This is as exerpt from the recent Tim Ferris/Rich Barton podcast. Rich Barton is one of my favorite people. He’s founded Expedia, Zillow, Glass Door and many other companies. But he’s my age, a family man, a health guy but not over the top. He’s my best role model in a person I’ve found. I’ve chosen my names based on a post he wrote in 2009 on how he names companies and its made me hundreds of thousands of dollars. He does a great job explaining it on the podcast. Worth a listen, not just for this, but overall.
I have a few rules about naming. First, when you’re trying to brand a company, if you’re building a consumer brand especially, you have kind of two broad ways you can go, the easy way and the hard way. And I’ll forgive the 4-Hour Workweek and the 4-Hour Body, you know, but I’ll tell you that there are no shortcuts. You take the shortcut to the long road, my coach Jimmy says.Anyway, the easy way is if you’re building a travel site to call it hotels.com, airlinetickets.com, you know, you name it, every category has a literal word.com. And the advantages to that are it’s easy to explain to people what you do. And the disadvantages to that are you don’t own any brand equity, because you can’t own a word that previously exists. And so you’re non-distinct and non-distinctive.
There’s an in-between way, which is to use an existing word, but make a new application of it, Apple, computer, amazon.com, and that’s viable. But you have to build a new definition for that word, which those companies obviously did successfully.
The hard way and the best way, I think, for consumers is to make up a word, which is super hard, because you have to tell people what the word means. You have to define it for them. But once you do, you own that word. The definition of that word is yours and only yours. And so I like the hard path because I like building brands.
And with provocation marketing, I think I can get a big audience early, which begins to familiarize people with the brand. So I was confident in my ability to, my and my team’s really ability to do that.
Okay, so now when you’re making up a word, what do you do? And I think this is what you’re referring to. Okay, so high point Scrabble letters. Do you play Scrabble?
It’s been a minute, but yes, I play Scrabble.
Okay, you know that there are different point numbers on each letter as you play Scrabble. And do you remember what the high point ones are?
I don’t.
Okay, Z is 10, X is 10. That’s the highest point you can get. A, E, I, O, U are one. Here’s why. Q is 10 too. Here’s why. Z, X and Q are super rare letters. A, E, I, O, U are super common.
And so rule number one is pick the super rare letters and pick them because they’re very distinctive. They jump off a page when you read. They stick in people’s brains in a way that’s not crowded. So all my stuff has Zs and Xs and some Qs actually too.
Rule number two, fewer syllables is better than more. I kind of learned this lesson with Expedia. Expedia was too many syllables. It’s worked out fine. We’ve overcome that. The company’s overcome that now. But it was, in hindsight, was a lot.
I liked it because of rule number three, which is it was evocative of positive things—speed, expedition. So it said adventure and speed, and that all felt good in that word.
But fewer syllables. I think two syllables is the sweet spot because I also want it to be a good dog name. So if the word could be a good dog name, you’re on to something—like you can call for it. Zillow.
Anyway, another one is it can be turned into a verb pretty easily. So pick a word that can be turned into a verb. So it probably—the dog name and verb probably means it ends in a vowel sound.
And then the last one is people, double letters and palindromes are good too. So anything that is unique, a unique word form—double letters people remember, they jump off the page. And palindromes are words that are the same forward and backward spelled, right? So just interesting, interesting words.
Anyway, that’s my handbook.
A Few Posts of Interest
Long read today so no links. Happy Good Friday to all those who celebrate
Quote of the Day: “The name should work in a bar, not just a boardroom. If you can’t say it over a drink, change it.” — Naval Ravikant
Domain of the Day: GoLocksmith.com As I discussesd HERE
Please Note: The list below contains affiliate links and/or names that have been posted for a fee. It is how we pay for our time since it is a free site. More details at bottom of page.
