Ouch!!!   This one hurt and rubbed some salt into an apparent, but unknown, reoccurring self inflicted wound.



The topics presented in this week's readings are of course all good, but again OUCH.
Now to the point that I am going to embarrassingly have to discuss, which is The Five Company Naming Mistakes ...
Let me list them:

1. Using a Literal or Descriptive Name
2. Basing the Company Name on a Product or Service
3. Letting the Map Determine Your Company’s Future Direction
4. Using a Meaningless Acronym to Spell Out Your Identity
5. Relying on Your Last Name as Your First Alternative

I am so guilty of these things and I will now explain.  The first company I started, and still to this day am using occasionally, used me last name as the first word in the company name.  The reason is obvious when one understands that it is faster, easier, and less expensive to start a company using that naming convention. It is why it is done.  There is no wait for three weeks of publishing a fictitious name statement.  That time and cost is eliminated.  Therefore it will persist as a new small business behavior.

Next sin was using a literal or descriptive name for another business.  How does this grab you?  Pool Construction Services. Yep, I even did the fictitious name for that one. I made more money faster in that venture than anything else I had done.  

Here is one based on the company name being what the service/product was, California Tropical Pool Construction.  Yep that is what I specialized in Pools built in California around a tropical theme. That is what I specialized in. Worse still was the website "caltropic.xxx. Not an acronym, but close. Finally I let the map that determined the company's future direction.  I used the word California in the name. The truth is that I would have built in Nevada and Arizona too if the job was right.

So guilty I am of these sins, while I am not sure they were really detriments to what I was, and wanted to be doing, at the time.

You can be assured though that if  when I jump in again, this article will enter my mind when I am thinking of a name.

Now to the 100 Dollar Challenge update.

I have spent many late hours taking apart various really ugly sheds and garage storage shelving at my daughter's newly purchased house (one and one weeks now). I have been using the better of the scrap that was not dry rot or termite infected to build a luxury chicken condominium.  Pictures will come soon, so relax.  The venture is to sell fresh free range eggs.  The word has gotten out and there are already some customers.  The condo will be done early next week, but I have run into a hitch.  The chickens that I was going to get as a jump start may not be available.  They are older hens that a friend was thinking about rotating out (that means a BBQ),  His daughter,  (no longer living at home) seems to be attached to them and doesn't like either idea (BBQ or a re-homing that she knows will become a BBQ too if I am involved she does know me). 

So there is a bump in the road.  Stay tuned ...

BTW: It is a great chicken condo.