Eat My Words - The Kitchen Sink

Another toast for Eat My Words - Square One Vodka

Longtime Eat My Words client and Square One Organic Spirits Founder and CEO Allison Evanow is the rockstar Make Mine a Million $ Business winner who encouraged Alexandra to enter the competition. (See these posts for more on Alexandra's big win.) Here's what Allison had to say about working with Alexandra and the team at Eat My Words over the years...

"Alexandra is a top-notch naming consultant thanks to her creativity and innate abilities to find highly impactful naming solutions for her clients. She has named several of our cocktails and written taglines for us that we have used in our products and marketing materials. She is definitely our go-to person when we need a great name, tagline, copywriting, etc. for our products. She is very easy to work with and very quick on the turn-around. We will be certain to work with her again on future projects."

For more gushing testimonials, see our bragadocious Reviews page on the Eat My Words website.

Hey Name Boy, Don't Quit Your Day Job

Every week, wannabe namers from around the world stumble upon our Dream Jobs page and take our naming test to see if they have what it takes to be an Eat My Words namer. (So far, only 5 creative geniuses have passed.) The test is simple (at least for us)... "Send us 20 names for a sleek new external hard drive that stores an enormous amount of data." While we certainly have seen our share of hideous names that appear to have been created by our old-school competitors, at least the people that send them in are usually quite humble, sometimes even begging. But today, a wannabe Name Boy had a little attitude. Here is the email he sent:

From: (name withheld to protect the identity)

Subject: Just one

To: [email protected].

Date: Tuesday, September 30, 2008, 9:24 AM

new external hard drive that stores an enormous amount of data:

Drive Outside

Go on and play with this . . .

Just one? One bad one? Don't quit your day job, Name Boy. Or as Mik says, "Hey Name Boy, go drive off a cliff." For more bad namer test submissions, check out this previous post.

 

Gushing Testimonials from our Happy Clients

Here are some recent testimonials from clients who loved working with Alexandra and the talented team at Eat My Words.  For more glowing recommendations, visit our Reviews page.

"Alexandra is truly innovative and distinctive in the business she has built. Recently, a naming exercise came into play at IHG. Because I had experienced good work with Alexandra while VP of Consumer Insights at Dunkin' Brands, I reached out to her company once more.

I received from Eat My Words, on very short notice, a very thoughtful and creative list of potential names for a new Holiday Inn venture. The creativity of Alexandra and team allowed us to perform true "due diligence" as part of our branding work, and we hold her in high esteem for that. We definitely plan to tap into Eat my Words for a project in the Spring ... and what higher advocacy measure is there than, "I plan to use this group again!"

Truly, Alexandra and team are smart boutique shop masters who take you to levels in your marketing work that are not experienced amongst more traditional suppliers. "

- Regina Lewis, PhD

  SVP, Global Insights, InterContinental Hotels Group

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"I engaged Alexandra to work on the naming of a new business - Wavelength. I would describe the experience as seamless, professional and quite frankly inspirational! From the outset the questions posed made us really think about what we were trying to achieve, and the 100's of ideas Alex and her team generated made us pause, ponder and often quite often laugh!!

We were truly delighted with her final recommendation, we'd never have come up with the name without her and can't recommend her services highly enough."

- Adrian Simpson

  Chief Connector, Wavelength Companies, Ltd

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"I hired Alexandra to help name my company because she thinks out of the box, but also is very down to earth in her approach - for example, no bizarre spellings! But most importantly, she really understood my business and me, and took a very human approach to the task. Moreover, she delivered things on time, professionally, and held my hand throughout the entire process, including getting the name and URL registered. Can't recommend her enough."

- Charlene Li

  Founder, Altimeter Group

Alexandra Watkins Wins Make Mine a Million Contest!

We previously announced that our own Alexandra Watkins was a finalist for The Make Mine a Program from Count Me In for Women's Economic Independence.

We can NOW announce that as of a few minutes ago, she was picked as a winner!  While none of us here at Eat My Words ever had any doubt, we were nonetheless on the proverbial pins and needles until the announcement.  Alexandra worked very hard to come this far this fast, and this win validates it all. 

We will fill you in with more details on what all this means next week when Alexandra gets back from a well deserved weekend in New Mexico. 

Congratulations Alexandra!

