Have you struggled with the wahala (troubles) of deciding a name for your business ?
This seemingly simple thing is not a joke O!.. it looks so simple yet so complicated.
I wanted something very catchy and concise, funky and still easily remembered by my customers. Ah!, what did I not try? I used all my names, a combination of first letters, first vowels; I even tried using my zodiac sign in English, Spanish, French and Roman even Hausa and yet nothing!.
It was when days had passed and I still hadn’t picked a name that I realized I had spent too much time on the frivolity of picking a name. Don’t get me wrong, I know picking the right name is very important to your business as it can attract and repel customers as well but I was wasting time and my business still needed one that would be catchy and still be easily remembered by customers,.. you get ?.
To be honest, the name of your business is not as important as the purpose it is to fulfill whatever silly name you give it, as long as you make it easy to pronounce and remember, the rest will be built on it..
auntyronke
So what did I decide on then?
I simply picked my first name ‘Ronke’ and the product I was selling ‘Ankara’ and used a combination of both as my business name. Since the arrangement of the name before the product was very common, I decided to switch my own and tada! “AnkaraRonke” was born.
My process may look very simple to you but it was definitely not simple as I’m sure many have struggled doing this too. So let me give you a few tips for getting your perfect business or domain name.
- It’s a lie o, there’s no perfect name. Me for example, I kept thinking ‘Don’t worry Ronke, when you see the right name you’ll know.’ Toh, that was a very wrong speculation. Like your birth name, you did not get to pick it, did you? But somehow, you grew into it and it seems to fit your personality as well.
don’t fuss over a perfect name, customers will come to accept your brand name as long as your product or service remains visible and fulfills their purpose.
auntyronke
It’s the same for your business, I think? Yes. Your customers will definitely come to accept the name as long as your product or service remains visible and fulfills their purpose.
- Get a name that’s simple or easily pronounced & spelt, “abeg”. I don’t think anyone wants to go through the pains of looking for “Deewai signature beauty hair ”? Ahahn, and you’ll still want that name on your site, your logo and other items of your business. Please O!, something short is always preferable; one or two words is okay.
- You can use your name or product (like me AnkaraRonke), you can pick a random word that means absolutely nothing or everything (as long as they’re all positive, for example, the word ‘Flow’), you can even use acronyms too (take TM for example which stand for Toke Makinwa or LIB for Linda Ikeji Blog ).
In fact, your name can come from everywhere and everything but just make sure that the name has long term usability, biko. I’ve seen names like ‘funkygirl.com’ and my question is, when that girl becomes a woman will she still like that name? Or will it still be functional for what she initially wanted it for? Even 2Face, (a Nigerian musician), changed his name to 2Baba somewhere along the line (let’s just hope it doesn’t become 2Grandpa soon *wink*)
Lastly, after picking my name I quickly went online to check if the name was available. I just typed ankararonke.com on my browser and when no result came up, I knew I was good to go.
I hope these tips were helpful?
Can you please share your own experience that helped you decide your business name and start a ‘perfect’ business.
You don’t want to understand the beginning of my “wahala” (woes) on this website matter …#kilode
Well; after deciding my business name, the next step was deciding on the domain and hosting of my site. That one too sef!… STRESS; as In you cannot even imagine it. Why are these web designers & developers always complicated? Read how I conquered this in my next post.
