Skrbl

Roman Stanek — Wed, 07 May 2008 11:59:26 +0000

Vowel deficiency makes the Czech language a perfect source for Web 2.0 startup names. I wrote about it last summer but here comes another example: the name of online whiteboard tool Skrbl is just a shorter version of Czech Skrblik and it can be translated as miser, niggard, skinflint or Scrooge.

Name of the Next Startup

Roman Stanek — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 12:43:00 +0000

One of the main advantages of starting a new company in Eastern Europe is the natural affinity of this part of the world with Web 2.0. More specifically the complete lack of vowels. While most start-ups struggle to find a catchy name, I can open some local newspaper and pick one.

I guess this is why so many entrepreneurs opt for Czech names: Dopplr (the new social network for frequent travelers) stands for “Your flight will be delayed” in Czech and wdgtbldr (Peter Yared‘s new company) translates as “JRad 3.0″ in Czech (and Polish, Slovak and Croatian).

I thought long and hard about the name for my next company and I was not sure whether to call it Datr.com or Zetr.com. But then I came up with a non-Web 2.0 name with plenty of vowels. And therefore as of today I’ve become the Founder and CEO of Good Data Corporation.

Roman Stanek's Push-Button Thinking » names

Skrbl

Name of the Next Startup