I have spent the last 4 weeks obsessing over a business name. I had some that I came up with in college as part of my business plan but because I had to create a restaurant business plan (punishment for choosing the path of pastry, I imagine), they didn't really fit into what I envisioned for my bakery.
I enlisted the help of my friend, Jen who is probably the most creative brainstorming prodigy that ever lived. I came up with about five names in 30 minutes. I was pretty proud of myself considering I felt they were all exceptionally creative. I called Jen to see if she could help me brainstorm and her response was, "Sure, just give me some time to think about it." Five minutes later, I got about 20 names. Ridiculous.
So over the course of a month, I have had dozens of names on which to ponder. I had friends and work colleagues weigh in on the list of names and got the list down to two. I was excited about these final contenders until I realized that domain names were not available. It is incredibly important to me that I have website address that makes sense to the public. I'm the kind of person who will type a business name into the address bar instead of "Googling" it (I don't know if that's normal but I imagine I'm not the only one who shows the address bar some love). Besides the URL, the business names were very specific and I was concerned that I was painting myself into a corner with nowhere to go should I decide to expand my focus.
Tonight, I was game-planning my cleaning schedule for the evening (also known as procrastinating) and a name came to be out of the blue. I called my mom to get her input and she loved it. I immediately went online and checked to see if the URL was available. It was! For a mere $2,600 I could be the proud owner of that URL!
Appalled at myself for the time I spent actually considering it, I started getting creative... I could go to a .net instead of a .com but address-bar-lovers like myself would not think to type that domain suffix. I decided to insert a dash in the middle so I could still register a .com. Now, I realize that still poses an issue for typing it in the address bar but it seemed like a better option so I purchased it.
I would love to share the URL but I'm not in a position to build the webpage yet. Also, I'm still determining what steps I have to take to register my business name (there are all kinds of exceptions and "if, then" rules) so I'm keeping it under wraps until the name is officially mine. I fear this will create suspense that the name doesn't really warrant but I stand behind the name I chose so I'll explain it when I reveal it (if it really isn't obvious enough).
One step closer to making my dream a reality!
