This guy names billion dollar brands for a living, here’s his exact 3-step formula.

My First Million

Hubspot

Business, Investing, Entrepreneurship

4.7 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 13 March 2026

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Get Sam & Shaan's pro-level biz resource vault (free): https://clickhubspot.com/kgcm Episode 805: Sam Parr ( https://x.com/theSamParr ) and Shaan Puri ( https://x.com/ShaanVP ) talk to the branding genius behind BlackBerry, Sonos, Vercel and Swiffer about how to create a billion-dollar brand name. — Show Notes: (0:00) Nothing will be used more than your name (2:01) Windsurf (3:50) Swiffer (10:06) Naming game: Fiber startup (17:14) quantity leads to quality (29:46) Problem solving propositions (32:40) Power letters (35:04) How Sam names a company (40:48) Rate this brand (1-10) (47:50) Blackberry (48:24) When to change a name (50:47) Presidential slogans (51:43) Recommended reading (53:39) How David thinks about AI — Check Out Shaan's Stuff: • Shaan's weekly email - https://www.shaanpuri.com • Visit https://www.somewhere.com/mfm to hire worldwide talent like Shaan and get $500 off for being an MFM listener. Hire developers, assistants, marketing pros, sales teams and more for 80% less than US equivalents. • Mercury - Need a bank for your company? Go check out Mercury (mercury.com). Shaan uses it for all of his companies! Mercury is a financial technology company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group, Column, N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust, Members FDIC • I run all my newsletters on Beehiiv and you should too + we're giving away $10k to our favorite newsletter, check it out: beehiiv.com/mfm-challenge — Check Out Sam's Stuff: • Hampton - https://www.joinhampton.com/ • Ideation Bootcamp - https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/ • Copy That - https://copythat.com • Hampton Wealth Survey - https://joinhampton.com/wealth • Sam’s List - http://samslist.co/ My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by HubSpot Media // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano /

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	So, listen, David, here's the deal.
0:02.4	I don't believe that naming your company is that important.
0:07.1	And over the next hour, I want you to convince me why I'm incredibly wrong, why picking a good name is going to help me build a billion dollar startup and how to name a startup effectively.
0:16.2	I feel like I can rule the world.
0:18.6	I know I could be what I want to.
0:21.5	I put my all in it like no days off on a road.
0:24.6	I love right behind you.
0:26.2	You have, for people who are just listening on audio, they can't see this.
0:29.0	But if you're on YouTube, you see this.
0:30.9	Right behind you, you have a bunch of almost like a music artist would have platinum records.
0:36.6	You have platinum records of names that you've created.
0:39.2	So the Impossible Burger, Blackberry, Swiffer, Versel, Winsurf.
0:44.4	You've had the, I remember the Intel Pentium processor, Fabriz, Sonos.
0:50.6	Sonos is crazy.
0:52.1	The hits go on and on.
0:53.5	Slim Fast, oh my God, Slim Fast. That is one of the greatest names ever. You know, Microsoft Azure. You've done all these incredible names. And so how lucky are we? We get to hear from you today because I suck at naming. I've always sucked at naming. And it's bothered me because if you're going to pour your sweat and, you know,
1:11.8	tears into something for five years, you kind of want to have a name that you feel, that you like, that you feel proud of, that gives you the best shot of success. And so I guess to Sam's initial question, which we said at the beginning here, which is he's like, I'm not sure that names are that important.
1:25.4	You know, change my mind.
1:27.0	Tell me I'm wrong.
1:27.9	Well, let me start off with this.
1:29.9	First off, nothing that you like, I'm not sure that names are that important. You know, change my mind. Tell me I'm wrong.
1:27.9	Well, let me start off with this.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Hubspot, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Hubspot and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.