New Dish from Eat My Words

Lots of excitement going on at Eat My Words besides Alexandra being selected as a finalist in the Make Mine a Million Dollar Business program. (See next post.) Our wildly colorful office is being featured in a new book called Boutique Offices. Our upstairs has a fresh new look - no more Client Crash Pad. Rena Wessels is our new whip smart Office Manager. Her Great Dane puppy, cleverly named Get Off the Couch, (aka Sofie or as Alexandra calls her, Sofa), is also a welcome addition. Heidi and Sherry are now happily pursuing their true passions. Our superstar Sous Chef, Gina, continues to impress us with her proliferation of creative names and taglines. And Mik continues to be our knight in shinning flannel, acting as our business strategist, blogger, web guy, and of course, rockstar namer. We have many new clients including InterContinental Hotels Group, Long John Silvers, and Altec Lansing, makers of fine audio products. We're very excited about the later, whom we are helping transition from alpha-numeric names to evocative whole word names. Stay tuned for news on those... If you haven't snacked on our fun website lately, check it out to see our revamped Name Dropping page, which now features some of our success stories. There are also new additions to our Portfolio and Press Page, including this week's coverage of Alexandra in MarketWatch.

San Francisco's Eat My Words Makes Million Dollar Business Finals

Founder Competes for Financing, Mentoring, and Other Prizes to Help Catapult Her Businesses' Revenue to a Million Dollars

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, Sep 09, 2008 -- Business growth program, Make Mine A Million $ Business(TM), selected Alexandra Watkins of Nationally Acclaimed Naming Firm, Eat My Words, as one of twenty finalists to compete for an awards package at the New Mexico event on September 18, 2008. The event will feature female entrepreneurs from New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and California who competed for business development packages including money, marketing, mentoring and technology assistance to help their businesses grow into million-dollar enterprises.

The upcoming competition provides the twenty finalists the opportunity to present their business in a three-minute "elevator pitch" to a panel of business experts and a live audience. Ten winners will be chosen by the audience and judges.

Watkins founded Eat My Words in 2005, a distinctively different naming firm whose primary passion is generating conceptual, unforgettable names and taglines, after a successful 15-year career as an advertising copywriter where she discovered she had a passion for naming things. Without a college education or any formal business training, the 44-year-old entrepreneur has turned her passion into a company with clients like Frito Lay, Del Monte, Plantronics, InterContinental Hotels and infomercial giant Guthy-Renker.

Finalists will receive several of the key components of the Make Mine a Million $ Business awards package that will help their businesses break the million-dollar barrier, which includes inspiration, community, business coaching and mentoring from a "dream" team of coaches and business experts from Count Me In, and select discounts from national sponsors.

Launched in 2005 by Count Me In for Women's Economic Independence and founding partner American Express OPEN, the Make Mine a Million $ Business program was created to help post-start up, women-owned businesses grow to one million dollars in annual revenue. Since its inception, the program has hosted 18 competitions in cities around the country and grown into a nationwide movement. For this year's event, more than 400 applications were submitted in hopes of securing one of the finalist spots.

For more information about how women can grow their businesses please visit www.makemineamillion.org. 

TechCrunch - hopefully the products are waaaay better than the names

 TechCrunch50 says this about itself.  They have a "simple goal: find the best start-ups and launch them in front of our industry’s most influential VCs, corporations, fellow entrepreneurs and press. For companies who raise a gazillion dollars in venture funding, you would think they could fork over some money on a name. But, noooooooooooo. These are names that only a mother could love.  That is, if that your kid came up with sucky names like Atmosphir, Bojam, GazoPa, PlaYce, Tweegee et cetera. Here are the 50 worst offenders out of the 52. (We spared DropBox and Footnote, which at least are whole word names.)

