Naming your product is scary. Do it anyway

For months we called it "the tool".

Like someone who calls their dog "the dog" because naming it feels like too much.

Today it's called PagoCRM. And the name didn't come out of a branding meeting.

Here's how I think about it.

When you build something in the gaps left by your main work, it's very comfortable not to name it. Without a name, it's an experiment. If it doesn't work out, nothing happened. Nobody knew.

With a name, things change. With a name it can fail in public. With a first name and a surname.

That's why so many projects spend years as "the tool", "the clubs thing" or "that project".

Fear dressed up as modesty

I explained it to myself as prudence. "It's not ready yet." "When it works properly, we'll name it."

Now I think it was something else. Giving it an identity meant committing to it. And commitment is dizzying.

The funny thing is that the customer couldn't have cared less whether we felt ready. A club needed to collect its fees, and our tool was there to do it. When the club launched its membership drive, it made sense for the name of the system people signed up with to appear.

That's when I understood the name was no longer our decision. Usage was asking for it.

A product gets its real name the day it appears next to a customer's.

What changes once it has a name

Naming it looks cosmetic. It isn't.

With a name, you start thinking about how to explain it, not just how to build it. You move from "does it work?" to "how do we reach the next customer?".

With a name, people can recommend it. Nobody recommends "that tool my club uses".

And with a name, you treat it differently yourself. It stops being something you do when there's time left over and becomes something you're responsible for.

That responsibility is exactly what was scary. It's also what makes it grow.

When to name it

I don't think every idea needs a name on day one. That leads to weeks arguing about names for things nobody uses.

But there's a fairly clear signal: when a real customer uses it and has to name it to explain it to others. If your customer needs to call it something, so do you.

That's the moment. Even if you don't feel ready. Especially if you don't feel ready.

No investors, no rush, but a name

PagoCRM was paid for by client work. No investors, no launch budget and no dedicated team. That gave us the freedom to go slowly.

But going slowly can't be an excuse never to commit. The freedom of not being in a hurry also includes the freedom to say, out loud: this exists, this is its name and it's ours.

For months it was "the tool".

The day it got a name, it started being a product.

P.S. If you have a project you still call "the tool", ask yourself what you're afraid of.