Saturday Startup Tip #3: Naming Your Business

Naming your business is one of the most important decisions you will ever make. A great business name is memorable, distinctive and evocative. A mediocre business name is forgettable, undifferentiated and blasé.

Sure, you can change it at any time, but doing so is both risky and expensive (care to even hazard a guess as to how much it's costing American Express to rebrand their financial services group to Ameriprise?). Changing names not only costs you "brand equity", i.e., the loss of the value of brand recognition, it also means you have to change all of your branded materials -- marketing slicks, stationery, business cards, etc.

Naming your business is a four-step process:

1. Brainstorming - Let your mind run free. Don't judge. Just list ideas. Get input from employees, associates and friends.
2. Selection - Out of all the ideas, start by eliminating ones that simply don't work for one reason or another, then choose your top few remaining to take to the next step.
3. Research - First, you have to make sure that no one else is using the name or something very similar to it. Do a web search on the name and go through all the results. Also do a trademark search, both in your own country and possibly internationally. Of course, your name only needs to be unique within the market it serves, e.g., Joe's Bar, Lakeside Grill, etc. You can do a free search of local fictitious business names and DBAs at the appropriate government office (county clerks in the U.S.). and for corporation names with the appropriate government office (Secretary of State offices in the U.S.).
4. Register - Once you have found that your best choice of name is sufficiently unique within your market, you need to register it as appropriate. That may mean filing a DBA, or creating an appropriate business entity, or filing a trademark (or all of the above).

Now you're in business! You can get business cards, open a business bank account, and start building your new brand.

Related: How to Create a Great Business Name

Related: The 10 Commandments of a Great Business Name

Related: Put Your Business Name to the Test