on a name change

So we just switched our URL, business name, etc. over from Ambitious Green to Mintsy. It’s nice finally have a URL that’s six letters, offers more imagery / symbology opportunities, and just sounds “cuter” (yeah, I said it) and more fun.

Whenever I start something new, picking the name is simultaneously the most fun and most challenging aspect of it — and, yeah, finding a free URL is also 90% of that challenge.

Mintsy to us means refreshing, green, cute, fun, playful, and curiosity.  We thought that fit pretty well with what we’re trying to do here.

Here’s how we came across it:

• created a spreadsheet that took root words, prefixes and suffixes and auto-generated words (I can’t tell you how many times we clicked the refresh button)
• looked at brands we admired and sought to find something where we could create a standalone, recognizable logo image…for example, Apple without the words “apple”
• lots of visits to http://nameboy.com/
• two bottles of wine and six hours

Once we decided upon Mintsy, we searched the Trademark and Patent offices for any instances — and also checked to see if the usernames were available across social networking sites. The only downside is that a username squatter on Twitter has ‘mintsy’ registered, and there’s nothing we can do about it — at least for now.

If you ever find yourself in this situation, make sure to remap your URL correctly so that you preserve your old links.  For example. a link to ambitiousgreen.com/products now redirects to mintsy.com/products.

So there’s our story. I’d love to hear what you think of our new direction!