A while ago my company changed its name from Pixily to OfficeDrop. While we briefly talked about this on our blog, two recent posts have talked about this change. Dharmesh Shah’s OnStartups has a piece on coming up with a company name written by me (and OfficeDrop’s fearless marketing intern Matt Fellows). Matt and I detailed the name change brainstorming and customer validation/involvement process. I’m glad Dharmesh published this piece - he and I have had some pretty involved/heated discussions on the importance of choosing your startup’s name and the ramifications of actually getting a particular name.
Ivana Taylor, a small business technology and marketing professional, posted an interview she did with me on the QuestionPro blog on how we changed our name from Pixily to OfficeDrop. It was nice of her to do such and extensive writeup on our process.
Startup naming is a very difficult thing to do. It’s hard to find a name that customers will remember, that is somehow descriptive or evokes what it is that you do - and finally one that you can get the domain name of. Domain name hording isn’t too bad of an idea - OfficeDrop owns over 200 domains, and I’ve been collecting a ton recently too around the concept of the smart grid and smart grid applications.
