So you've had the idea for your new company and you're pretty sure it'll work and be a success for you, you're just stuck on one thing. The name.

You could spend ages worrying about the name to use for your business. The following two approaches should get you started, think about whether you want –

1. Obvious association such as "British Airways"

2. Something completely different with no obvious association with your company such as "Virgin".

The success of any company is the result of it's people, products, distibution, and price. The name of your company brings all of these together and in turn becomes associated with everything your company stands for, in effect the brand of your business.

Whether you're going for a funky, youthful "edgy" feel for your brand or a more traditional, trusted "wise" feel, the name of your company should represent this. It does not mean you can't mix them up a bit, but when considering the name, try and think of what you want people to experience when they use your company, what you want your company to stand for and how you see it sitting amongst the competition.

Consider getting feedback from friends/family or on the Cyberneur forum.

The difficulty of deciding upon a name for an internet based company is compounded by the lack of availability of unregistered names. However, never fear as there is a way that you can get the name that you want:

A huge number of registered domain names are not actually used, but were purchased by people during the ‘dot com’ boom either with a view to developing a site (that they never did) or to selling them on at a huge profit. Domain names effectively act like real estate on the net and this practice is known as Cybersquatting. However, these domain names do eventually expire and unless they are renewed will be returned to the public domain.

So, how do you find out about all these expiring domains? Well, there are a few services available on the net, but the one I have found the best is a company called Snapnames http://www.snapnames.com which will let you know when names you are interested in are becoming available, and if you wish will automatically bid for them in an ‘auction’ process on your behalf. This can be an incredibly cheap way of getting the domain name that you want.

Since you can have open requests out for these names for a long time it can be a pleasant surprise when one day you receive an email saying that you have won a new domain name. In fact, this was the way I got the name for the new company I am building, and was the catalyst for starting it.