Your brand name is not the most important thing.
What makes a great brand? It’s difficult to quantify. Ask 10 people and you will get 10 answers. It’s subjective and messy, and for every rule that you can find, there’s an exception. Personally, I don’t think that Studio Ghibli is a very great brand. I have no emotional connection to the word studio or ghibli. What is a ghibli? I don’t know, and I kind of don’t care. But I connect to the brand Studio Ghibli. I feel something when I hear those words. Why? Because, I care about their movies, and therefore I care about the name of the studio that created those movies.
Apple is not popular because their name is Apple. Their popular because they have a track record of keeping their customers happy. Same thing with Nike, McDonald’s or any other successful company.
I wouldn’t waste time looking for the perfect brand that looks or sounds the best. This is not a wise use of your time. A brand is just a label for a company. If the company sucks, then the brand sucks. If the company is great, then it is still great even if the brand sucks, and if the brand is consistently great, then over time, people will love the brand.
Intrepid Nimbus Studios is admittedly a long name, but I don’t think this is what you should be marketing anyways. I don’t think the majority of people1 care about the studio primarily. They care about quality. What has that studio made?
Let’s look at a case study of Pixar. When Toy Story came out, they were a nobody. They relied on Disney’s brand. By the time Finding Nemo came out, their trailers said “From the makers of Toy Story, and A Bug’s Life”. Why? Because those were quality movies that people knew. They knew the quality more than the brand name Pixar. Eventually, their trailers, just said Pixar, but that was after they had a long track record of delivering quality. (Even their logo points back to prior quality. That lamp character is from a short that they made that was high quality.)
What I Think Makes A Good Brand
Again, I will say that the rules for a good brand are nebulous and vague. But the rules of a bad brand are much clearer. Check if you have a bad brand:
- Is your brand already taken?
- Can you buy and own the URL domain?
- Are all the social media accounts taken?
- Is it so hard to spell that it just makes it hard to find?
- Is it so hard to pronounce?
- Are you spending more time talking to people about your name rather than what you actually do and make?
These are deal breakers. Don’t use a brand that falls under one of these. If you do, it’s not the end of the world. You can rise above it, but it will require extra work. Ultimately, your question should be Is this brand an asset or a liability? Is it speeding us up or slowing us down?
I started a band with the name The Fresh Preps. For the next 8 years, I constantly had to explain to people how to spell and pronounce our name. That name did not help us. But if we were a strong enough company, it still wouldn’t have mattered. They would have known our name because they had heard it multiple times.
Perhaps the Most Important Question
There’s one more question, that I think you all should be asking, because all 3 of your are co-founders.
Am I excited to start a company with this name?
If you are not excited to have this name, then that is a very, very big problem! You’ve decided to be founders of a startup. That means, in order for this thing to be successful, then for the next 5 years (minimum2), you need to constantly be convincing other people3 to believe in you and your vision.
You have to believe in this. If you don’t, it will fall apart. You have to believe in your company, in your cofounders, in your vision, in your goals, and yes, also your brand. You will be burnt out, sooner or later. It’s not a matter of if, but when. But if you truly believe in these things, then that will give you the courage, resolve, and energy to push through the struggle.