Reboot

Chapter 3 Naming our idea

As the idea progressed, Michael and I found ourselves drawing our friends into naming discussions over brunch, dinner and drinks. The name of our company had to be somewhere and fresh eyes were always helpful.

As we sat together speaking various words out loud, they felt silly, unnatural and awkward. We'd often preface saying the word with ‘So I don't think this is it, but …' and at times we'd just dissolve into laughter saying words to one another. Argh. Nothing just stuck. In this part of the business journey I really was looking for a gut response: a feeling to tell me we'd found the right thing. But as that was absent, I needed to find some tools to help me figure it out.

I started to look at the names of everything — shops, furniture, even bands. It made me laugh to realise that some ‘brands' we just take for granted and accept in the day-to-day are actually super weird. For example, I'm sure ‘Pearl Jam' or ‘Red Hot Chili Peppers' were not instantly natural names for bands either. My point being, until you give the words meaning they are simply that. Words.

Throughout the entire process we kept thinking about brand names that we each loved. We thought about what made them impressive. Usually it was the way the word sounded, how it felt to say the words, and how easily it could be remembered. We repeated ‘Google, Zappos, Mimco' out loud — hoping these names we loved would somehow help procure our own brand name.

On the very practical side of things, ...