One of the most common questions we get asked (other than questions related to pet care) is “how did you come up with the name Pawbly?” … pronounced PAW – BLEE.

The original version of our company was actually called BelaPet. Unfortunately, that name presented some confusion when it came to the domain name (or website address). There was already a website with the name bellapet and having our site with such a similar name presented problems gaining traffic and building our brand. So we all sat down and went back to the drawing board.

We wanted a name that connected us to our mission … helping pets. We also wanted a name that was short as well as unique. On top of all that, the “.com” address for the name had to be available. It turns out that this in this day and age, this is a taller order than you can possibly imagine.

We sat for weeks writing down name after name after name … we tried acronyms … we tried combining words … it seems like we tried everything. More often than not, when we actually had a name that we liked, the “.com” was already taken. The number of attempts had to be in the hundreds. The exercise was a struggle met with an awful lot of disappointment.

Then one day, there it was … PAWBLY. Six letters written down on a yellow legal pad for all of us to soak in. There was no real rhyme or reason for it. Just words and letters put together to try and meet our criteria. The moment was kind of like when your dog hears that sound that they don’t understand and they cock their heads at an angle and lift an ear in the air … picture our team with a similar look. I don’t think any of us really got incredibly excited when we saw it, but “www.pawbly.com” was available so we bought it and took some time to let it sink in.

That was 18 months ago and in a way, for our team, the name is still sinking in. The feedback over the name has been incredibly positive. We’ve gotten a lot of curiosity over what it means or how we came up with it (hence this blog post) and a few struggles with pronunciation, but overall pet people just seem to get it.

From those letters scribbled on that yellow legal pad 18 months ago, our site has grown tremendously. We’ve had thousands of visitors signing up, asking questions, and helping pets with their knowledge and advice. Pawbly’s mission is to help pets and it’s working. If you’re a pet person, stop by and visit us at www.pawbly.com, you’ll be glad you did.

Sincerely,

Adam Wysocki
Chief Technology Officer
Pawbly