On the Dragons’ den last night there was a great moment when one of the hopefuls was pitching for his venture ifoods.tv (or was it ifood.tv!). It turned out that despite the money they had invested in the business as well as the obvious time and effort, the pair knew of a rival business which had virtually the same name as them.

The Dragons’ disbelief that someone would have taken this route was obvious. Theo Paphitis summed it up when he said “get your own space” meaning use a name that no one has or comes close to if at all possible. This at least gives you the chance to carve your way through the field and prevents confusion, or worse still, customers going to another operator believing that they are you.

we have the conversation several times a week with new business owners who want to use a name that already has some connotations to another business. Our advice is always the same – forget the name and move on. Get another name, get it trade marked in the countries where you do business and protect it at all costs. Your name is the first thing anything sees, so make it count!