Guy Kawasaki

Hey there. What I've done in the past is make a long list of words that could be applied to what your company does, how it does it, who it's designed for, etc. Grab a thesaurus and look up synonyms for words that are particularly applicable. Then, start combining different words and see what you come up with. Swap some vowels (a's for e's, o's for i's, etc.) and get creative. Eventually, you'll come up with a list of names that are at least partially relevant to what your company does and hopefully look and sound decent. You may want to search for words in other languages as well (Latin is a good one) for more variety. It takes a long time to come up with a great name that you and your team like, that is at the same time not trademarked and also has a domain available relatively cheap.

No matter how arbitrary a name sounds, it almost always has direct meaning for the company. Google was originally called 'Googol', which is a very large number (10 to the hundredth power) and was meant to convey how much information Google indexed. Twitter is perfect because it implies that the service is about short bursts of information (tweets) much like a bird chirping (would the name Chirpr sound as good? Naw). You also have to think about how the name sounds when it's spoken, and if people can easily remember how to spell it when they go to type it in the address bar of their browser.

Guy Kawasaki wrote a decent article about naming companies a few years ago which you can find…

I worked for a start-up that failed (as an employee, not a founder). We were able to get "angel" funding to keep going for a couple of years but not the big VC money that was needed for this domain (medical devices, so no "customers" other than euthanized animals).

The founders were serial entrepreneurs with a good track record and a lot of clout. I would summarize the reasons for failure as the following:

1) Obsessive efforts on patents, sucking up valuable time of key people.
2) Not enough nitty-gritty technical folks. Literally half of the staff were "Vice presidents"-- if you can even imagine that.
3) I remember reading Guy Kawasaki's 10-20-30 rule (http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2005/12/the_102030_rule.html) and laughing at what were putting on-- more like "200 slides - 8 hours - 10pt font".
4) We shoulda made a more convincing prototype. We could have done it if less time was spent on patents and bullshit.

The founders had been successful in a much smaller domain. They made a lot of money and, I think, wanted to raise the stakes. It was a reach and it didn't work. However, I don't think anyone has/had hard feelings. We tried, learned a lot, and got to do some interesting stuff.

I now work for a boring company to pay the bills and do moonlight freelance with a buddy. If we ever go down the start-up route, I doubt we would ever attempt getting VC funding. I prefer keeping things small, manageable and profitable-- even if the profit is small.

we:

1. picked a list of 50-60 words/prefixes/suffixes we liked

2. wrote a python script to generate permutations, and then

3. ran dig -f on the text file to see which weren't taken

4. scraped buydomains search results to see which ones were easily for sale.

absolutely everything else was a waste of time, although we're also working with a naming agency and that might be promising (but expensive).

amusingly, domains that were occupied by squatters or companies like buydomains were easier to deal with -- at least they're rational and the conversation, though annoying, is straightforward (arrive at a #.)

domains that are occupied but unused (and don't have a 'for sale' sign hanging up) are generally hopeless. if you get a response, you'll generally get some whacko who either won't sell it, or who will only sell for millions of dollars or something. you'll probably not believe me, and will learn this the hard way (just as pg told us months ago :))

ok enough bad news -- some links that might help:

http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/02/the_name_game.html

http://onstartups.com/home/tabid/3339/bid/223/The-Startup-Name-Game.aspx

http://foundread.com/2007/08/20/3-rules-for-naming-your-startup/

and last and best (a 100+ page guide)

http://www.igorinternational.com/process/igor-naming-guide.pdf

hope this helps -- it's a struggle :)

I have the privilege of getting see a lot of pitch decks, from seed to late round. Most of them are really, really bad.

I'm a founder and have two decks: one is 9 slides, the other is 3.

I think all seed and even Series A decks should follow a very similar format: problem, solution/product, team, traction, competition and the ask.

I think two really good examples are Guy's Kawasaki's pitch deck[0] and Sequoia's[1]. If you're veering off these paths, you had better have a damn good reason (hint: you probably don't). I especially like Kawasaki's "What's the underlying magic?" slide, and I really like Sequoia's "Why now?" Those two slides are underrepresented.

I just looked at three decks that were sent me this week: 26 slides, 23 slides, 17 slides. Unnecessary.

Lastly, I'm in the minority with this belief, but I think more founders should run their decks past designers. I'm not saying you need an elaborate and fancy design, but good typography and composition make it look like you care. But, as always, content is king.

[0] https://guykawasaki.com/the-only-10-slides-you-need-in-your-pitch/

[1] https://www.slideshare.net/PitchDeckCoach/sequoia-capital-pitchdecktemplate

edit: removed my opinion of the HN seed examples after further reflection.

you are laughing as if you are very confident about your answer ... well I am not as sure as you are what exactly PG does ... but I doubt TC calls up PG or anyone else for that matter on daily basis to find out whats new... and maybe PG doesn't do it but a lot of other VC's do (check this interview video with Michael Arrington about how to get on TC http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/11/how_to_get_in_t.html ) ... if I am going to work with YC I would expect them to help me with these kind of stuff ... I mean that is the whole point of YC (don't start with saying they are not a PR team and they are not there to create news for you, I know that) .. but the way YC is structured (which I think is great) is to mostly give you advice and support ... And this kind of support could mean more than anything else to help you launch your business, create traction and gain users, specially with Disqus that is late in the game, and needs the support of bloggers, and has many competition, and there is only a need of one of these services on each blog, and it has been proven that its not so easy to get dominance in this field

Just read this post from Guy Kawasaki:

http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2007/05/just_in_time_fo.html

It got me thinking about my mother and the sacrifices she made in bearing us and bringing us up. Looking back, I definitely can see how she influenced me and helped give me the confidence to seek adventure and take risks.

For example, one time I decided to experiment with cooking and decided to make a dish concocted of orange-wedges, cheese, lemon juice, and some other random ingredients. My dad was concerned that I would waste the food (he was right) but my mother insisted that I be able to try it out for myself. It was the most disgusting food ever! I tried to eat as much of it as I could, but it was a good lesson that cheese and oranges aren't a great combination!

As I look back, I can remember countless examples of her encouragement to pursue new ventures (even when it was obvious I would fail). I can't recall her ever expressing doubt that I would succeed. And I guess she was right if you look at failure as a success in learning.

Anyway, thanks Mama! Happy Mother's Day!