We get asked a lot about where the BlueTie name came from. The story, as I understand it, is that our (then) 19 year old CEO was in a board meeting in 1999 during BlueTie's start-up phase. They were discussing names and one of the older board members looked at David's bright blue tie and said, 'these days you can name a company anything- you could call it BlueTie'. And so they did.
In hindsight, that was a very lucky decision. Anyone trying to create a unique and marketable name for a business or product these days knows it is extremely difficult yet extremely important to your success. The right name is unique, memorable, non-descriptive (more on that in a minute) and available both as a trademark and a web URL. If the names you're looking at don't fit these basic criteria, they won't cut it.
So why can't you use descriptive words for naming? You can and should if you're operating a local business and using your own name in the business name, i.e. Smith and Smith, Attorneys. But If you're selling business email to a global market you wouldn't want to call yourself Business Email, Inc. because you cannot protect a descriptive name via trademarks and you're extremely unlikely to get a web address even close to this name.
This conumdrum is why we see so many start-ups with funny made-up words for names like Squidoo which tell us nothing about their business (Squidoo has something to do with publicizing blogs). They pick a name and hope it's memorable and that they can market it into recognition.
So how do you pick a name? You could use a naming consultancy but that it going to cost you thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars (I kid you not). My advice is to get creative, do some word play and keep the Internet handy to see if your ideas are taken. And be patient- this is something you need to get right. Remember, once you have a web address, that's your storefront to the world and everytime you send an email via BlueTie your customers will be reminded of that address.
Here's two online resources for finding URLs:
Interactively Search for Domains
and to search for Trademarks:
The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)
Here's a final tip: Your trademark only has to be unique to your type of business. A company called Lure-It that sells fishing lures could file a trademark even if another company called Lure-It that did business lead generation had the same name. It's not a conflict when there is little likelihood of creating confusion among consumers. In any case, no matter what name you choose, get some legal and marketing advice before you fully commit to it.
