Naming expert shares the process behind creating billion-dollar brand names like Azure, Vercel, Windsurf, Sonos, Blackberry, and Impossible Burger | David Placek (Lexicon Branding)

David Placek is the founder of Lexicon Branding, a company that focuses exclusively on the development of brand names for competitive advantage. Lexicon is behind iconic names such as Sonos, Microsoft’s Azure, Windsurf, Vercel, Impossible Foods, BlackBerry, Intel’s Pentium, Apple’s PowerBook, and Swiffer. Over 40 years, David’s team has named nearly 4,000 brands and companies, employing over 250 linguists and pioneering naming innovation.

What you’ll learn:

1. The three-step process that generated names like Windsurf and Vercel

2. How a name can give you the edge that no marketing budget can buy

3. Why you won’t “know it when you see it”

4. Why Microsoft called Azure “a dumb name” before it became their billion-dollar cloud platform

5. Why polarizing opinions are the strongest signal that you’ve found the right name

6. How every letter of the alphabet creates a specific psychological vibration

7. The diamond framework: a 4-step process any founder can use to find their perfect name

8. Why domain names don’t matter anymore in the age of AI

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Where to find David Placek:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-placek-05a82/

• Website: https://www.lexiconbranding.com

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Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

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In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Introduction to David and Lexicon Branding

(04:44) The story of Sonos

(09:27) The psychology of naming

(11:33) The initial resistance to Microsoft's Azure

(14:35) The importance of a great brand name

(18:11) The three steps of naming: create, invent, implement

(28:23) Qualities of great brand name creators

(31:24) How long the naming process takes

(32:12) The Windsurf case study

(36:10) Naming in the AI era

(39:37) When to change your name

(43:10) The role of linguists

(45:54) The power of letters in branding

(48:15) The Vercel case study

(50:12) The implementation phase

(52:52) Client management and market success

(55:16) The diamond exercise

(01:04:23) Suspending judgment

(01:07:31) Polarization and boldness

(01:11:01) Domain names

(01:12:48) Final thoughts and lightning round

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Referenced:

• PowerBook: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerBook

• Pentium: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium

• BlackBerry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlackBerry

• Swiffer: https://www.swiffer.com/

• Impossible Burger: https://impossiblefoods.com/

• Vercel: https://vercel.com/

• Windsurf: https://windsurf.com/

• CapCut: https://www.capcut.com/

• Azure: https://azure.microsoft.com/

• Sonos: https://www.sonos.com/

• John MacFarlane on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-macfarlane-08a8aa20/

• Harry Potter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter_(film_series)

• The Call of the Wild: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Call_of_the_Wild

• Everyone’s an engineer now: Inside v0’s mission to create a hundred million builders | Guillermo Rauch (founder and CEO of Vercel, creators of v0 and Next.js): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/everyones-an-engineer-now-guillermo-rauch

• Sound symbolism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_symbolism

• Anduril: https://www.anduril.com/

• Anthropic: https://www.anthropic.com/

• Inside Bolt: From near-death to ~$40m ARR in 5 months—one of the fastest-growing products in history | Eric Simons (founder and CEO of StackBlitz): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-bolt-eric-simons

• The rise of Cursor: The $300M ARR AI tool that engineers can’t stop using | Michael Truell (co-founder and CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-rise-of-cursor-michael-truell

• Building a magical AI code editor used by over 1 million developers in four months: The untold story of Windsurf | Varun Mohan (co-founder and CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-untold-story-of-windsurf-varun-mohan

• Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com/

• Chevrolet Corvette: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Corvette

• Viagra: https://www.viagra.com/

• In vino veritas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_vino_veritas

• Infoseek: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infoseek

• Andy Grove: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Grove

• Churchill at War on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81609374

• Yellowstone on Prime Video: https://www.amazon.com/Yellowstone-Season-1/dp/B07D7FBB8Z

• 1883 on Prime Video: https://www.amazon.com/1883-Season-1/dp/B0B8JTS8QW

• 1923 on Paramount+: https://www.paramountplus.com/shows/1923/

• Taylor Sheridan on X: https://x.com/taylorSheridan

• Hardy fly rods: https://www.hardyfishing.com/collections/fly-rods

• T.E. Lawrence quote: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/11340-all-men-dream-but-not-equally-those-who-dream-by

• Lawrence of Arabia: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056172/

• DreamWorks: https://www.dreamworks.com/

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Recommended books:

• Thucydides’ Melian Dialogue: Commentary, Text, and Vocabulary: https://www.amazon.com/Thucydides-Melian-Dialogue-Commentary-Vocabulary/dp/0692772367

• Resilience: Hard-Won Wisdom for Living a Better Life: https://www.amazon.com/Resilience-Hard-Won-Wisdom-Living-Better/dp/054432398X/

• Churchill: Walking with Destiny: https://www.amazon.com/Churchill-Walking-Destiny-Andrew-Roberts/dp/1101980990

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Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.

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Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.