The hardest part of starting a business is…

I’ve been absent from The Numerate Ninny for a while. But there was a reason.

After nineteen years with my former employer, I decided to ‘go it alone’ and form my own consultancy. Fussy bureaucracy is expected when establishing a new organization, and my expectations were not disappointed in that regard. But, surprisingly, what should have been the easiest task proved to be one of the most challenging – choosing a name for the business.

My first idea was to exploit the name of my personal blog as a business name. However, a quick search proved that the initials TNN were already in well known in the business world.

(The expanded name The Numerate Ninny was not an option. Since my company sells knowledge and expertise, it would have given the wrong impression. )

The next option was to use my own initials, ARN. Apparently, the business world snagged those letters long ago too.

As an alternative, my youngest offspring suggested using my initials in reverse (NRA), pointing out that ‘they’ were in bankruptcy and that the domain name would be cheap.

Not cheap enough for me, kiddo!

After that, I had to consider using my first name and last name, anchored with ‘LLC’. But I checked out the internet. There is a sea of people called Amanda, each with a consultancy of her own. No search engine would ever find my little business.

So, with few choices, I had to retreat further into my identity to choose a name for my business. In the end, I called my new company D5G, because I grew up in Coolock, Dublin 5.  The last element, G, stands for girl or gal—or even gudgeon if you are in that frame of mind.

{If I had stuck to the Dublin theme, I might have used OO (Oul’ One) in the company name, but D5OO is rather inelegant and likely to prompt confusion between the ohs and zeros.}

Keeping with the home town theme, the company logo is a play on the Dublin City Coat of Arms.

The city’s coat of arms has three castles with a flame atop.  As appropriate for someone with a fire engineering background, I eliminated the flame when developing the logo.  Initially, I kept the three castles in the design.  My focus group (yes, the offspring) thought that three objects in a small logo looked fussy, so we opted for a design with only one castle.  Blue might be a Dublin color, but the D5G logo uses a shade of blue that no Dublin sports’ team has ever donned.

By the way, Dublin city’s coat of arms was formalized in 1607, but has origins dating from the 13^th century.  The flames represent the citizens’ zeal in defending the city.  By eliminating the flames, I hope I have not inadvertently turned that zeal against myself.

The city’s Latin motto translates as ‘Happy the city where the citizens obey’.  I suspect this motto was written by someone who never met a Dubliner.