Back in 2010, two brothers from Ireland, John and Patrick Collison, were joined by Greg Brockman to start a business that we all know today as Stripe. Greg shared the story of how they came up with the brand’s name. The initial product was a developer-focused payments API, so when it came to naming, most of the associations they had were related to web development.
The first was /dev/payments (yes, written that way). The name, apart from being a bit confusing just to look at, had problems from the start – apparently, you can’t incorporate a company with slashes in its name in Delaware, so the team ended up with SLASHDEVSLASHFINANCE.
..the name looked pretty ridiculous to anyone who didn’t see the association with device nodes and how easy it is to write to them. Imagine being in talks with a very serious banker from a very serious bank and then telling them you worked at “Slash Dev Slash Finance”. It’s not a great way to build trust.
Greg Brockman, former CTO of Stripe
The team set out to get a better brand name, and they wanted the matching .com domain name with it.
I sat down at my computer and generated random nouns off the top of my head. I’d check out the .com. If it was parked or otherwise looked fallow, I’d send a template to the owner.
Greg Brockman, former CTO of Stripe
At some point, the task got too time-consuming, so Greg wrote a script to send those emails. He ended up sending hundreds of emails and eventually got a response from the owners of Stripe.com, which turned to be their favorite from the list of possible names.
Despite being so common, the word ‘Stripe’ was interestingly free of any existing brand associations. And everything it evoked was at least vaguely positive — racing stripes, striping across a RAID array, the magnetic stripe on a card.
Greg Brockman, former CTO of Stripe
The team also had another option – they had already come up with the name “PayDemon” and had already purchased both paydemon.com and paydaemon.com for $20. The team gave itself a deadline of one week to decide whether to invest in an asset like Stripe.com or stick with the names they have already bought. The amount paid for Stripe.com is not disclosed, but the team decided it is worth the investment, and that is how Stripe was born.
How does your brand name match your company vision? What new horizons can a better name open? Get in touch if you feel your brand deserves a better name, we are always happy to help.
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