What’s in a name? How to Name Your Business

Some say it’s the cornerstone of your business, others like Google, Apple, Amazon it has nothing to do with what the company is about. But we all know them.

So why is it important to come up with a name as soon as the idea is born?

If anything, it solidifies the plan. It starts the ball rolling.

How to Name Your Business – Patience Wins Out

Here’s the full-on truth. Most times, it takes a long time to get the name.

Most people think that companies come up with names in heartbeats, but that is a total lie.

And sometimes, the name can shift, expand or completely change (but that happens very rarely). However, it’s not unusual for the name to change with time.

Coming up with a name usually works in different ways.

The #1 Way to Name Your Business

BRAINSTORMING

Seriously, this is the only true way to do it.

Here’s the best way to name your business:

1. Take a timer – set it for 15 – 20 minutes and write. I mean, don’t stop. Don’t think is this stupid or ridiculous. Just go freaking crazy.
2. Get the others who are involved to do the same (if you’re doing with other people)
3. Spit-balling – If you are doing it alone, get a friend, a spouse or a family member to spit ball the ideas off of. When you vocalize them, a lot get crossed off the list immediately. If you’re doing it with others, sit down and spit ball the names you all came up with.
4. Narrow it down to 5 – 10 names.
5. Leave it alone – let it sit for a day or two and then come back to the lists. If you’re doing it with someone- spit balling does the trick again.
6. Hire someone – I actually did this for The Trader Chick. I had ideas for the name, but since I was doing it alone and didn’t really have the right support system to help with the name, let’s just say it was a great way to spend $100.

How Did We Come Up With Mighty Mountain Bikers (MMB)

Since our original idea was to have a team (read here about how we discovered our business idea). We thought about making it an international team.

Just our family alone has three different nationalities represented: Guatemala, Costa Rica and United States. And some of the friends we wanted to invite and their kids were from Colombia and United Kingdom.

So we thought about calling the team – Antigua International Bikers

But that was truly boring. And, in my opinion, really limited us to Antigua, Guatemala where we live.

I thoroughly believe that  Guatemala is NOT the only market and everything I do is Global.

So after a lot of convincing my husband, and it took a lot of convincing, since he was constantly harping on the idea that if we want to compete this is the best way to go. But my goal is to compete internationally and not only from Antigua, we decided to have a more universal name.

My kids loved the movie Mighty Ducks. Mighty has a strong ring to it. It’s powerful and easy to remember.

Our next attempt was Mighty Bikers for the adults and for kids Mini Mighty Bikers.

It really has a great name to it, until we looked online to see if anyone else was using that name.

And, we were not the only ones who loved the name, Mighty Bikers is a hard core motorcycle GANG! As cool as that is, not sure we want to be grouped with that.

So then we decided how about Mighty Bikerz (with a Z). But remember, if people look it up they will always come up to the biker gang first.

NOTE – THIS STEP IS SO IMPORTANT – check online!!! Seriously. I know it sounds so obvious. But I can’t tell you the amount of businesses that have to change their names because at one point someone had their name going already. It’s such a simple, basic step that you can not overlook. 

So, as they say – back to the drawing board for us. 

We loved Mighty and bikers, so we needed to see how we can keep this name.

We worked hard to avoid mountain biking because at one point we want to include the other types of biking such as road biking, bmx biking, freestyle, etc…

But, ultra focus and niche-ing down your target market really helps you with positioning of your business. Especially in the beginning, we finally decided on:

Mighty Mountain Bikers

And I have to say, we all love it!

Now that we have the name – the next step – LOGO.

EXERCISE TIME

What names have your kidz come up with. The best ones are the ones that are totally off the wall.

So when you hear them, go with it. Most of the times the kidz themselves tone them down to be more acceptable for an actual biz.

TAKE ACTION 

Tell me what your kids came up with.

Have you read?

Part 1 – Finding Your Why

Part 2 – Finding Your Passion 

Part 3 – Coming Up With a Business Idea