Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, revealed its filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission today to become a public company.
In its filings, the company noted that it has actually changed its name three times in the seven years since co-founders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy started working together at Stanford:
Snap Inc. (“we,” “our,” or “us”) was formed as Future Freshman, LLC, a California limited liability company, in 2010. We changed our name to Toyopa Group, LLC in 2011, incorporated as Snapchat, Inc., a Delaware corporation, in 2012, and changed our name to Snap Inc. in 2016. Snap Inc. is headquartered in Venice, California. Our flagship product, Snapchat, is a camera application that was created to help people communicate through short videos and images called “Snaps.”
The company also changed the name of its core product: Snapchat was originally listed in the iOS app store as “Picaboo.”
The name changes highlight that when starting a new company, it might not be worth stressing for too long about what the name of the company is. If people like your product, they’ll like it regardless of what you’ve called it, and once you have more time (and possibly revenue) to hire some brand consultants, you can rename yourself to your heart’s content.