ISB AI Founders
Day 3 · 9:15

Name it. Mark it.

Your product has a working name. Time to give it a real one. Storm names, run the four tests, generate a logo that works tiny, locked by lunch, then nobody relitigates.
ISB AI FoundersS15
Every name you know is one of three moves

How names get made

Describe it
Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat
Says exactly what it is. LunchRush is this move, you already have one.
Invent it
Google, Kodak, Roblox
A made-up word. Nobody else owns it, and you never fight over the spelling of a real one.
Borrow a metaphor
Amazon, Apple, Nike
Amazon is the biggest river on earth. Nike is the goddess of victory. Borrowed meaning, on loan to your product.
A name is not done until it survives these

The four tests

1 · The phone test
Say it once on a phone call. Does the other person get it, no repeats?
2 · The spell test
Hear it once. Type it right, first try, into a search bar.
3 · The playground test
Can a 13-year-old turn it into a joke? They will. Assume it and check now.
4 · The search test
Search it. A giant already owns the word? Walk away, no matter how good it sounds.
You first · I'm calling on someone

Four candidates for LunchRush. Run the tests on each, out loud.

Lunchly
Queue-B-Gone
NomNow
MealSprint
Click to reveal after 2-3 answers
Lunchly, passes phone and spell, close enough to “Lunchably” that the playground test gets one snack joke, survivable. Queue-B-Gone, fails the phone test cold (“wait, Q-B what?”), fails the spell test worse, three different kids will type “cuebeegone,” “kbgone,” and “queue B gone,” none of them right. Funny in the room, useless on a search bar. NomNow, passes all four clean, short, sayable, ownable. MealSprint, sounds great until the search test: it collides with an existing food-delivery brand, which is exactly the walk-away case from test 4.
Copy this prompt · run it now

The name-storm prompt

My product: [your one-line thesis]. Give me 20 name candidates in four styles: descriptive, invented word, metaphor, and two-word combo. For each: say it in a sentence, then score it against these tests, easy to say on the phone, easy to spell after hearing it once, cannot be mocked by a 13-year-old, and unlikely to collide with a famous brand. Rank the top 5 with one-line reasons.
Before you generate one

What makes a logo work

One idea
Not five. A shape, a letter, a color, pick one and stop.
Flat beats fancy
Gradients and fine detail die first when a logo shrinks.
Your style card is the key
The adjective from your design system decides the logo's whole look.
LR
Hero size
LR
App icon
Favicon, 16px
The fingernail rule: if it does not read at 16px, it is not done. A styled wordmark of your name, your font, your palette, is a completely legit logo. Most startups start there and stop.
Copy this prompt · run it now

The logo prompt, two ways

Image generator · Ideogram or Midjourney
[name] logo, [design-system adjective], flat vector, single idea, single-color background, no gradients, no fine detail.
Coding agent · Kimi Code, the wordmark route
Make the app header a styled wordmark of [name]. Our font, our palette, works at small sizes.
Exercise · TEAM
FOLLOW ALONG · laptops open

Storm, test, shortlist, mark it

12:00 on the clock
1Run the name-storm prompt on your product. Add your own candidates too, the prompt does not have a monopoly on good ideas.
2Kill everything that fails any of the four tests. Out loud, as a team, no exceptions for a name someone just likes.
3Shortlist 3 names on the table. Pick your favorite, run either logo prompt, generate 3 logo candidates for it.
Kanban card
Name it, mark it: 3 names, 3 logos, one favorite, by break.
12:00
3 tested names, 3 logo candidates, one favorite
Exit ticket

The handoff, three lines

Leave with
3 tested names and 3 logo candidates for your favorite
Decided
Which teammate argues for which name at the 11:00 lock
Next
Straight into S7 Agent Mastery at 9:55. Break at 10:25, then S13 the landing page at 10:35 uses your new name. The 11:00 build block puts name and logo on the live URL, locked by lunch.