Name Your Business The Right Way

The name you choose today can either open doors with a single mention or trap you in years of explanation. We break down a no-nonsense process for picking a business name that’s clear, memorable, and scalable—without burning budget on avoidable confusion.

We start with the first impression test: if you feel the need to apologize for your name, spell it out, or explain a clever twist every time, it’s working against you. From there, we compare straightforward, human-friendly names with stylized spellings that demand constant explanation, using the MVMT example to show how search behavior, mis-typed queries, and brand education can drain ad dollars. You’ll hear why shorter is usually better, how to balance uniqueness with recognition, and why avoiding hyphens, numbers, and ambiguous homophones pays off across podcasts, networking, and word of mouth.

Then we get practical. We share a step-by-step workflow for brainstorming with AI—feeding it audience, benefits, tone, and constraints—to generate strong candidates fast. You’ll learn two simple validation tests using separate groups: the read-aloud test to catch pronunciation snags, and the say-and-spell test to surface future search and traffic leaks. We also walk through checking domains and social handles in one sweep so you don’t end up with a .com that doesn’t match your core profiles. Finally, we dig into long-term strategy: why overly narrow names box you in, how rebrands with domain changes can crater organic traffic for months, and what to consider if you’re using a personal last name.

If you’re launching a new brand or rethinking a current one, this conversation gives you a clear checklist to find a durable name that supports growth, improves discoverability, and keeps your marketing dollars working harder. Subscribe, share this with a founder who’s naming right now, and tell us your favorite naming tip or horror story in a review—your feedback helps more builders find the show.

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Transcript

Why Names Matter

SPEAKER_01 0:00

So your business name for any business is your first impression, right? Like when you tell somebody, yeah, this is what I do, and you give them your card or you tell them where to go online, it's your name of your business, right? And so it's extremely important to make sure that that first impression is remember or memorable, that people can easily recall it, but then also it's spelled correctly. And it there's just so many different aspects of the city.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

One is so hard nowadays when like there's so many that are already taken, right? But it is worth spending some time to do it. Like and w a really good quick, like gosh, I don't even know how you would call what you would call it, but like just a quick like gut check of like, is this a good name?

SPEAKER_01 0:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

Is are you embarrassed or do you feel like you have to explain it to somebody after you tell them the name?

Using Personal Names Strategically

Don’t Misspell On Purpose

SPEAKER_01 0:55

I think if you if you feel like like you have to reiterate what it is, oh like yeah, this is but it's spelled this way that it's probably not the best, right? Right. Um now if it's your a lot of people just put their last name plus whatever service they do. I actually think that's not a bad idea because when you give your card it shows your last name, or if people know you, or if you're unless you want to sell it, or yeah, or if you want to sell it at the end, or if like but if you're a what really well-known person in like wherever you live, that might be a good idea because everyone knows your name anyway. Sure. But um, when you one tip that we always tell people is like don't purposely misspell things, like sometimes it can be beneficial because it separates, you know, like one one I've always thought was really cool brand, but like you always have to explain it kind of the same thing is movement watches. They were like quite as popular as they were MVMT. Yeah, MVMT. And so it's like every podcast they do an add-on, they would say, Yeah, movement watches. They explain the whole thing. You're like, Oh, that's cool. You type in movement, and it's like uh they're I don't see them, but then it they have to always reiterate MVMT watches, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:10

It's like if you have to continue, if you had to just keep explaining it, and if it's hard to remember, try to get a better one, right?

The MVMT Lesson On Costly Clarity

Brainstorming With AI

SPEAKER_01 2:18

And it's also this thing like if you're a big brand and you want that, it's gonna take a long time before people understand. I think most people know now, like if you're looking at watches, M Movement is MVMT, but it probably took a long time. Not only are you spending ad money on brand campaigns for your name MVMT, but you're probably actually spending a ton of money on movement watches, which is the full name spelled out, just to try to redirect people back to where you are. So there's some considerations there, yeah, you know. Um, but yeah, there's when you start brainstorming, there's a lot of things you can do, right? Like you can just come up with it yourself. I think with AI, it becomes extremely easy. Oh, okay. You can say, This is who I am, this is who I'm trying to reach, this is the point of the company, this is what I'm selling, here's the benefits from my product, this is really who we want to focus on. You can kind of lay out the whole thing and say, come up with some names. We want it to be less than two words or one word or whatever you want. Right. And it'll start spinning out stuff. And it's fantastic a lot of the time. Um, and sometimes they will do some of the tips we're telling you not to do, like they'll misspell things and whatnot.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

So I mean, sometimes you don't have a choice, like if it's if it's exactly what you want, and that's the only way to get an available domain, like I get it. Yeah, I'd maybe just use it as a last resort.

