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How to name your startup: David Placek, named Vercel, Azure and BlackBerry

Scaling DevTools · YouTube (Scaling DevTools) Free Intermediate

This is a watchable walkthrough from David Placek, the professional namer behind Vercel, Azure, and BlackBerry, so the advice on what makes a name work (and what makes founders pick weak ones) comes from someone who has done it thousands of times. He is candid that the common mistake is a name that only describes what the product does and captures no imagination, which is the trap most early founders fall into. Use it to shift how you think about naming, then bring your own shortlist back to the checklist.

• The default founder mistake is a purely descriptive name, which is easy to forget and hard to differentiate.
• Sound and letters carry meaning: the way a name is said shapes how people feel about it before they know what you do.
• Good naming is a deliberate process with a shortlist and testing, not a one-evening brainstorm.