SmallBizResource Blog -- Marketing

It's All In The Name Or Is It?

Posted by Judy Mottl Monday, Sep 24, 2007, 01:12 PM ET

Ok, be honest, what images does this company's name conjure up: WabiSabiLabi? I've seen my share of unique business monikers in the past decade but this one had me intrigued.

And that's the one reason I read the release I got from WSLabi (the company's acronym), a Swiss marketplace and lab for security research exchange (WSLabi). According to a press release it was founded by a group of security professionals who were unsatisfied by the way zero-days research is handled and security researchers are rewarded. Launched two months ago the company facilitates the sale/purchase of security research by providing a secure market environment to maximize the security researcher's reward.

Now their business model is actually as unique as their name and since I understood that, I decided to write their press contact to get the story behind the company name. Here it is:

Wabi-sabi represents a comprehensive Japanese world view or aesthetic centred on the acceptance of transience. The phrase comes from the two words wabi and sabi. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete". It is a concept derived from the Buddhist assertion of the Three marks of existence — Anicca, or in Japanese(mujyou), impermanence. Wabi-sabi nurtures all that is authentic by acknowledging three simple realities: nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect. In this view, Wabi-sabi is the perfect term to represent the implicit imperfection of the IT security, as well as the scope of our project, which is to contribute to its improvement. This goal is achieved by completely re-designing the traditional security research cycle, introducing for the first time ever a market-driven approach to correctly value the security researchers contributions. Nothing lasts, but everything can always be improved in its life-cycle.

Now that we all know that, we're faced with the larger business question posed: Should a company's name be so unique.. does it help or hurt... what went into naming your company and the reasoning behind it?

Marketing