The name is not the hard part. The dot is.

Every founder we meet has already thought of three names they like. None of them has checked whether any of the three can actually be owned. This is a walk through what we do in the first forty-eight hours of an engagement, and why the order of operations decides the outcome.

We do not throw those three names away. They tell us a lot about how a founder hears the company, and occasionally one of them survives everything we put it through. But they arrive with an instinct attached, which is to go and ask the holder, and that instinct is the most expensive thing in the room. Most of what we do in the first forty-eight hours is about order: what has to happen before anything else is allowed to.

Nothing goes upstream

The costliest mistake in naming usually happens before anyone calls us. A founder emails a holder from a company address asking about the domain. The holder searches the domain in the signature, finds a funding announcement, and the price triples before a number is ever discussed. There is no way back from that first email. So the first thing we ask of a new client is simple. Do not enquire, and do not mention the name anywhere a holder might look.

Our side of that is procedural. Domain targets and working titles are treated as confidential from the moment they arrive, and we do not contact holders without written instruction. When we do make contact, every approach carries our name and our reputation, not yours. The holder sees a credible buyer with no story attached: no logo, no sector, no round to price against. That shield only works if it is up before anybody has knocked.

Thirty minutes on the business

The first conversation is about the company, not the names. We want the business, the market, the tone and the dot you are aiming for. We want the market rather than the category: who buys, in which countries, and what they call the thing today, because vocabulary is where invention starts. And we want everything you have already tried. The names you liked, the dots you checked, the ones that were taken. Hearing that on day one saves a fortnight later.

If the work might involve buying a held name, we also ask for a ceiling. It does not need to be precise. A rough budget lets us tell you early whether a target is realistic, and it becomes the limit every later negotiation runs inside. Thirty minutes on the business is usually enough for us to tell you what is realistic. It is rarely what the founder expected, and it is far cheaper to hear in the first week than after the deck is printed.

What happens to the three names

The names you brought get the same treatment as any candidate of ours. Before we invent anything, each one is given a position. It is a first read rather than the full verification that comes later, but it is enough to make the next decision on facts rather than on attachment.

• We check live registration status on the dot you want and on the extensions your market trusts.
• If a name is held, we start the holder read: who owns it, how long they have held it and what else they hold.
• Where there is a record, we look at how that holder has behaved in past sales.
• We sketch a valuation range from comparable transfers in the same extension and length class.
• We say each name aloud with the extension attached, and note any obvious trademark exposure for your counsel.

Each name then sits in one of three states: available, held, or held and gettable. Sometimes a fourth is obvious straight away, which is that a name is not worth chasing at any price because it fails out loud or sits too close to someone else's mark. None of this commits you to anything. Nothing is approached, offered or committed without your instruction.

Why the order decides it

Weak names are almost never a failure of imagination. They are a failure of sequence. The registrar search becomes the creative process and the first green tick wins. The trademark check comes last. The enquiry gives the game away. Each of those steps is harmless on its own and ruinous in the wrong position. Put them in the right order and the same founder, with the same budget and the same three names, ends up somewhere quite different.

By the end of the brief stage you hold a written naming brief that we both sign off, including the dot strategy. From there the work follows the method: invent, verify, negotiate, transfer. Timelines vary with the holder, not with us. An available dot is usually two to three weeks from brief to registered. A held name with a motivated seller runs four to eight weeks. A patient owner can take three to nine months, and is usually worth the wait.

And if the name you want cannot be had, you hear it in week two, with alternatives. That early no is part of what the first forty-eight hours protect. A founder who learns quickly that the favourite is out of reach still has two good options: invent something better, or acquire a different name properly. A founder who learns it after incorporation, the deck and the first customer conversation has already spent the cheapest moment to change course.