I often get asked about our name. They get the Web Solutions part but are curious about the 1011. What does it mean? Glad you asked because actually quite a bit of thought went into naming our company.
First let me clear up any rumors that 1011 is my ATM PIN code. It's not. What it is, in my humble opinion, is a fantastic company name. Before I get too far ahead of myself, let me first share with you the criteria we set down for ourselves when first embarking on this name selection journey.
There were 6 critical goals we wanted our company name to meet:
1. Easy to say for us and others.
I introduce myself to a lot of people. When meeting someone for the
first time you don't want to stumble over saying your company's name. We wanted it to easily roll off the tongue when spoken out loud and
repeated.
2. No spelling concerns.
We wanted our name and domain to need no further explanation after saying it to someone new. Anything that required me to tell you how to spell it after I said it was automatically out. We also gave a quick boot to anything with a symbol or phonetic replacement in the name, such as "ez" or "e-z" to replace "easy".
3. Memorable.
This is a no brainer but is more difficult to do than you think. Our name needed to stick in people's heads several days or even weeks after they had heard it just once. We also did not want something run of the mill or boring. For example, Internet company names starting with "e" are way overused.
4. Scalable.
Like many companies we do more than just one thing. We wanted a name that would expand and grow however we needed yet still make sense. Think of Apple and the "i" series: iPhone, iPod, iTunes, etc.
5. Short URL.
Similar to not wanting people to misspell our name, we also didn't want to frustrate them with how long it took to type our domain name or email addresses.
6. Mean something.
We had some completely random, out of the blue words in the pile for consideration that probably met most if not all of the above goals. However, a name that also gives you a general idea of what the company does is better. It allows me to spend more time listening about how I can meet your needs instead of explaining myself to you.
In the end we got to 1011 as a play off the ones and zeros in binary code. It's easy to say and spelling isn't an issue. We were concerned about whether people would say "10 11" or "one thousand eleven" but that was easily handle with our logo design. We were also concerned about whether people would spell it with numbers or lettes. That was also easily handled by just registering both the http://www.1011web.com and http://www.tenelevenweb.com domains.
Remembering the name has been very easy for people, which I credit to three factors. It's easy to remember simple numbers. Those simple numbers are chronological. People like the intrigue about what the numbers mean, which I'll be honest and admit was completely unintentional.
Nowadays you just about can't beat only seven characters in a domain name. Plus, the 1011 part was just as scalable as anything we'd seen Apple do with their "i". We had access to 1011 programming, 1011 marketing, 1011 ecommerce, 1011 design, etc.
As far as meaning or symbolism both the chronological numbers and the steps in our logo represent our belief of the best way to build online systems. Start with a strong foundation that meets all the fundamental needs then build on it as your needs and resources guide. This is the surest way to get exactly what is needed, keep costs low and avoid feature creep, which is adding a "straw" here and a "straw" there until the camel's back is broken.
I love the name and believe the effort and time we spent was well worth it. The result was a great name that met every single goal we set plus it's first in an alphabetical list.
After all the deep thought and deliberation, I realized 1011 is also my daughter's birthday, October 11th. She's a fan of the name too.