Naming the corporation that does a variety of things...

Lidstrom

On the drawing board, I am leaning toward creating one corporation that will be involved in multiple business activities. I keep reading that you need to choose a name that "suggests the products or services that you offer" but that would be difficult/impossible if you intend to be involved in activities that really aren`t related to each other (other than being under the same corporate umbrella). I have also read that there is no need to create different businesses for each. I was going to choose a name for the corporation that would be (this is a fictional example) something like: Lidstrom Enterprises, Inc. I might then differentiate the different activities with dba/fictional business names. Is this a bad idea? Forming separate entities for each activity might prove costly in fees/administrative hassles/time, so I would like to just keep them all under one corporation (or LLC, perhaps, a final decision has not yet been made on structure).

Rich

a few things, lidstrom. first, you have to ask yourself if you SHOULD do a variety of things out of the gate, or if you should focus on one core business, build strength there, and only THEN expand to other activities. focus is critical to success, especially when resources like time, money, experience are limited.
if indeed you wish to do several disparate businesses at once, the question is best answered by the answering several related questions:

will you have separate financing required (or desired) for each business activity? if so, you`ll benefit from separate business entitities that can be capitalized accordingly
will you have different management to execute the separate business activities? and will you provide incentives like revenue sharing or stock options to that management? of so, separate entities would be called for
might you want to sell off one business activity at a different point in time than others and will the brand of the business impact the value of such a sale. if so, you should consider an independent entity
will accounting, tax filing and general tax strategy benefit from multiple entities or would a single entity be simpler for your business? accountants can answer this deftly and can also help you select the best type of entity or entities to use.
there are other questions, no doubt. but returning to my original reaction, use caution when launching several businesses at once. succeeding with one requires incredible effort, determination, (luck), creativity, and dedication.
good luck starting it up!

onlineeater

GE has done this buy their brand has been build over time. I am sure they have many entities to manage. 
onlineeater2006-11-16 21:19:14

StephB

Hi,
 
I stumbled upon your posting from years ago, and I am just curious what did you decide to do? I am stuck in a similar predicament, so I am in need of a little advice. Did you move forward with the multiple DBAs or did you focus your efforts on one activity?
 
Any feedback that you can provide would be greatly appreciated.
 
Thank you.
 
Stephanie

infinique1

The whole idea of having a company name is that people will know exactly what kind of services you are providing the moment they see it. No point beating around the bush and keep people guessing what your trade is.

smith360

Naming is a matter of satisfying many competing constraints. Ideally
a name is relevant, positive, memorable, reasonably short, not too
generic, not too similar to a competing name, associated with an
available domain name, and distinctive enough to bring your web page to
the top of search engine results. The odds are against having a name
just pop into your head that satisfies all these constraints. That
means the most effective way to come up with a name is to think of lots
of different ideas, carefully screen and choose, and repeat. A good
metaphor for the naming process is evolution through variation and
natural selection.

WebJunky

or you can always go with something crazy like ALittleBitOfEverything.com