Congrats you are ready to start your own business! You have finally made the choose to stick it to the man and make your own hours, work on projects YOU want to work on and only surround yourself with positive and supportive people.
But what are you going to call your business? You could just go with your name. But the problem you are trying to solve with your new business idea won't really make since if you just default to your name.
So, you come up with a super catchy name that makes since for your future customers. You find that the domain is free, so you snatch that up. You get your logo designed, t-shirts made, stickers because stickers are cool, you have your website done, social media up and running and have printed off and hand out your awesome new marketing materials. You did it you are off and running your own business.
Now it's been ten years you have been rocking your business and have grown more times than you ever dreamed. But then something happened that you never thought possible. You got a letter from a lawyer saying the name of your business that you have been putting in all your love into, isn't yours to use. Someone else owns the rights to that name and they want you to stop using it, immediately. What now....
You are probably reading this and thinking this kind of stuff doesn't happen.
I am sorry to say but it happens more times than I want to say. Just recently I stumbled upon a brand called Midday Squares and something very similar happened to them. A major brand came after them because their packaging was too similar to the major brand and then they got hit again because Midday Square was using an orange that was too similar to another popular candy bars orange.
Back in 2013 a company here in Florida call Fit U tried to take on YOU Fit but was soon told they weren't allow to use that name because it was too similar and was asked to pick another name.
Once you have already invested in a brand and all the marketing materials and digital materials you don't want to have to do it all over again with a new name!
Do your research now, so you can save a TON of money and time later.
So where do I go to see if my awesome new business name is free?
You can go to uspto.gov to look for similar names here in the US but if you are planning on going international you are best to look your name up on wipo.int. With these two sites you can type in your name and quickly see if its free or at risk of being too similar to another company.
It only takes 5 minutes to do this vs spending thousands of dollars and then getting to spend the same thousands of dollars again a few years later.
If you have any questions about your business name and feeling it's time for a refresh to make yourself and business stand out more from the competition, let's connect and talk about your goals for 2022!
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