Only One Thing Matters When Choosing a Name for Your Startup

And the thing that matters most is never what most people think.

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

I’m typing this article on my iPad. Isn’t that funny?

No? It’s not funny?

Then I guess you’re not reading this article on March 7th, 2012. That’s the day Steve Jobs announced the iPad, and everyone spent the next month laughing at the name. For example, I specifically remember a Saturday Night Live skit talking about iPads as a certain type of feminine hygiene product. But, here we are, over a decade later, I’m busily typing away on an iPad in the middle of a coffee shop, and nobody is making fun of me. I guess they’ve all forgotten that the name “iPad” used to be a punchline.

I bring this up because I recently named a company, and, when I launched it, the name generated lots of strong opinions. The company is called Autopest. It’s a ChatGPT-powered, automated email follow-up tool.

Within the first few hours of announcing Autopest, people emailed and tweeted and commented to tell me they loved the idea, but they could never see themselves using an email marketing tool with the word “pest” in it because they didn’t want to feel like they were bugging people. If I would just change the name, they assured me, lots of people would sign…