Checking Domains And Handles

SPEAKER_01 3:37

You're right, right, right. And um, you know, it's kind of funny. What one one site we like to you tell people to go to is namecheck.com, and they do this exact same thing. This is a great example. They use nameck.com, and it's namecheck.com. But it's cool. So when you have a name and you're you're like, oh, all right, I want to look up um, let's do too cool, because I've done this one because I thought it was good. So just the letter two or number two and cool K-O-O-L. So this is just to see, right? Yeah, so I type that in. Well, it comes back that okay, like the tocool.com is taken. So you can't you don't have that. But not only does it show all the dot coms, dot biz, all that, all the domains, it also shows all the social handles, which is really helpful than having to have to go through each social platform and see if it's taken. Because it would stink to check just Instagram and you have the dot com, and then you go to Facebook, and Facebook's taken, and like all the variations are taken.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

And then you're like, instead of it like being like really tedious to check one by one, you can just see it all right there.

SPEAKER_01 4:43

Which one's taken, which one's not, and you go from TikTok to Twitch to all the other ones that maybe some businesses don't do. So it's even good for just if you're trying to build a social media following as well. Um, but yeah, check on there and make sure that it is available.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

So so once you have a domain, go to namecheck.com, except it's not spelled namecheck.com. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Keep It Simple: No Hyphens Or Numbers

SPEAKER_01 5:05

Name chk.com. Right. And this will allow you to look that up and and just inquire about it. Nice. Um, another pro tip avoid hyphens, avoid like special characters because that's just gonna throw a lot of stuff off.

SPEAKER_00 5:19

Make sure it's just a simple word or simple couple words that you can avoid having numbers too to where you like like in your example twocool.com, whatever. You know, like if if that was your domain, say it was available, you have to say the number two. The number two, not you don't spell it out, or vice versa. Like if you have to spell it's two T W O or T O O or you know, whatever. Um, yeah, it just makes it really difficult. Like you could be talking about promoting your business instead of you're just trying to tell them how to find you, like it's a waste of time, right?

SPEAKER_01 5:52

And and I think once you get to a certain level in your branding, some of the the different spelling could help you. I really do, but it would be such it's gonna be such a process to try to like teach people the right spelling to your business, right? So it's like, is it worth it in the long term if you can have a simpler name that actually resonates with people? So keep that in mind.

Pronounce And Spell Tests With People

Avoid Over‑Narrow Niches

SPEAKER_00 6:15

Yeah. Um, I one thing I always like to do is whenever I'm choosing a name, I'll write it out and show someone the name and have them pronounce it. Right. Because that's a good idea. They're gonna say things differently than you would ever think, you know? And and so I like to do that, and then I like to find a different group of people and I like to tell them the name and have them spell it out. Yeah, like that's a good idea. So that way, like you can kind of know from both fronts, and you know, once you tell someone the name, or once you show them a name and have you know, like the they're they're not gonna give you a good answer on so separate it into two groups, tell people to read it, yeah, and then have people spell it. Right. Two different groups of people.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

And I think the last tip I would say is don't narrow your focus too much because you might be doing one thing right now, but it might narrow it so much that you either have to create a whole nother name.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

Like, let's say that if I did I always like to use, I don't know why, but I always like to use like soap as like say you were making men's soaps, yeah. Right, you wouldn't want to have a domain that has soaps in it or a business name because you may want to broaden your horizons and go more like maybe deodorant men's health care. Yeah, yeah, right, exactly.

The Hidden Cost Of Rebrands

SPEAKER_01 7:33

Things like colognes or something else, and but it's all soaps and you can't.

Like, Subscribe, And Launching Pros App

SPEAKER_00 7:36

Because once you once you pick a domain, you stay with that domain, don't change it. Like unless you absolutely have to. I've seen way too many times companies that want to rebrand and then they have to change their domain. And whenever you change your domain, you will lose traffic. Yeah. Like say you have an established brand of five plus years and you're getting a decent amount of organic traffic. As soon as you change that domain, you are your traffic's gonna just tank. Yeah, and it takes at least a year to build it back up to where it was before. And so you have to be prepared to take a hit for at least a year. And most companies, I mean, no one wants to do that, right? You don't want to take a 12-month revenue hit just to rebrand. So it's so important to take a little bit of extra time, get that brand right the first time so that you don't have to go through that painful process of changing in the future.

SPEAKER_01 8:32

If you like this episode, make sure you like and subscribe below, leave a comment, and share this episode with a friend that's also trying to grow their business.

SPEAKER_00 8:40

We want to help as many entrepreneurs learn how to launch and grow their business. So we've created a launching pros app at app.launchingpros.com where we have detailed checklists on not only how to start your business, but on how to grow it. There's free tiers, a lot of great information. Go on app.launchingprose.com to check it out.