“Your name is an ad your consumer carries for life, make it work harder than your budget.”
It’s a line that deserves a permanent place on every founder’s desk. Because in a marketplace where attention is fragmented, competition is indistinguishable, and loyalty is volatile, the first and often most overlooked lever of brand value is not performance marketing, not packaging, not even storytelling. It’s the name. The name is where it all begins.
Yet, across boardrooms and pitch decks, naming still slips into the category of ‘creative housekeeping’, a task to be checked off before the logo and far before the media plan.
But step into the real world where purchase decisions are made, based on a friendly whisper, a recommendation at the retail counter, a WhatsApp message from a colleague or the frantic two-second search bar moment and the truth becomes unavoidable: a name is noĒ a label. IĒ is a memory device. And memory devices creaĒe ROI.
But because naming doesn’t have a dashboard, a metric, or an attribution window attached to it, its impact remains invisible, until the cost of ignoring it becomes too high.
A great name works for you while you sleep. It is a high-efficiency asset. A weak or generic name is a perpetual tax, it works against you, draining power from everything else you do.
When we think of names such as Dr. Ortho or Petsaffa or even new age brands such as Mamaearth or Beardo, what stands out is how they lend themselves and add clarity to the product or promise.
They just don’t work at a recall level or feel familiar, they help frame how we might think and feel about the product in our mind, long before we choose to consider it, let alone buy it.
Andthat is the part many founders miss, a good name starts working before the marketing does. It builds pre-awareness and disposition. It plants a mnemonic seed. It removes friction. And most importantly, it creates mental availability long before the brand earns the right to demand attention.
A weak name, on the other hand, adds drag, silent but persistent.
A name like Schwarzkopf or Zequz may be great, but if you find yourself struggling to pronounce them the right way, then I think the point is made.
With names like these, one would have to first teach people how to say the name, leave alone recall it or recommend it. It will make every impression cost more. Every recall take longer. Every association need an explanation. Almost like an unseen tax on the consumer.
“A name is the only branding asset that grows in value even when the company sleeps.”
Unlike campaigns, names don’t expire. Unlike celebrities, they don’t contract. Unlike content, they don’t get scrolled past. Names compound.
Think of ‘Fogg Chal raha hain’, ‘Paytm karo’, Lets Uber’ or ’Swiggy karte hain’, and we can clearly see how these names have become so much more, they have become part of our daily language, owning a category default, ensuring they keep winning and ROI keeps compounding.
And this is where naming reveals another hidden truth: a name is not what the founder calls the brand. It is what the consumer calls it when they don’t have time to think.
Because, a good name helps serve in motion, in urgency, in habit, in the blur of everyday life. And the ones that win are those that create the right mental hooks.
Because, Good names build the right associations. Associations build shortcuts.
Shortcuts build preference. Preference builds market share.
That is the economics of naming.
Many founders we meet often believe that naming is a matter of taste or personality, a creative muse, a domain availability constraint, a stroke of coolness.
But naming, is more and needs more.
Most consumers will give your brand less than a second of cognitive energy before forming a judgement. They will not decode mythology, Latin roots, abstract symbolism or personal stories embedded in the name. They will respond to rhythm, sound, familiarity, tension, and promise.
This is why Rapido and Zomato worked the moment you heard it. This is why NoBroker or BookMyShow or LensKart communicated the business model without a pitch deck.
This is why Paper Boat felt warm,nostalgic, and distinctly Indian before the brand even launched a campaign.
A good name doesn’t just describe your brand. It also delivers the feeling of your brand quickly, unconsciously, and consistently.
That is ROI that never shows up on a spreadsheet, yet changes the economics of your growth.
Marketing rarely gives immediate feedback on naming errors. But slowly, the symptoms appear:
Brands with weak names spend years and millions cumulatively trying to fix what a three-week strategic naming process could have prevented.
Sometimes they course-correct, often too late, through expensive rebranding. Sometimes they stay trapped in the identity they created too early, spending endlessly to make it memorable.
And as founders, where we enjoy spending energy optimizing funnels. One of the biggest leaks is often at the very top, in the name itself
So, if you are a founder, the best time to invest in naming is not after PMF, Series A, or the first burst campaign. By then the market has already formed its first impression.
The best time is at the beginning, before code is written, before packaging is designed, before domains are bought.
A name is not the outcome of branding.
A name is the foundation on which all branding stands. Hence, the real question every founder should ask is simple:
Do I want to spend the next five years building recall… or defending a name that never had recall potential to begin with?
Because names don’t just identify. Names don’t just differentiate.
Names don’t just sound good on a deck.
Names build businesses.
After all, it is how you’re remembered. And how you grow.
