Are you looking for the perfect name for your business?
Have you spent the last 5 hours searching foreign dictionaries for a word in another language that has a meaning related to your brand?
Perhaps you’ve been mulling over two or three names for weeks, without feeling confident in any of them.
Finding the perfect name for your business can be difficult, even seem impossible.
Personally, I think there’s no such thing as a perfect name, and this quest, in the beginning, is often a waste of time that only delays the most important part of a new project: launching it to test the market.
This is just my opinion, but if we look back in time, several well-known companies did the same thing, that is, they launched their project and eventually, after achieving some success, changed their name.
You might be thinking, “That’s all well and good, but my industry is different.”
However, it’s worth considering some of these examples of companies that have successfully rebranded over time.
So here are some examples of well-known companies that have changed their name.
Nike
- Before: Blue Ribbon Sports
- After: Nike
- Before: Back Rub
- After: Google
Best Buy
- Before: Sound of Music
- After: Best Buy
Pepsi
- Before: Brand’s Drink
- After: Pepsi
Ebay
- Before: Auction Web
- After: Ebay
Subway
- Before: Pete’s Super Submarine
- After: Subway
PayPal
- Before: Confinity
- After: Paypal
Yahoo
- Before: Jerry’s Guide to the World Wide Web
- After: Yahoo
IBM
- Before: Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company
- After: IBM
Tinder
- Before: Matchbox
- After: Tinder
These examples demonstrate that changing your business name mid-way is possible, regardless of the industry you operate in.
However, this doesn’t mean that finding the right name from the outset isn’t important.
It’s crucial to invest time and effort into researching, brainstorming with your team, and seeking professional advice to find a name that accurately reflects your brand.
At the same time, don’t let the process of finding a name become a roadblock to launching your project or lead to financial difficulties.
Strike a balance between putting in effort to find the right name and taking action to get your business off the ground.
