Cloverpop...What's in a Name?

Last month, after the thousandth time explaining/spelling the company name (Wahanegi) and the prototype name (Wyzyr), I finally got my act together and did some real branding work. Say hello to Cloverpop!

Here's the story.

Back in 2001 I bought the domain Wahanegi, which stands for Want Have Need Give. I felt that those four words described our primary motivations, and mapped somewhat to the architecture of our brains: from need down in the brain stem and cerebellum, to want in the basal ganglia and company, to have in the cerebral hemispheres, to give in the prefrontal cortex. The name sounded good. I just went with my gut and moved on. It was just a domain name and a vague idea.

Then I incorporated as Wahanegi Inc last year and held a huge contest with almost 2000 designs from 500 designers to come up with a logo. The resulting logo captured perfectly what I hoped the company would do - use social technology to help people become authentically happier with a feeling of interconnection and balance. The design process helped me introspect and understand my own vision for the company. The choice of the logo came from my gut. It immediately felt right. But I still forced myself to methodically cut hundreds of other possibilities to fully articulate my gut feelings.

It was tiring but fun, as something worthwhile usually is. And my gut was right.

In the meantime, after repeating myself for the 1000th time, it became clear that Want Have Need Give was not a good mnemonic. Not surprising since I'd never tested it. The Wyzyr prototype name was always a temporary fix, and the developers were close to finishing up v0.1 of the product. We needed a real name.

I decided to start from the logo, since I knew it was great. I wanted a name that fit with the logo and was also concrete, visual, alive, easy to say and spell and that resonated a lot with some customers without turning anyone off. I wanted something that combined growth and action.

One night at three in the morning suddenly a name popped into my head: Cloverpop. I loved it! A neat little bundle of growth and action. But I got out of bed and brainstormed about a thousand more names, checked if the urls were available, Google and trademark searched the remaining few hundred to see if their associations were good and clear of clutter, then winnowed and winnowed until I had twenty names including Cloverpop. I bought all the urls, and ran a huge, four-round online test with 5000 people to see which name would win.

Cloverpop won. Woohoo!!!

That testing process may sound ridiculous to some people. Why bother, when my gut instinct was so strong? Because it wasn't a bother, and it was worthwhile. I've named many other products, and in the past getting 500 designers to create thousands of logos, or 5000 people to test a dozen brand names, would have taken weeks or months and tens of thousands of dollars or more. But with the Internet, it only cost me a few hundred dollars and a few hours to get there. And the resulting clarity and confidence are invaluable.

That is what Cloverpop is about. It puts clarity and confidence on tap for individual decision makers. It helps teams make faster, better decisions together. It uses insights about human nature to drive decisiveness and success in organizations.

Cloverpop changes decision-making by helping people. And software like Cloverpop makes the process so fast and easy, and  that not using it doesn't make any sense.

Are you facing a decision in your business? Try it!