Before Folanza existed, I already had a name. It fit, it sounded good, and as far as I could check at the time, it was free. I held onto it for a long time — until, shortly before the planned launch, a trademark search turned up something I couldn't have known beforehand.
A good name is harder to find than you'd think
It has to fit the product, be easy to remember and pronounce. It can't be confused with another app or brand. And it can't infringe on existing trademark rights — and it often takes surprisingly little to cross that line: a name doesn't have to be confusingly similar to a registered trademark, it's enough if a similarity can be constructed with a bit of imagination.
That's exactly where my first name failed. It had passed every check I could run at the time. Only the trademark search showed that a single letter's difference from an already established, registered trademark was enough to become a real risk. The name had to go — right in the middle of preparing for launch, back to square one.
In the moment, that was simply frustrating. In hindsight, it was a stroke of luck: Folanza came out of exactly that setback, and the new name fits better in the end than the old one ever would have.
Portfolio and Bonanza become Folanza
"Folio" is in "portfolio" — the concept almost everything in the app revolves around. And "bonanza" carries more meaning than you'd guess at first hearing: the Spanish word originally described calm seas and fair weather, good news for sailors. In 19th-century mining, it came to mean a particularly rich vein of ore. What's left in everyday use is what gets translated as a windfall, a goldmine, a lucky find — a sudden, larger value.
Portfolio plus bonanza makes Folanza. And Folanza doesn't promise you a bonanza — gains and losses are part of it. But it gives you the calm, clear overview to make your own decisions. That's the find the name means.
That's how a failed first attempt became the name that fits a crypto portfolio tracker: Folanza.