Startups, ditch the jargon and stop making up words to describe yourself

Browsing through the names and slogans of Asia’s tech startups, you see a lot of weird stuff. Every company wants to set itself apart, so that it can have a unique domain name and also to stand out in the minds of users, journalists, and investors. There’s value to being original, and I get that.

But more than a few startups take their “originality” in the same direction: combining two actual words into a new word that means absolutely nothing. I recently came across a textbook example of this (sorry for picking on you, guys): an Indian augmented reality startup called Imaginate. The company’s tagline: “Technovating reality.”

The problem with this approach to naming and branding your startup is that it’s totally meaningless. What does “imaginate” mean? What does “technovating reality” mean? I have no idea. In all honesty, if I hadn’t come across Imaginate on the books of incubator Startup Chile, I would have thought it was a joke. The name and tagline sound like something straight out of this scene from HBO’s satirical comedy Silicon Valley (warning: NSFW language).

This approach to startup naming and branding is common practice – we see startups with names and slogans like Imaginate’s all the time. My plea to all of you: please stop. It’s terribly unoriginal, and what’s worse, it’s extremely ineffective.

For example: compare “Imaginate: Technovating reality” to “Subway: eat fresh.” Both companies have one-word names and two-word slogans. But Imaginate’s name and slogan don’t give me much information at all. I guess I can assume the company is related to technology, and considers itself imaginative and innovative. That’s pretty vague. Subway’s branding, on the other hand, tells me a lot. From the name and the “eat” in the slogan, I can guess that they’re a restaurant that serves “sub” sandwiches. The “fresh” makes me think about crisp lettuce and fresh-baked bread. Just from those three words, I know exactly what Subway does, and I’m a little hungry.

Of course that’s an unfair comparison: Subway has billions of dollars and a team of marketing experts that probably spent months or years coming up with that slogan. But that kind of attention to branding is arguably more important to startups, especially startups in Asia where competitors can number in the hundreds. A good name and a clear slogan can mean the difference between catching an investor’s eye or putting her to sleep.

With that in mind, some guidelines for naming and branding your startup:

• Don’t make up words. Your company name can be invented if you must (though a clever reference to a real word like Google is better), but your slogan or tagline needs to be real words that convey information.
• Avoid jargon. Potential investors may not be experts in your field, or even experts in tech at all. A jargon-y slogan will go over some people’s heads. Simplify: at its most basic, human level, what does your startup do?
• Avoid buzzwords. I’ve said it before: unless people are getting guillotined, your product is not “revolutionary.” Other so-common-they’re-boring words like disruptive and innovative should also be crossed off of your list too. These words are useless anyway. Use your slogan to explain what your startup does as clearly and compellingly as possible. If it’s truly innovative or disruptive, people will be able to tell on their own. If you have to tell someone your company is innovative, that means it probably isn’t.