1. Adgregate Markets
2. AdRocket  - so dot com sounding
3. Akoha
4. Alfabetic - see number 6 (below), same goes here
5. Ångströ - oddly enough this company is based in Palo Alto, so what is with all the letter decorations?
6. Atmosphir - silly silly misspelling - also unacceptable are Atmosfear, Atmosphear, Atmosfeyr and  Atmosphyr
7. Birdpost
8. BlahGirls
9. Bojam - unless this has something to do with Bo Diddley......
10. Burt 
11. Causecast
12. Closet Couture - for all the best dressed closets
13. Connective Logic
14. iamnews- iambored
15. Devunity - finally someone brings all the dev's together
16. DotSpots
17. Emerginvest - a four-syllable suckvest
18. ExchangeP - don't just exchange the P, the whole name needs to go
19. FairSoftware
20. FitBit - NitWit
21. Fotonauts - Polaroids in Space!
22. GazoPa - a subsidiary of parent company GazoGrandPa
23. GoodGuide - BadName
24. Goodrec - WorseName
25. GoPlanit
26. Grockit - Grok doesn't have a "c" but nice try anyway
27. Hangout Industries
28. iCharts - which decade is this again?
29. Imindi
30. LiveHit
31. Me-trics - me-sick
32. MIXTT - MIXXTTUP
33. Mobclix- really...why not just say MobClicks?
34. Mytopia - mytopia?, keep it then, we don't like it anyway
35. OtherInBox - it's at least better than one of our favorite train wrecks Xobni (inbox backwards in case you didn't know)
    
36. Personalria - Everyone needs a Personal Ria (a submerged coastal landform)
37. PlaYce - whY?
38. Popego - Pope Go?, Pop Ego?
39. Postbox 
40. Quant the News
41. Rinen
42. Shattered Reality Interactive - who wants to interact with a shattered reality?
43. Shryk - Shriek?,  Shrek?
44. Swype - someone swyped the i and rePlaYced it with a y
45. Tingz - tingz makes us twingz
46. Tonchidot - already forgot how to spell it, don't know what it means, so to find it on Google.....
47. TrueCar - FalseStart
48. Tweegee - sounds like something a one year old would say and no one would understand, and neither do we
49. VideoSurf
50. Yammer- best name here and perhaps not coincidentally the winner this year at TechCrunch!

Most of these  miserably fail the Eat My Words world famous SMILE & SCRATCH test.  We stand available to these companies to spend some of that TechCrunch VC money on a brand spanking new name.  With our ROI, you'll get it back many times over.

Who wants to be a millionaire? Alexandra selected as a finalist in Make Mine a Million $ Business Program sponsored by American Express.

Out of 400+ women entrepreneurs who went through an arduous application process, I was chosen as one of 20 finalists for The Make Mine a Million $ Business Program from Count Me In for Women's Economic Independence. Their goal is to inspire one million women entrepreneurs to scale their businesses to annual revenues of $1MM by 2010. I plan to be one of them.

 

On September 18, I will join the finalists in Albuquerque to compete for business development packages that include money, marketing, and mentoring. Described as a cross between "The Apprentice" and "American Idol," each of us will have 3 minutes to pitch our company to a live audience and panel of business experts. Ten winners will be chosen. Based on what I've heard from previous winners, including our client Allison Evanow of Square One Vodka (who encouraged me to enter), I have an excellent chance of winning. My playful personality, polished public speaking skills, interesting business, amusing anecdotes, and potential to scale are all things that will give me an edge. Plus, considering I bootstrapped the business in two and a half years without a college education or any formal business training, I am living proof that if you follow your passion you can do anything. Please cross your fingers for me.

Have Your Cake and Invest It Too

Our 2007 "Client of the Year," Cake,  is the subject of a gushing write up in today's TechCrunch.  It also introduces us to the latest Cake name extension Cakedex. 

If you get a chance, also stop by and take a nibble at The Slice, Cake's weekly video market wrap-up.  It's kind of like a smarter, hipper financial Ren & Stimpy.

Here is the TechCrunch article in its entirety -or if you have really good eyesight, you can read it below:

Eat My Words Office in New Interior Design Book

We were just notified that the wildly colorful "wall-to-wall eye candy" Eat My Words office has been selected to be showcased in a new interior design book that will spotlight "some of the coolest, hippest, most-awesome-of-all, killer-looking places to work." Published by Collins Design, an imprint of Harper Collins Publishers, the book features work environments that inspire creativity. As anyone who has visited our office knows, unlike old-school naming companies, some of which resemble accounting firms, our space isn’t stuffy, uptight or corporate. No cubicles. No boring conference rooms. Our office mirrors the work we do - it's wildly creative, fun, daring, unexpected and one-of-a-kind. Of course this isn't the first time our space has been recognized for its innovative interior design. It's been featured on Ultimate Kitchens on the Food Network, Small Space, Big Style on HGTV, Entrepreneur, HOW Magazine's Workspace spread, the San Francisco Chronicle, and design books. Additionally, our office was the showcase loft on the most recent San Francisco Loft Tour. Come by for a tour or check out more photos here