What should I call my business?

samfloy~22 February 2020 /Personal

This week I’ve been deliberating what to call my new business.

For the last year I’ve been doing freelance work and (as mentioned here) have been looking at how to refine it into a repeatable valuable service I deliver people.

Podcasts for companies

The initial idea is to make podcasts for companies.

More and more organisations want to get into podcasting, but it’s a confusing time sink to set up, and even if you do there’s lots of nitty gritty to make sure it’s consistently done. As a result, most barely get off the ground.

Hobbyists (like I was with The East Africa Business Podcast) are more open to try and do everything themselves (without paying), but if you’re Head of Marketing, perhaps it’s not such a good idea. The 5-10 hours/ week you’d allocate to “doing a podcast” would probably be better spent marketing it, than understanding the technicalities of RSS feed registration…

The need for a name

I’ve got my first couple of customers from personal network (i.e. they’re happy to work with “me” rather than a brand).

Now I’m looking to start reaching out to potential customers, hiring an intern and making a website. 

For this, a name is necessary.

How to think about it

A contact in my co-working space (fellow Brit) is a communications consultant and we spent an hour with marker pens framing the problem.

The idea is to set some parameters and then identify different “territories” for what a name could be about (the product, the benefits customers get, what’s unique to the company).

At the end of the session, we had some areas to explore more.

What are your thoughts?

The parameters I’m thinking are:

When I explained my ideas to Aaron we mapped:

“Taking care of lots of small important steps”
Nitty gritty
Meat and potatoes
Nuts and bolts
Buckle down
Knokler (Danish for ‘graft’)

“Connecting your audience with what you want to tell them”
Bridge
Escalate 
Stairway

“Metaphor around the results client get”
Reality
Fruition
Joy
Terminal velocity

“Overcoming the enemy”
Faff
Decision fatigue
Plates to spin

I then also spent a few hours searching Old Norse Gods/ words on the off-chance there was anything good in there..!

Gefjon (Gefion): Norse goddess of ploughing and harvest
Snotra: Norse goddess known as the clever one
Almanna: of easy use for everyone
Dafna: to thrive
Samblasa: to grow/ expand
Verda: to happen

Anyway, I’ll be musing on this over the next few days/ weeks. If you feel inspired to share any thoughts on what a name could be – do get in touch!


In other news…

SAS, the Scandinavian airline, had to pull a recent advert because of the uproar that came from them daring to suggest that the Danes’ much-loved liquorice is not in fact Danish.

It said how different concepts thought of as “Scandinavian” in fact came from other parts of the world and therefore you should travel more.

Aside from the bizareness of how it’s played out, what would be the equivalent example in your country?


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