This might be our most tactical episode ever. If you’re starting something new, check it out! Not to brag, but it’s FULL of proven tactics for making big decisions about new projects.

This week we also answered our very first audience question. Thanks 1sam1216! Have a question for us? Send it to hey@jakeandjz.com.

On episode 7 of Jake & JZ, we talked about:

• Our Name Sprint process for naming your company or product
• A full walkthrough of our Name Sprint for Character Capital
• Why we chose “Character” even though it wasn’t a perfect match for our brand attributes
• How to use Design Sprints to test risky non-consensus ideas
• The importance of moving from abstract to concrete as quickly as possible
• Finding conviction, not consensus
• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
• Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer
• NPR Tiny Desk Concerts
• And much more

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💸 Learn more about our seed fund Character Capital

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🤠 Find JZ on LinkedIn and X

Chapters

0:00 Jake finally reads Anna Karenina

8:10 We visited Google again and gave a talk at YouTube!

11:00 Presenting the Foundation Sprint for the first time

14:00 Helping a founder build something new from day 0 in healthcare

18:05 Should he go direct to patients?

19:30 Design Sprints give you a chance to try something risky and non-consensus

20:35 A lot people told us not to write a book, so we prototyped it

22:10 Prototypes aren’t just for customers; they give founders a chance to see their idea live!

24:30 Our first audience questions!

25:20 Audience question: Do you have a method for naming companies?

26:05 History of the Name Sprint from Google Ventures

28:50 Walkthrough of our Name Sprint for Character Capital

29:45 Step 1: Note-and-Vote on themes of potential names

34:30 Step 2: Note-and-Vote on actual names (as many as possible)

36:40 Jake did not vote for Character

37:45 Step 3: Multiple rounds of voting to narrow down the set of names

38:35 Step 4: Plotting names on 2x2 charts to evaluate brand fit

39:20 We chose Character even though it didn’t fit our abstract brand values

41:05 Step 5: Vetting final names with the pub test (aka the shaky cell signal test)

42:30 Step 6: Final checks (web test, domain, trademark)

44:30 Empty vessel names

47:00 Collecting aspirational domain names (including jakeandjz.com!)

49:55 JZ’s Wisconsin accent

50:30 Lantern Ventures: a free brand for any VCs who love camping

51:30 We chose Character Capital because we had conviction, not consensus

52:45 A special thank you to Laura Melahn

53:30 Jake recommends Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer (the book, not the movie)

56:00 JZ recommends NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts

57:15 NPR Tiny Desk is the new MTV Unplugged