Ask HN: Should we rename our startup? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Should we rename our startup?

5 pointsPanosJee17 comments

Hi guys, we just launched a new service called Sfalma (the greek word for error, remember σ from math?) We though it was a bizarre word that could work but it seems that is very difficult for people to remember or even spell it. What do you think?

View on HN

I'd vote yes, change it. Something catchy and easy to remember (and spell) is a must. It looks like BugEaterApp.com is available! :-)

Depends on your demographics. My mom would hate it, dad would mistype it, I don't know how to pronounce it. It's not related or associated with anything in the daily life, and there is a disconnect between the spelling, pronunciation, and meaning for the layman. Only works for math, history and language buffs. That's a tiny corner.

I had a similar problem for an HCI project where we used a Greek word as the name and we got reamed in our reviews for the name being "unusable." I'd say change it -- it doesn't evoke any connotations for the user nor is it easily pronounceable.

The f could presumably be confused with a ph when telling it to someone. Otherwise, it's simple enough so I'd have thought it'd be at least easy to remember. But if you've had a couple of problems then it might be worth exploring other options.

Try an experiment: tell some people it's called "Sfalma" and tell other people it's called "The Bug Eater" and see which group is more likely to create an account within 2 weeks. I'd guess that obscure names aren't good, but you never know.

Keep it... the name says little. Sfalma will give you little google competition which on the long run may be important. Finally, basecamp uses the url basecamphq.com ... who would imagine that something like this would work.

The 'sf' combination is very rare in the English language (look up the dictionary), so difficult for people to remember how to spell it and therefore how to find it.

Change it.

Forget about the name, are you getting traction? Are users happy? That's what matters. You're just distracting yourself.

we have some users but not at the rate we would like. We tell people about the service but it seems they forget the name in 2 minutes. Of course online conversion is much more important than word of mouth

Change it. Definitely.

How about bugfollow or errorsniffer? Like either of those?

change it. people need to be able to spell it correctly in google. the downside is that you must find another name as unique (in search terms) as this.

I like sfalma, google was/is difficult to spell too...

it is a phonetic problem, people read s+f as 'sv' so they cannot type it

I vote change it.

Sfalma rocks.

Keep it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com