How Startups Stopped Being Fun

Some of the most famous startup success stories feature companies adept at being both serious and ridiculous.

Take two of the four most-valuable American companies: and . The first named itself after a fruit and pioneered personal computing. The second picked the silliest-sounding number and revolutionized online search.

Scores of others have also at some time secured large-cap valuations with offbeat names and branding strategies. launched the search engine race with a 鈥淐hief Yahoo鈥� as CEO. drivers once adorned their cars with pink mustaches. And Twitter (now ), embraced silly from the start.

Not long ago, startup naming was often a competitive exercise in absurdity. In 2017 and 2018, we devoted columns to tracking the trends.

Then, things got boring.

Not fun anymore

A few years ago, we began to notice a shift toward more staid, serious and spellable names. This accelerated with the pandemic and has persisted in the current AI unicorn era.

Looking at the most heavily funded startups of the year 鈥斅� a list that includes聽 , ,听 and 鈥� none has a name one could describe as 鈥渇un.鈥� It鈥檚 as if they had asked an AI chatbot for something that would score hefty investment but amuse no one.

鈥淭hey don鈥檛 have much playfulness,鈥� said , a founder of branding consultancy , regarding the general universe of AI startup names. 鈥淵ou have basically every word you can think of with AI tacked on to the end.鈥�

The sentiment about startup names getting serious is echoed by Michael Carr, co-founder and managing director of Austin, Texas-based consultancy . He attributes some of the shift to a perception among founders that 鈥渟illy, whimsical names aren鈥檛 going to get the same traction with venture capitalists.鈥�

Market cycles likely also play into this. In recent quarters, consumer products and services startups have raised a smaller share of total venture funding than has historically been the case. That matters, as these are companies likely to pick edgy names so people will remember them.

All the obvious names are taken

Another factor dampening adoption of many whimsical names is that they鈥檙e simply not available.

Today, there are millions of registered trademarks, meaning that most of the obvious, short, real-world names a founder might consider are already taken, per Carr. 鈥淚n general, it鈥檚 a lot聽 harder to come up with a name that cuts through the clutter,鈥� he observed.

To make trademark matters more complicated, founders are also looking for a name that鈥檚 viable in multiple countries. And even if they find a humorous option that鈥檚 legally available, it might not resonate with some of their audience.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a little difficult to get names that straddle that line that鈥檚 somewhat whimsical, but not so silly that you disregard it,鈥� Benedini said.

Some are sticking with silly

Moreover, while many startups with offbeat names have made it big, there are plenty of failures too. The list of famous venture-backed flops includes such names as , , , , and , to name a few.

True, startup investors have also made a lot of losing bets on companies with boring names. One advantage, however, is that people are less likely to remember them.

These days, even as offbeat names are less in favor, we do still see some startups going this route. To illustrate, we used 附近上门 data to put together a sample list of 15 such companies founded in the past two years that have raised millions in funding.

Personally, I鈥檓 partial to : memorable, evocative and, so far as I can tell, pretty unique. It doesn鈥檛 exactly scream 鈥淎I code startup,鈥� but, hey, you can鈥檛 have everything.

In a world where AI startups want to stand out for their brilliance, is also one to remember. It makes some logical sense as well, given the role AI is expected to play in automating away some of our blander business tasks.

Benedini, meanwhile, favors , an AI-powered content creator that has nothing to do with frogs. (Unless you were specifically seeking frog-related content, I suppose.)

For now, it鈥檚 not clear what it will take for weird names to make a comeback en masse. Perhaps the best we can hope is that oddly named startups will raise a ton of money, thus allowing others to feel confident that this can in fact be a viable branding strategy.

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