Why are we called CIMit?
How we tackled the hardest part of starting a company: choosing a name that truly fits.
This article is part of the "Zero to Build" section. If you haven’t already, we invite you to read How the Founders Met and Finding Our Focus. Every week, we commit to publishing a new article in this section.
Picking a name
Choosing a name for a company is seriously tough. It has to reflect what you do, be easy to pronounce, represent the values you want to convey, and, on top of that, be unique so people can identify and find you easily.
Not sure if you’ve ever gone through this process, but it’s trickier than it seems.
There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things. - Phil Karlton
That quote refers to naming functions and variables, but trust me, it applies perfectly to naming your brand or company!
Creativity
Both Òscar and I have pretty technical backgrounds, and, honestly, creativity when it comes to naming isn’t our strong suit. Still, we did several brainstorming exercises, and that helped us shape the direction of a name that would truly represent us.
During these sessions, we threw around concepts like growth, scaling, moving forward, delivery, improvement, etc. Each of us explained what these meant to us and put them into context. We tried mixing concepts, merging parts of words, and making them phonetically smooth… To be fair, we ended up with a few Frankensteins and others that sounded way too similar to existing companies.
So we made a call: we needed to invest in finding someone creative who, with a fresh perspective, could guide us through this discovery process and help us lock in the perfect name.
Choosing a partner
We went out looking for companies and freelancers who could help us nail down our name and potentially assist us later with the logo, website, and materials like Google Docs templates, among other things.
We got three solid proposals, but in the end, we went with Matrioshka Collective because of their passion, dedication, and attention to detail.
We worked with them in several sessions, sharing our brainstorming exercises while they ran their own process on their side. Then, we cross-checked everything.
By the third session, we had three name candidates that we really liked, and in the next one, we made our final choice: CIMit.
Matrioshka also delivered a brand book and brand guidelines to help us understand how to use our logo both in print and digital formats. They defined the fonts to use, color codes, and more. It was a highly professional job with an impressive level of detail that covered everything we needed.
Why CIMit?
The word CIM in Catalan means summit (mountain peak), and that concept clicked perfectly with what we had mapped out in our brainstorming sessions: helping businesses climb, improve, and reach the next level.
On top of that, CIM also works as an acronym for Consultancy, Innovation & Matching, and the “it” at the end defines us as tech people.
Lessons learned
We’re clear on one thing creativity, design, and coming up with company names aren’t our thing. So why waste time on it? We’d rather focus our energy on what we’re actually good at and passionate about.
If we ever had to go through the naming process again, we wouldn’t think twice about bringing in an external team. And without a doubt, we’d work with Matrioshka Collective again right from day one, they got fully invested, like the brand was their own. That’s the kind of collaboration that makes all the difference!