Dynadot
BetOnChain.com Solid name for crypto betting site. One bid
Orchard.xyz The kind of XYZ I like to add but people are coming for them hard now
Sketchbook.io Like this SLD a lot. Io is a bargain right now
Cizda.com Worth $50 or so
FABO.co I have had success selling a few CVCV.co that ryhme with co
GreatMint.com crypto name at this point
Liverpool.xyz We all know the football club
E.cv Back up for auction
Namejet
AMRF.com F for foundation
SWMA.com 4Ls that end in A have sold well for me the last few years
MBMW.com Great letters. W for Worldwide
UWHS.com Turning into a Namejet 4L list
Capital360.com 360 exudes have you covered
Career360.com Samesies
NakedWater.com “Just tapwater”
BubbleMonkey.com 2 bids. I thought it was pretty fun and memorable
Atom – Active Auctions
MrReply.com Here’s your reply agent
Freaky.ai Open up the controls a little and let them put out some freaky stuff
Goal.ai Moved to a BIN
Infantry.ai “Bring out the big guns”
Boost.now Good SLD and call to action
Uphanced.com No reserve. Not en but up
Shimmy.ai BIN reduced
Sedo
Si.de Can’t argue its not short
Waam.com like this as a brand
QIM.com Not great in the radio test
Backlinks.org Steal of the auctions
MLIS.com Love this at the current price
OUG.com Like this if its at the low end of the reserve
Catched
Podcast.world Dot world will be a theme today
Bridge.world Crypto bridging is huge. This is 100% where it will go
Library.world Another dot world. The world’s library ?
Phone.fashion A lot of money in dressing up your phone
Rank.domains No bids. I think estimating value on domains is very difficult but giving them a rank is an easier comparable
Bizarre.at Crazy content loves alt TLDs
GlowUp.me A term I hear all the time. Nothing better for engagement than a good Glow Up or Looks Maxxing
Premium.money I like regular money but premium is even better
Bear.world Sam Altman loves world ID and Bear is a cool username
Godaddy Domains With Bids
FastTrans.com Fast transfer or become a boy or a girl quickly
8344.com 60K + in expiring NNNN.coms today
8789.com
9205.com
9212.com
9306.com
9347.com
BitcoinInsider.com Fantastic name for a news or Bitcoin site
DomainNameAdvisor.com I share this role
Unlaunched.com My favorite name on the list. A great launchpad or startup site
ClassProject.com What most of my offers say they are using it for
888998.com 4 eights for one low price
CoinFlash.com Crypto name all the way
SweetSeats.com I’d buy my Taylor Swift tickets here
BlackPinkUpdate.com The biggest girl group in the world
Yubar.com 5Ls are money
TheHomework.com “We’ve done the homework”
Dixer.com Data Mixer
Marilla.com good brand and most results come from being used as a first name
GamerArt.com I don’t think people realize what a big category this is
ACDC.xyz For those about to rock
NLR.net Top tier names
GrandSpa.com Upgrade name for several places
Godaddy Domains with no bids
Other GoDaddy Names With More Than One Bid
1NewYork.com
5i1.me
anuncio.org
AvocadoAthens.com
BellavistaMed.com
bestpsdtohtml.com
Cache42Memphis.com
CaliforniaMissions.com
CasaFloridaMiami.com
CityPlumber.com
comiteorwell.net
ContactLaw.com
CoverLetters.org
DanceRecords.com
descubrerepublicadominicana.com
dfeh.com
e-zeeinternet.com
elpalmar.com
EpicFunding.com
FinneGansToys.com
friendin.com
GlobalBits.com
GoLangByExample.com
GoldElephant.com
grimporama.com
hvli.com
icpscollege.com
ifhv.com
InvestmentWealth.com
johannyskitchen.com
ktkn.com
LocationAffordability.info
LoveLineShow.com
LyricTheatreRochester.org
mactavish.com
MidAtlanticHikes.com
MySeoBase.com
ncgreatness.org
NewGroundMag.com
ojpl.com
OneFatFrog.com
pageu.com
PhoenixResearch.com
ReadyNation.com
SeniorAndShopMaker.com
silah.net
speedd.com
sunshinerestaurantny.com
swadayaonline.com
thepatsyspizza.com
TrilliumCapital.com
vimo.org
WayCam.com
WindermereGolf.com
YogaFriends.com
yongbet.com
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