion, you will probably have no other choice than chose some "abstract" name or some "modified real word/expression". But in fact, that's OK, dont be affraid. Just be sure it's pronouncable, remindable and has no other (negative meanings) - even in other languages...
Good luck!
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I wanted to add this as a comment but its very important. If you have a partent company (say microsoft) but then you have a product (say office.com) if you purchase an EV SSL certificate for your site (say office.com) it will read "Office Microsoft INC DE". THe point of this comment is if you choose a corporate name to stay vague (a good idea sometimes) it costs you in trust building services such as using green bar EV certificates. My suggestion is to form one parent corp, and child corps for each real company under it. – Frank 11 years ago
We were in the same situation and, my partners and I, got sometimes confused if we talked about the product or the business.
Business is now called product named + " Labs" (we hesitated with "Studios" :-) ) and the .com was available too :)
If there's any risk of the product name becoming a generic trademark in the future then having that coincide with the name of the company may be compromising.
Perhaps you could apply some obfuscating transform to the product name to produce something legally distinct but obviously related. Just be careful that doing so doesn't make your company name look like a cheap knockoff of your own product.
I would use this tool called GlobalNaming.com Try running your existing product name through their engine!
Even when the dot com is available, and you name the product and the business the same, there are times when your product name can be challenged later as infringing on someone's trademark. You could be forced to change your product name, with the result that only your business may have the name you originally wanted - and that would be more difficult to change. For this reason it may just be better to name the product and business differently.
