Lenny's Written Position
The name you choose for a product or company may be the single most important branding decision you make, yet it is too often delegated to junior staff or tackled in group brainstorming sessions.
Invented names like Pentium actually take less money to build into brands than existing words because they signal 'new and innovative' and generate more attention due to being unexpected.
Effective naming requires building for trust, communicating an original idea rather than describing what the company does, and making the name accessible and easy to process.
Large brainstorming sessions rarely produce good names because of peer pressure to agree and everyone's need to be right; small teams with esprit de corps generate far better results.
The sound of a brand name matters as much as its meaning: specific sounds create specific impressions, like the 'z' in Azure creating a strong signal and the 'zure' creating a smooth experience.
Podcast Moments
“Your brand name, nothing's going to be used more often or for longer than that name. Design will change, messaging will change, products will change, but that name is there.”
Naming expert shares the process behind creating billion-dollar brand names like Azure, Vercel, Windsurf, Sonos, Blackberry, and Impossible Burger | David Placek (Lexicon Branding) · David Placek
“When we presented Sonos, it was rejected because it's not entertainment-like. We argued about that because I said, 'This is outside looking in, but I don't see you as an entertainment company.' Humans do like to be comfortable. Part of our job here is to help people to give the confidence going bigger and being uncomfortable.”
Naming expert shares the process behind creating billion-dollar brand names like Azure, Vercel, Windsurf, Sonos, Blackberry, and Impossible Burger | David Placek (Lexicon Branding) · David Placek
“Just draw a shape of a diamond on a piece of paper. On the top put the word win. How do you define winning? On the next corner, what do you have to win? On the bottom, what do you need to win? And then on the left-hand side, what do you have to say to win?”
Naming expert shares the process behind creating billion-dollar brand names like Azure, Vercel, Windsurf, Sonos, Blackberry, and Impossible Burger | David Placek (Lexicon Branding) · David Placek
“Andy Grove said, 'Because I see the polarization here amongst people. That tells me there's energy for Pentium here.' And he said, 'That's why I think we should go with it.' We do look for that polarization. That's what you want. You don't want to go out in the marketplace with something that doesn't have a level of boldness or intensity.”
Naming expert shares the process behind creating billion-dollar brand names like Azure, Vercel, Windsurf, Sonos, Blackberry, and Impossible Burger | David Placek (Lexicon Branding) · David Placek
“Forget about the word, think about behavior and experience. I'm a big believer in synchronicity. If someone says we make sailboats, I would say forget about sailboats. Go pick out some magazines about hunting or flying. I would bet you $5 that out of those two magazines, you will get a word that you never would've thought of, but somehow it would relate to sailing.”
Naming expert shares the process behind creating billion-dollar brand names like Azure, Vercel, Windsurf, Sonos, Blackberry, and Impossible Burger | David Placek (Lexicon Branding) · David Placek
“The .com or URL address has become an area code. And whether you're in 415 or 615, it doesn't really matter to people. And now with AI, SEO is going to be less important. The principle in play is let's get the right name first.”
Naming expert shares the process behind creating billion-dollar brand names like Azure, Vercel, Windsurf, Sonos, Blackberry, and Impossible Burger | David Placek (Lexicon Branding) · David Placek
“The best word for a great product is that it's lovable. A lot of jargon that I like to use to emphasize what we should be striving for is building a minimum lovable product and then building a lovable product and then building an absolutely lovable product. So I took that jargon with me in the company name.”
Building Lovable: $10M ARR in 60 days with 15 people | Anton Osika (co-founder and CEO) · Anton Osika
“I have a very emotional connection to Claude.ai. I think they have a brand. ChatGPT's reputation with me is not good because it regularly over promises and under delivers and it does it without kindness or humility.”
Seth Godin's best tactics for building remarkable products, strategies, brands and more · Seth Godin
“Most people are better at understanding the feelings and sensations that typography and logos give us than they give themselves credit for, because what we are as people are endless absorbers of patterns, and information, and all this kind of stuff as we move throughout the world.”
How to see like a designer: The hidden power of typography and logos | Jessica Hische (Lettering Artist, Author) · Jessica Hische
“A good exercise is just like looking at fonts that are available in the world and asking yourself, 'What feeling does this give me?'”
How to see like a designer: The hidden power of typography and logos | Jessica Hische (Lettering Artist, Author) · Jessica Hische
“So over time, a word can come to mean something that is beyond what that actual word means. Like Disney means magic today. Volvo means safety. Those names are not good. If I just put it in a spreadsheet or one of those lists, no one would pick it.”
The art of building legendary brands | Arielle Jackson (Google, Square, Marketer in Residence at First Round Capital) · Arielle Jackson
“A bad name with a really great company with great company strategy, great marketing is going to be great over time. And a good name is just going to help you, but I don't think a bad name is going to kill a good company.”
The art of building legendary brands | Arielle Jackson (Google, Square, Marketer in Residence at First Round Capital) · Arielle Jackson
Cutting Room Floor
Guest insights on this topic that Lenny hasn't (yet) written about in his newsletters. Potential material for future posts.
“Just draw a shape of a diamond on a piece of paper. On the top put the word win. How do you define winning? On the next corner, what do you have to win? On the bottom, what do you need to win? And then on the left-hand side, what do you have to say to win?”
Naming expert shares the process behind creating billion-dollar brand names like Azure, Vercel, Windsurf, Sonos, Blackberry, and Impossible Burger | David Placek (Lexicon Branding) · David Placek
“I have a very emotional connection to Claude.ai. I think they have a brand. ChatGPT's reputation with me is not good because it regularly over promises and under delivers and it does it without kindness or humility.”
Seth Godin's best tactics for building remarkable products, strategies, brands and more · Seth Godin
“A good exercise is just like looking at fonts that are available in the world and asking yourself, 'What feeling does this give me?'”
How to see like a designer: The hidden power of typography and logos | Jessica Hische (Lettering Artist, Author) · Jessica Hische
“So over time, a word can come to mean something that is beyond what that actual word means. Like Disney means magic today. Volvo means safety. Those names are not good. If I just put it in a spreadsheet or one of those lists, no one would pick it.”
The art of building legendary brands | Arielle Jackson (Google, Square, Marketer in Residence at First Round Capital) · Arielle Jackson
“A bad name with a really great company with great company strategy, great marketing is going to be great over time. And a good name is just going to help you, but I don't think a bad name is going to kill a good company.”
The art of building legendary brands | Arielle Jackson (Google, Square, Marketer in Residence at First Round Capital) · Arielle Jackson