“why OKKA?”
it’s something i probably hear weekly at this point.
and fair enough. it’s not the most straightforward name.
but it’s unique, australian, and i fucking love it.
but settling on “OKKA” was no easy task.
in the early days of starting this journey, i legit spent weeks thinking of names and jotted down hundreds of potential names. none of which were any good to be honest.
i was trying to find something short, sharp, unique, and most of all, available!
and some real secret sauce here, i basically used brad gerstner’s framework for coming up with a brand name:
What's harder is to make up a word. But if you can do it and fill that empty vessel of a word with meaning and emotion. Then long-term, you've invented something that actually enters the language, and it is yours. So it's much better in the long term. […] when I'm thinking about consumer brands, which is kind of my space, I have a few rules. One, the first one is high point Scrabble letters. For the Scrabble players out there, it sounds like you're one Patrick. But for the Scrabble players out there, you know that the highest point Scrabble letters are Z, Q. Those are 10. X is eight. That's a pretty good one. I think J is eight. That's a pretty good one. So you go.
So why is Z worth 10? Z is worth 10 because it's the least used letter in English. It's the least used letter in English, which means when you see it on a page or you hear it, it stands out and is memorable. So brands that use memorable letters are easier to remember.
Two syllables is good. I think fewer syllables is better. I think the sweet spot is two. Expedia was too long. It had the X, which was great. And it meant you kind of invoked speed. We made that one up. It invoked speed and expedition. I liked all of that, but it was four syllables. It's just too long. You wouldn't name a dog, that's rule three, makes a good dog name, which means it's easy to say. Rule four is something interesting about the letters. Palindromes are really interesting. Double letters are interesting. In all of these rules, Zoom is a really terrific one. They actually repurposed a pre-existing word and then refilled it with new definition
i was soooooo set on using a Z for so long. but all the names i could think of using it were traaaaaash.
i was also deadset on having a name where i would have the .com for it.
i was not willing to accept a name where i didn’t have the .com
then one day, it clicked.
me and the missus were roadtripping from brisbane to cairns, and mentioned how along the way we met some real aussie ocker people.
it’s a great bit of aussie slang is ocker. which in my interpretation is just an honest, laid-back, fair dinkum, fun-loving larrikin.
literally the perfect fit for what i want OKKA to represent.
so with a bit of luck and a bit of grunt work, thats how i named my golf brand OKKA :)