Forbes Blog: How A Name Can Make Or Break Your Business

New Media Rights latest Forbes post is all about how to choose and protect a name for your business. Special thanks to our co-author, Jordan Kohler, who is a New Media Rights alum and founder of Kohler Legal!

While it is exciting to choose a name for a new business or product, you should take a moment before you get those business cards printed up to properly establish your name. Taking the extra time at the beginning of a new business can help you reduce the likelihood of disputes with other companies, avoid confusing your customers, and help protect your overall brand.

You will thank yourself later if you take the time now to really consider whether the name that you want can grow with your long-term business goals. Why? Because “discovering that your perfect name was someone else’s perfect name first is frustrating, costs a lot of time and money, and can even end your business.”

The article outlines some common initial obstacles that business owners run into when choosing a name, like whether the name you want is available everywhere and whether you can even get trademark protection. It also discusses some of the offices, agencies and services that might affect a business owner’s brand choices, and how to search for potential conflicts. We’ve found that having a plan to address common initial issues can help you better choose names for your products and services that will last.

“The alternative - finding out years down the road that you have to rebrand after you’ve bought those business cards, attracted thousands of loyal customers, and built your business around a domain name that has to be forfeited - may be a logistical nightmare.”

You can read “How A Name Can Make Or Break Your Business” at Forbes.com. Check out other Forbes articles from New Media Rights here, including articles on topics like copyright, trademark, trade secrets, patents, music licenses, and navigating a lawsuit (part 1 and 2).