Comments on: How To Name Your Company http://jeffnolan.com/wp/2007/02/15/how-to-name-your-company/ Jeff Nolan's take on innovation, entrepreneurship, tech and stuff that interests me Thu, 17 May 2012 21:05:23 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Jeff http://jeffnolan.com/wp/2007/02/15/how-to-name-your-company/comment-page-1/#comment-78738 Jeff Sun, 18 Feb 2007 21:34:22 +0000 http://jeffnolan.com/wp/2007/02/15/how-to-name-your-company/#comment-78738 Martin, I really do understand your point, but I think you need to consider what I just laid out... in the laundry list of priorities that we had and the resources I had to execute with, the thought of spending a lot of time on naming would have been an irresponsible use of time. Insofar as communicating, we did not have, until recently, a strategy that we could explain and right now I am focused on investors. It's all well and good to talk hypothetically about what we should or shouldn't do, but the fact remains that I am focused on doing what we can in the order that makes the most efficient use of our resources. I appreciate your comments, I really do, and in the weeks ahead we will be making an effort to add more color commentary on what we are doing, including how the business develops around the technology. Martin,
I really do understand your point, but I think you need to consider what I just laid out… in the laundry list of priorities that we had and the resources I had to execute with, the thought of spending a lot of time on naming would have been an irresponsible use of time. Insofar as communicating, we did not have, until recently, a strategy that we could explain and right now I am focused on investors.

It’s all well and good to talk hypothetically about what we should or shouldn’t do, but the fact remains that I am focused on doing what we can in the order that makes the most efficient use of our resources.

I appreciate your comments, I really do, and in the weeks ahead we will be making an effort to add more color commentary on what we are doing, including how the business develops around the technology.

]]> By: Martin Edic http://jeffnolan.com/wp/2007/02/15/how-to-name-your-company/comment-page-1/#comment-78647 Martin Edic Sun, 18 Feb 2007 15:36:00 +0000 http://jeffnolan.com/wp/2007/02/15/how-to-name-your-company/#comment-78647 Fair enough but until a few weeks ago (I left under my own steam!) I worked at a company dominated by engineering POV and I think its a fundemental mistake not to consider communication issues from day one just because you're engineers. You're obviously a communicator based on your always interesting blog. If Teqlo is company vs. a technology then there needs to be a clearer message about what you do, what the value is and why anyone would pay for it. If you work on this from day one, along with develpment, it will be a lot easier when you launch. Otherwise you'll be faced with changing your internal culture after it has started to solidify. I still don't understand your monetization model (maybe there isn't one yet) but then again I'm still struggling with Yahoo pipes! Fair enough but until a few weeks ago (I left under my own steam!) I worked at a company dominated by engineering POV and I think its a fundemental mistake not to consider communication issues from day one just because you’re engineers. You’re obviously a communicator based on your always interesting blog. If Teqlo is company vs. a technology then there needs to be a clearer message about what you do, what the value is and why anyone would pay for it. If you work on this from day one, along with develpment, it will be a lot easier when you launch. Otherwise you’ll be faced with changing your internal culture after it has started to solidify.
I still don’t understand your monetization model (maybe there isn’t one yet) but then again I’m still struggling with Yahoo pipes!

