The struggle of finding a name for your business

As every entrepreneur knows, finding a name for your business, organization, or venture, is never easy. We reached out to a company that has found an innovative and disruptive way to help entrepreneurs out to hear their advice.

Grant Polachek is the Director of Marketing at Inc 500 company Squadhelp.com, a naming platform, with nearly 20,000 customers from the smallest startups across the globe to the largest corporations.

What excites you most about what you do?

We are doing something totally unique, which is an exciting feeling. Naming had previously been left out of branding and marketing discussions that tended to focus on social media, content, and web design. It’s interesting to talk about naming in an entirely new way.

Naming a business is a challenge that so many entrepreneurs struggle with. Similar to companies like Uber and Airbnb, we are providing modern and disruptive solutions.

I love being part of the democratization of the business naming process by making agency-level naming support available as an affordable resource. We are able to do this through a combination of crowdsourcing and innovative technology such as AI and Machine learning.

Why is finding a name for a new business or service so challenging?

There are two major challenges with naming:

Understanding how to use a brand name to support your business. This is because most people don’t realize that a business name can be more than just a word on a page. A name is a great branding tool to have in your arsenal and shouldn’t be overlooked.

Scarcity – With over 6 million trademarks filed and 250 million domains registered, finding an available name can be difficult and is only getting harder as time goes on. While coming up with the first few great name ideas is typically easy, it gets increasingly difficult when people realize that all the low-hanging ideas are already taken. When people realize the scarcity, then they begin to panic and make bad branding decisions.

You were recognized as one of Inc Magazine’s most innovative businesses in 2018 – why?

There are several things that are uniquely innovative about Squadhelp: (1) We are solving a very unique and often overlooked problem. Squadhelp is an accidental startup. Our founder built the platform as a side project and resource for other entrepreneurs while launching another venture. So addressing this problem is innovative in and of itself. (2) We put a lot of cutting edge thinking into our platform, combining advanced tech with crowdsourcing and even agency-style validation and support. (3) We’re also a unique outlet for our Creative Community. Anyone who loves words and has a knack for branding can participate and earn. Within our community, there are a lot of awesome stories about people using their winnings to fund charitable work, make tuition payments, help family members, and generally live a better life.

What was your biggest challenge in launching your business?

Squadhelp actually began when our founder, Darpan Munjal, had to come up with a name for a different business venture. He decided the turn to a forum and offer an award for anyone who could come up with the perfect name. This sparked a new idea, which led him to found Squadhelp. For a few years, he let the system run itself, then realized that it was generating buzz without much oversight. So, he then decided to focus his energy fully on Squadhelp, and this allowed it to grow rapidly and become an Inc 500 company.

Can you share any success stories or a favorite naming story?

We have seen a lot of strong names come in. My favorite kind of situation is when I am working one-on-one with a client, and I find that a particular name that really suits their business. At first, they may not see the connection because it’s common for the most intriguing options to be the less obvious ones. However, when we discuss it, they realize what a unique name it is, and I can help them pinpoint exactly how the name will help their business succeed.

I have a few favorite names from our contests: The Human Priority for a health services consulting firm stands out to me because it highlights how a name can reflect the values and beliefs of a business.

Hubbers who are interested in Squadhelp.com’s services are eligible for a coupon – reach out to our team to redeem it!