Starting Out

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05
Oct

3 tips for choosing a name for your startup business

Written by Trevor Young

This is the part of setting up a business that I love! Giving your startup enterprise a name (and subsequently developing a logo) makes it all that more real, and therefore it can be an exciting exercise, if not a bit daunting and sometimes frustrating as well. Having gone through this process numerous times in my professional life, as well as worked with numerous startups—not necessarily in naming them, but working with what they had as a name (for better or worse), here are some thoughts I’ve had along the journey. (NOTE: these tips can also apply to the naming of a new product or service, or an event you’re running—essentially anything that will be a sub-brand of your overall business). 1. Make sure you can get the domain name. This will probably be the ultimate determinant as to which name you go for; you might have a brilliant name for your business, but if you can’t make it work from a web domain perspective, then you’re pretty much back to square one. Let’s face it, your website is probably your most important marketing tool today; if your domain is not congruent with your business name, forget it! This is why you see many online businesses make up words (Google, anyone?) or change the spelling of existing words (e.g. Flickr, Flippa) or join two words together (Airtasker, Facebook, MailChimp, PayPal, HubSpot, etc). If it’s the only way to get the .com, .com.au or .co.nz domain, then it’s worth considering. 2. Try to ensure there’s a story behind your name. What is the purpose behind your business, its reason for being? How and why did you come up with the name? I do some work with a startup called SplitIt.com.au—they’re a comparison and switching website, but unlike their competitors, rather than keep the commission they receive from service providers, SplitIt.com.au splits it 50/50 with their customers. Name says it all really! Take a leaf out of how marketing and PR people name their agencies. For example, Man Bites Dog is a personal favourite of mine—it’s a B2B PR firm from the UK and refers to a classic truism in PR and media circles, which is: If a dog bites a man, it’s not news, but if a man bites a dog, it is news! Nice one. Another fave is Threepipe Communications, which was inspired by one of the world’s most insightful and creative minds, Sherlock Holmes, who was quoted as saying: "It is quite a three pipe problem.” (As in, he needed to stop, think and smoke for 50 minutes to think about a particular problem.) Threepipe’s mantra is: “We see what others don’t see, leading to solutions others would never find.” I think in this age of social media, content marketing and online communications, this is definitely an area I would be focusing on. (I once named my consulting business ONE19 Communications after Geelong’s 119 point demolition of Port Adelaide in the AFL Grand Final! Nothing to do with the business, but hey, it was a great conversation-starter!) 3. The shorter and sharper, the better. We live in an information-overloaded world; the marketplace is crowded and noisy. A long and convoluted name won’t do you any favours. You need something that’s preferably short, sharp and memorable. Look at the big names, the two-syllable ‘monsters’—Apple, Nike, eBay, Virgin, Twitter, Intel, Starbucks—they were (mostly) relatively small companies once. Think small before thinking big! But ultimately, you need to like your business name because you’re gonna be stuck with it for potentially a long time! Good luck! Trevor Young | Consultant | Speaker/Trainer | Content Creator | Author - 'Micro Maven Manifesto'

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20
Sep

Designing an ergonomic home office

Written by Des Walsh

In a recent post on challenges in running a business from home, I included as one of the key challenges the risks of stress, ill health and strained relationships from working excessive hours. I realise now I could have added the risk of working in a home office space that has not been set up to be ergonomically helpful—in other words, with everything arranged so you can interact with that environment efficiently and safely. So what would that involve?

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15
Aug

3 key challenges in running a business from home

Written by Des Walsh

One of the good things about running a business from home is the 30 second commute, which is as long as it takes me to get from the breakfast table to my desk and computer. It sure beats the 40 minutes each way in traffic that I used to face every working day. There are other good things, such as the lower overheads from not having to own or rent separate business premises. And flexible working hours. Also, there is no question in my mind that developments like cloud technology (http://myob.com.au/blog/the-benefits-of-cloud-technology/) have enhanced the attractiveness of running a business from home. But there are challenges too. They include especially: a sense of isolation interruptions by family and friends the risk of stress, ill-health and strained family relationships

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13
Aug

Aussie Start-Up Events: 12.08.12

Written by Mat Beeche

It’s been a whirlwind couple of weeks on the Aussie startup scene. Over 1,700 young entrepreneurs attended the Unconvention in Melbourne to meet, network and hear from some of Australia’s top business minds such as Ruslan Kogan and Dorry Kordahi. And keeping with the young theme, startup One Can Grow, which aims to educate high school students about how to monetise their passions, finished their 8 week pilot program. The organisation held a Dragon’s Den event at ATP Innovations, where students from three schools in Sydney pitched their business ideas to a panel of investors from Australia. As an audience member, I have to say I was left speechless at the brains, ideas and just general business acumen of this bunch of 15/16 year olds. I have a feeling a lot of us will be working for them in the not-too-distant future. In this week’s post I have decided to focus on “regular events” that happen around the startup scene. And there are hundreds in all different sectors everyday, so while I will be naming a few, please feel free to comment below and share other startup events that you want to let everyone know about!

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06
Aug

Small business events round up: 5 August 2012

Written by Natalie Giddings

What’s on in the next couple of weeks There is a bunch on this round up!! Do you have an event you would like included in the next round up? Reach me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Melbourne From Sales Zero to Sales Hero – Wed., August 8th Gabrielle Dolan and Yamini Naidu, experts in business and thought leaders in storytelling, know exactly what it takes for you to increase your sales, convert prospects into raving fans and more…all through the power of storytelling. Where: Hub Melbourne, Level 3, 673 Bourke Street Time: 10AM – 11AM

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01
Aug

What’s On: The Aussie Startup Scene

Written by Mat Beeche

In these bi-weekly articles for MYOB we will be taking a look at the startup space and some of the events taking place around Australia. One of the things we all need to be aware of when it comes to the startup space though, is the MASSIVE amount of formal and informal events taking place almost daily, so each fortnight I will highlight a select few that I think are standouts at the time. However some of the places that all entrepreneurs should be looking at for event information for the startup space are: Meetup.com Thefetch.com Shoestring.com.au Linkedin.com Here are some of the upcoming events that are a MUST in the next few weeks.

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