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A few years ago, I launched a daily email newsletter<\/a>, and I was ecstatic\u00a0to be striking out on my own for the first time. Alas, just a few weeks after filing to secure a trademark,\u00a0 an officious-sounding\u00a0note appeared in my inbox, and soon after, I found myself shelling out\u00a0$10,000 in lawyer\u2019s fees over a short-lived trademark dispute. It wasn\u2019t nearly as painful as it might have been, but it was a rude realization that figuring out the right brand\u00a0can be both time consuming and have\u00a0implications that founders\u00a0might not foresee.<\/p>\n Of course, my\u00a0experience is hardly rare. Most founders are typically left to either conduct trademark searches on their own via the USPTO site<\/a>, or else pay top dollar for law firms or branding agencies to do it for them. Often they do both.<\/p>\n Thankfully, thoroughly and affordably eliminating risky name choices is\u00a0exactly the opportunity\u00a0that a two-year-old, Bay Area company,\u00a0Naming Matters<\/a>, is chasing, and the\u00a0company\u2019s founder is very familiar with the market. S.B. Master previously cofounded\u00a0Master-McNeil<\/a>, a 29-year-old corporate naming and branding firm in Berkeley, Ca., whose past clients include\u00a0Apple, General Motors, Disney, and PayPal.<\/p>\n Now Master sees an opportunity to cater not just to deep-pocketed corporate customers but also startups on shoestring budgets. Indeed,\u00a018 months ago, she decided to take everything she has\u00a0learned over the years about linguistic analysis, trademark searching, and domain name acquisition\u00a0and pour it into a self-service software product\u00a0that also incorporates search and data visualization. I talked with her earlier today\u00a0to learn more.<\/p>\n TC: You\u2019ve already run a naming company for decades. Why start this new thing?<\/strong><\/p>\n SM: Naming is hard, and we tend to work with companies that can afford us to do deep preliminary availability\u00a0screening.\u00a0I grew frustrated with how slow and antiquated\u00a0that searching step is [for companies that can\u2019t afford such a service]. I mean, if you have 100 names, how do you figure out which are most likely to get you into trouble, and which are your stronger candidates that you should focus on? There are legacy providers, but their model is to charge users for every name they look up. If you\u2019re looking for a name in every country and every class, it adds up. You have to be very skilled to [keep your costs down].<\/p>\n TC: So the idea is to pay less to your friendly trademark attorney.<\/strong><\/p>\n SM: The idea is that\u00a0instead of this being some super expensive cottage industry, that anyone, anywhere\u00a0\u2014 whether founders or innovators in companies or paralegals in law firms or companies under pressure to do more faster and with less \u2014 can use this tool in an unlimited way.<\/p>\n TC: How big a problem \u2014 or opportunity \u2014 is this?<\/strong><\/p>\n SM:\u00a0About 5 million trademarks are registered worldwide each\u00a0year, and to get to a name that you\u2019re willing to spend the money [on] to file a trademark application, you\u2019ve probably looked at 50 to 100 names. That means people are looking up something like 500 million names a year. That\u2019s a lot of time and effort, and it still often doesn\u2019t answer the question of whether it\u2019s worth it.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve been told by big law firms that to look at one name, a paralegal is going to spend three hours, and they cost $300 an hour. So, there\u2019s $1,000\u00a0right there.<\/p>\n TC: Why is this the killer solution?<\/strong><\/p>\n SM: There are so many engineers and creative people who have no knowledge of trademarks or how they should work, and by merely looking at the visualization (that we produce for users), where the bigger the dot is to the name you\u2019ve chosen, or the more crowded, the more [risky] the brand \u2014 it just offers incredible cost and time savings by being able to visualize this data.<\/p>\n TC: Are you scanning trademarks globally or just in the U.S.? And how much are you charging?<\/strong><\/p>\n SM: We\u2019re still working on pricing, but we offer a day pass for less than $50 which provides users with unlimited use to search U.S. filings. We also have a standard product that offers unlimited use on a monthly basis; one seat is $100 per month . . . and the service can be stopped at any time.<\/p>\n And we\u2019re working on a pro product that\u2019s much more feature rich and that will be a bit more expensive and will include multiple data sets, not just U.S [data].<\/p>\n TC: Don\u2019t companies need to worry about competition globally from the outset?<\/strong><\/p>\n SM: Absolutely. Any business that puts itself online is intrinsically international. So even though you may not plan to do business in Germany or the U.K.\u00a0tor Japan, knowing what\u2019s out there and who could come after you \u2013 without hiring an attorney in Tokyo \u2013 [is key]. You\u2019ll be able to see if there\u2019s something there that you should be aware of.<\/p>\n TC: Is there no\u00a0global database that exists as of today?<\/strong><\/p>\n SM: You can find a newish database online that\u2019s sponsored by the EU. But unless you\u2019re a very skilled operator, it\u2019s [hard to navigate]. It\u2019s almost like doing a Google search, where you\u2019re getting inundated with large amounts of irrelevant hits, or you have to have a lot of knowledge to know if you should care. Nothing is sorted; you can\u2019t see how much of a threat other trademarks are. What we can do with our algorithm is rate and rank and visualize everything, so you can see those that look like the most serious threats.<\/p>\n You can also see who else is out there in your space with similar names and get new ideas yourself for names that are different and probably smarter in the context of knowing who else is out there. Using\u00a0this as a creativity tool wasn\u2019t something we anticipated, but once people see what\u2019s out there, it prompts more creativity on their part to think up\u00a0more unique names.<\/p>\n TC: Can you talk about who some of your clients are?<\/strong><\/p>\n SM: \u00a0We have some law firm users. We have a prominent product innovation company. Fifteen companies from the last YC\u00a0class signed up too. [President] Sam [Altman] loves what we\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n TC: Can I ask how you came up with the brand Naming Matters? I\u2019ve talked with branding agencies in the past that say most early firms in a space use something that literally describes their business, like Facebook. Brands\u00a0start getting crazier sounding the more crowded a\u00a0space grows.<\/strong><\/p>\n SM: It\u2019s a pun. Naming does<\/em> matter, but also, if you\u2019re a lawyer, you call a legal topic a matter. What do you think? [Laughs.] We\u2019re supposed to be good at this!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"\"](\"https:\/\/tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com\/2017\/03\/screen-shot-2017-03-08-at-1-26-28-pm.png?w=680\")
A few years ago, I launched a daily email newsletter, and I was ecstatic\u00a0to be striking out on my own for the first time. Alas, just a few weeks after filing to secure a trademark,\u00a0 an officious-sounding\u00a0note appeared in my inbox, and soon after, I found myself shelling out\u00a0$10,000 in lawyer’s fees over a short-lived trademark dispute. It wasn’t nearly as painful as it might… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n\n<\/img><\/a>
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