I apologize for how dark this video came out (we were in an outdoor courtyard with no lights), but the sound is fine, so you can get the gist of the presentation. As I mentioned in a previous post, this is a video of my presentation to a group architects at an AIA Los Angeles event. I was one of seven speakers. We were each allowed 20 slides and 20 seconds per slide. There were approximately 50 people in attendance. I got to talk to a couple people afterward and received encouraging feedback, but I think my presentation was too general to really spark people’s interest. That will come as I continue to refine the idea.

I’m still super early on in concept development for my venture, so the idea is changing almost every week. Of course, ideas build on each other and I want to show the progression of thought, so I’m posting this up. I spent a good chunk of today on instantdomainsearch.com, trying to find a better available domain name than Vverdant. Gotta sleep on a few gems I came across. I don’t want to take too long though, as I’ve already seen one good name disappear before I could register it: fillvoid.com.

This is a photo of me brainstorming this morning.

I woke up this morning and decided that I needed a domain name to call my own. It’s been hard writing and talking about an idea with no name. No more!

An hour on GoDaddy, and $10.19 later, I am the proud owner of Vverdant.com, which reminds me of that famous Judy Garland-ism, “There’s no place like home.”

That’s “Vverdant” with two “V’s” people. An invention all my own. You won’t find that spelling in the dictionary, but “verdant” is defined by Webster’s as follows:

Ver’dant\, a. [F. verdoyant, p. pr. of verdoyer to be verdant, to grow green, OF. verdoier, verdeier, fr. verd, vert, green, fr. L. viridis green, fr. virere to be green: cf. OF. verdant verdant, L. viridans, p. pr. of viridare to make green. Cf. Farthingale, Verjuice, Vert.]

1. Covered with growing plants or grass; green; fresh; flourishing; as, verdant fields; a verdant lawn. “Let the earth Put forth the verdant grass.” –Milton.

Get it? Vverdant is a website where green building ideas will flourish! ….In the mind of this entrepreneur anyway.

I hope the name does everything I need it to — sum up my idea, stick in people’s minds, and sound fresh. After a couple weeks brainstorming (and checking domain availability), this is the best I can come up with for now. Leave a comment to let me know what you think!

Since I began thinking about starting a company, I knew I had to have a great domain name. But I had no idea how difficult this process would be. Not only should your domain name also be your company name, but it should be short, memorable, and easy to tell people about without having to spell. It’s not simply a matter of coming up with a great name, but coming up with a great name that is available.

Domain names are essentially web real estate, and the market becomes more and more crowded each day. Most good names are taken and finding one that is available seems to involve considerable creativity. These are two strategies I’ve been using to come up with new domain names: combining Latin roots to create new words, or making a list of names I like and combining syllables from different words to create a new word (check out dot-o-mator).

I’ve been using GoDaddy to check availability, but a friend also sent me a link for Instant Domain Search, which is a better search tool, because you never have to use the back button. So far I’ve had a couple decent ideas, but nothing I’m too excited about. The process is consuming. I’ll get out of bed in the middle of the night to write down an idea and get up in the morning to find that it’s taken. I hope inspiration strikes me soon….I’m in domain name hell.