[bflesch]

I'm always baffled by the naivity of people when deciding on company names. The challenge is not to spend dollars on finding a new name that is as cool as possible, but the challenge is to find a name:

- that is not used in that context anywhere else, therefore

- free of potential legal liability towards other brands, and

- for which you can build up a brand over time.

How come otherwise competent engineers end up with these kinds of suboptimal startup/project names over and over again?

For Powwow you have other companies, all domains are taken, and you will have to fight wikipedia to rank for this term in any top spot. Same with otto, the car company. Otto is popular first name, name of one of the largest European pre-amazon retailers, etc.

Such a waste of money and time to start with a second-hand brand.

(sorry if this comes across as snarky, I really like the project.)

[johnomarkid]

You used Otto as an example. It was acquired by Uber for $680M. Doesn't that mean company names might be less important than you think?

I purchased powwowjs.com (js because it's a javascript embedded app) for $40 after spending 15 minutes thinking about a name I liked. I'd rather spend my time and money building a product that is not yet validated. If the name needs to change, that's totally fine and a lot less time consuming than my current task at hand.

[bflesch]

Otto is a huge corruption case right now, and I've read articles indicating that the whole otto vehicle was just set up to funnel IP out of Google into Uber. So the "exit" might've been constructed a bit.

Not criticizing the content of your project, but I think you make it harder for yourself than you needed to. Several avenues are blocked right from the start depending on name choice, and rebranding is really expensive.

[dokein]

Otto is a bad comparison for anyone because it was more of an intellectual trust sold to larger companies than a true startup. I agree that plenty of companies change their names though.

[wtvanhest]

This is the right approach imo. You could call it jhgjgddsdghkkl. As long as the product is awesome, people will figure it out.

[bflesch]

I remember the first time reading about ifttt as a non-native speaker :)