]]> By: Jeff http://jeffnolan.com/wp/2007/02/15/how-to-name-your-company/comment-page-1/#comment-77890 Jeff Fri, 16 Feb 2007 17:18:47 +0000 http://jeffnolan.com/wp/2007/02/15/how-to-name-your-company/#comment-77890 no offense taken, I guess :) I agree with you, I don't think Teqlo is a good name but it's a hell of a lot better than the one I inherited when I joined the company - Abgenial Systems. Martin, I think you need to step back from the keyboard for a minute before suggesting this has anything to do with laziness on our part. Allow me to explain, when I joined we were 7 people and all of them were engineers. We had a first generation of code that needed to be rewritten in order to make it usable as a service. We have a shit awful name and nobody knew anything about the company, but the product internally was named Teqlo (long story on that) and we had the domain names. I, and it was all me, made the decision to name the company Teqlo and move forward without a lot of debate or study, understanding full well that we would be revisiting this as we got into the latter part of 2007. Teqlo isn't a good name but when taking into account the priorities we had, the idea of spending a lot of time on a name when we had to get a product built and a strategy put together so that we could get to the point of making money, well naming fell down the list pretty quickly. Insofar as marcom is concerned, we don't have any at this point. We exclusively use social media to get the word out, and when combined with just talking to people it has been adequate for our needs thus far. As we mature in the months ahead we will add this function and hire someone to manage it. no offense taken, I guess :)

I agree with you, I don’t think Teqlo is a good name but it’s a hell of a lot better than the one I inherited when I joined the company – Abgenial Systems.

Martin, I think you need to step back from the keyboard for a minute before suggesting this has anything to do with laziness on our part. Allow me to explain, when I joined we were 7 people and all of them were engineers. We had a first generation of code that needed to be rewritten in order to make it usable as a service. We have a shit awful name and nobody knew anything about the company, but the product internally was named Teqlo (long story on that) and we had the domain names.

I, and it was all me, made the decision to name the company Teqlo and move forward without a lot of debate or study, understanding full well that we would be revisiting this as we got into the latter part of 2007.

Teqlo isn’t a good name but when taking into account the priorities we had, the idea of spending a lot of time on a name when we had to get a product built and a strategy put together so that we could get to the point of making money, well naming fell down the list pretty quickly.

Insofar as marcom is concerned, we don’t have any at this point. We exclusively use social media to get the word out, and when combined with just talking to people it has been adequate for our needs thus far. As we mature in the months ahead we will add this function and hire someone to manage it.

]]> By: Martin Edic http://jeffnolan.com/wp/2007/02/15/how-to-name-your-company/comment-page-1/#comment-77866 Martin Edic Fri, 16 Feb 2007 16:02:38 +0000 http://jeffnolan.com/wp/2007/02/15/how-to-name-your-company/#comment-77866 Nothing personal but Teqlo is a horrible name. I've named a lot of businesses and products so I'm familiar with the challenges, especially when dealing with the need for a URL, however these names that look like they were created by randomly throwing letters together create real marketing problems: How do you pronounce it (word of mouth), how do you spell it (a q without a u- search issues), what does it signify? Etc. To me it indicates a certain laziness combined with a distain for marketing. Of course while I read your blog regularly and have looked at Teqlo, I really have no idea how this business will make money or what it actually does. A mar-comm problem I guess. Nothing personal but Teqlo is a horrible name. I’ve named a lot of businesses and products so I’m familiar with the challenges, especially when dealing with the need for a URL, however these names that look like they were created by randomly throwing letters together create real marketing problems: How do you pronounce it (word of mouth), how do you spell it (a q without a u- search issues), what does it signify? Etc.
To me it indicates a certain laziness combined with a distain for marketing. Of course while I read your blog regularly and have looked at Teqlo, I really have no idea how this business will make money or what it actually does. A mar-comm problem I guess.

]]> By: Julia http://jeffnolan.com/wp/2007/02/15/how-to-name-your-company/comment-page-1/#comment-77698 Julia Fri, 16 Feb 2007 05:18:14 +0000 http://jeffnolan.com/wp/2007/02/15/how-to-name-your-company/#comment-77698 I'm curious to see if others think waiting and putting some mileage on the company before taking the time of finding a name is a good idea for a service based business. I think it works well for a product based business not sure about service though. Since branding often seems to be bigger around service based companies. Just curious... I’m curious to see if others think waiting and putting some mileage on the company before taking the time of finding a name is a good idea for a service based business. I think it works well for a product based business not sure about service though. Since branding often seems to be bigger around service based companies. Just curious…

]]>