Ask HN: Name my startup | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Name my startup

2 points_pmpt8 comments

Hi! I am launching a new eco-friendly and sustainable personal care and household care startup and I need your help for choosing a name! We are launching in under 6 months in the US & Canada, and later in Europe.

We are in a dilemma about choosing a name that fits. We have the necessary domains with both options. These are the options:

---- [redacted] or [redacted] Society. We like this name because it associates with sustainability and community. We can drop the society if only [redacted] is better. It also feels futuristic, imagine the year is 2300 and there's shuttle busses going between planets in the solar system and you hop on the bus that says [redacted], next stop ISS :D

---- Lavabo. We like this name because it means "washbasin" in almost all of European languages. Its also short and sweet. Since most personal care products are kept on the sink, it also fits our business!

Our mission is to reduce CO2 by cutting out unnecessary water from personal care and household products. We all have tap water at home, why don't we just cut shipping costs and pollution with a "Bring your own water" solution where you can use tap water to dissolve the products at home! Our first product will be toothpaste and mouthwash tablets which are infinitely refillable and come in zero waste and zero plastic packaging.

The brand style we are going for is sort of eco-friendly, hipsterish, West Coast / California, but also lifestyle. Our direct competitors are called Everist and BlueLand. Simple names like that would work. Essentially the products are ecommerce, direct to consumer, modern, innovative.

Whats your opinion? Every single answer helps, also I can send you free samples once the first batch arrives if interested! Oh, if you dont like either name feel free to submit a name you like!

Almost nobody thinks of "earthbound" as suggesting a far-future flight from another world to earth. Instead, the connotations of earthbound are risk aversion, hesitancy to explore and discover, and fear of change. Many people are familiar with the phrase "earthbound misfit" from "Learning to Fly" (a Pink Floyd song). If you're trying to introduce an innovative and exciting product line, "earthbound" isn't it.

"lavabo" sounds too close to "lavatory" - and this has even stronger negative connotations. For Americans, at least, a "lavatory" (and thus perhaps the entire "lav-" word stem that means "wash") is never something that you have in your home. The term "lavatory" would most commonly be used at a school, but may also often be used at any other non-residential building. For Americans, "lavatory" almost always means a room that you visit to eliminate your bodily wastes (it doesn't only mean where you would wash afterward). Because anyone in the building can use the lavatory, it's usually not thought to be fully sanitary.

Potential customers will hate both of these, but "lavabo" is sure to kill U.S. sales.

Thanks for the input. Do you happen to have any examples of names you think are good for this industry? Such as company names or fictional or just your ideas?

Lavabo is a label you can brand the way you want while EarthBound is a tad generic in English. Lavabo is also shorter and you can expand the market and you won't need to rebrand. Lavabo is better with a single phrase while EarthBound is two.

However, it will be harder and a longer work to brand up Lavabo than EarthBound. But once you succeed, that will pay off.

I agree, my team came to the same realization actually haha!

for "Thats exactly what we will be doing initially! Our tablets taste much better than Bite!" I might go with the brand "habitablets" and the tagline "where self-care meets planet-care"

the idea is that "habitablets" are a type of "tablets" that (when widely adopted to reduce packaging waste and shipping waste) will ultimately make our planet more "habitable"

We are on well water, which is very hard here.

Also we currently get monthly shipments of toothpaste tablets and floss from a company called Bite.

Thats exactly what we will be doing initially! Our tablets taste much better than Bite! They put too much abrasives in their formula and the texture is not great since it leaves powder clumps as it dissolves.

They're really overcharging... We aim to keep it at > $5 for a monthly pack, and we'll also do 2 in 1 mouthwash toothpaste tabs since the formula is pretty much the same for both products with the only difference being the quantity of the foaming agent.

Also, the lids on their jars actually have plastic lining, which goes directly against with their zero plastic marketing! We are only using aluminium packaging and paper/cardboard.

I youre interested I can ship you a few packs for free once we have the first batch done!

'Lavabo' is an ugly word, I prefer 'Earthbound'.

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