Jordi Hays@jordihays
The Uninspired Company of Silicon Valley
Six years ago, “The Browser Company of New York” was born. This week, its acquisition by Atlassian closed.
Regardless of how you feel about the product, or the ultimate acquisition price, it’s undeniable that Josh, Hursh, and the team brought an incredibly fresh perspective to what a startup brand could look and feel like. The name, the brand design, etc. were all incredibly thoughtful. But they weren’t new.
Roughly 150 years ago it was standard practice to name a company like they did:
- The Prudential Insurance Company of America, founded in 1875
- The Standard Oil Company of New York, founded in 1911
- Edison Electric Illuminating Company of New York, founded in 1880
The Browser Company of New York was a perfect name for a specific reason: juxtaposing a hundred-and-fifty-year-old naming convention with a modern tool such as the web browser was an incredible way to stand out and signal to the world exactly what their mission was, and that they would be bringing inspired thinking to the category.
The Browser Company’s name, brand, and marketing materials were so effective that they catalyzed a wave of companies to adopt the same naming convention. Between The Browser Company’s emergence and their eventual exit, I’d estimate that between 50 to 100 companies adopted this type of legacy naming convention.
Naming a web browser company “The Browser Company of New York” signaled original, inspired thinking. The problem is that the second, third, fourth, etc. company to use the The [X] Company of [X] signals the exact opposite. I’m not automatically bearish on these companies, but I think many miss the point of what made The Browser Company a great name. At least one of these companies, The Interaction Company of California, has managed to really break through the noise and deliver a truly novel consumer AI product experience, but ironically they did it under the Poke brand, and I’d argue they should just abandon the original name entirely at this point. Poke dot com itself is a fantastic domain and name for their business and audience.
In defense of the copycat branding, naming startups is really hard. Great domain names are finite, words in the English language are finite, and more companies (and startups specifically) are being created than ever.
Another defense would be the classic (but misinterpreted) quote from Picasso: "Good artists copy, great artists steal."
Taken literally, someone might think that means if you see a startup doing something that’s getting a good response, you should do the same thing yourself. But the a better interpretation of the quote is that great artists “steal” from the past, a variety of sources, and differing categories to create their own unique style and approach.
The Browser Company of New York hit so hard because of the juxtaposition between a multi-hundred year old naming convention and a modern tool like the browser. To my knowledge, no one had done this before and that’s why it got such a great response. Just using this legacy naming convention for any random category, and after someone else executed against it so loudly and effectively, is not a good strategy.
It signals that you are:
- In a rush (fair)
- Don’t value naming (concerning)
- Didn’t want to spend the time to find a great domain (ok)
- Aren’t seeking out inspiration outside of the tech bubble (concerning)
- Didn’t seek out influence or advice from people that understand the value of naming, know how to find and acquire great domains, etc. (concerning)
Browsers are ALL modern — Netscape, Edge, Chrome, Atlas, etc. So not only was The Browser Company a great name because it created a juxtaposition between a legacy naming structure and a modern tool, but it was immediately counterpositioned to all the other players in the category.
Of course, this is not an isolated incident. Any time a startup does something truly great, a wave of companies gets a little too inspired. We saw this when @linear launched in 2019. Their website was so good that hundreds, maybe thousands of startups basically cloned it. Linear’s product and web design signaled original and deep thinking, a love for the craft of product design, and genuine love of design in general. The next thousand companies that copied them signaled the opposite.
What this comes down to is that I believe the tech industry needs to learn how to copy or “steal” from OUTSIDE the industry. Even today, every AI company wants to be the "Apple of AI."
It’s counterintuitive, but I’d bet that the “Apple of AI” will probably not build an iconic, generational brand by trying to emulate Apple advertisements from the 80s and 90s. They’ll do it by being themselves, or said differently, “stealing” from the past, a variety of sources, and a variety of categories to create their own unique style and approach.
It’s perfectly respectable and even fair to take inspiration from obvious sources and industries. We at @tbpn have been vocal about being inspired by ESPN, SportsCenter and Complex, but the key thing is that we took that inspiration and applied it to an area (tech) that none of those groups had ever played in.
So if you’re starting a company today, I urge you to take inspiration from the outside world and other industries, and avoiding the trap of becoming an uninspired company.
