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namewhale — Generates modern startup names based on multiple seed words
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Think about it - hundreds of startups are being created every single day, while domain availability continues to diminish by the second. Your best shot at getting a good domain is to completely make up a word. Making up a word is hard though. I created namewhale to solve this problem - to help startup founders come up with a nice sounding name for their startup. It started when my friend asked me to brainstorm some ideas for names for his new recruiting startup. After days of back and forth, I thought, there really has to be a better way.
Most name generators today just tweak two input words you give it and add stuff to it or move letters around. Namewhale is different. It parses the look, feel, and style of the words you give it to create completely new words that have similar styles. You can type in a few words related to your industry, or just words you think sound nice. You can even type in a paragraph of text, and it will parse the structure of the whole thing and create cool words based off it. You can then preview how the name will look against different backgrounds with different styles, and perform a domain check with one tap. Check it out and let me know what you think!
First off I think this is pretty sweet. But I agree with the crowd that it is better suited as a web app. People only feel the need to download an app when they are going to want it at their fingertips. This seems like more of an activity I would engage in once in a while (or possibly one off?). Also from a search prospective, this is something people will google, and not search on the app store.
@nemrow all good points. I'm going to start working on the web version this weekend. (If you wanna be updated when it's out, follow @namewhale on Twitter)
I'm sure you can easily find someone who'd be happy to convert it to website! Might be a little cheaper that way too.
@saraclay15 ya that's definitely one option..though it's harder to monetize on the web..ads?
@bitario You definitely are right about that. Most web apps live on the Internet not generating any revenue (and the creators usually have to pay up, esp. now that Heroku only offers paid options). Hmm...
Love the name - I guess I kind of should what with the product being all about generating names!
I'll confess, I clearly didn't look at the available platform tags as I was expecting a website - that's where I'd usually go hunting for a name. I'd be curious to hear why you've opted for an app rather than a site?
At a guess, are you hooking into a third party API that limits requests by IP? I'd see why you'd pick mobile over a website in that case!
The app is a pleasure to use - looks distinctive and works smoothly. You do give me a load of names per search though and with 15 searches a day I'm not sure I'd be incentivised to upgrade to your unlimited plan. That might just be me though!
@tomwasd Ya, the pricing was very difficult to figure out. I'm still not sure I got it right. I wanted to give you enough that you understood how it worked and saw its value, but there's a very fine line between giving too much and giving too little, and I wanted to play it safe and not upset anyone. But we'll see how this does and make changes from there. I went back and forth several times between many different pricing models and this was the best I could come up with.
The algorithm is homegrown and run client side so it wasn't a rate limit decision. As for why it's a mobile app and not a site, easy, I'm an iOS developer :)
I used this last night to attempt to come up with a name for an idea I have. I loved it. Most weren't usable to me but that didn't matter when I found the right one! Thanks for the great tool!
Dead already. Never had a website despite promises and is restricted to Apple users :|
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