Why did we name our app zkipster?

zkipster is part of fundraisers, galas, product launches, conferences, and corporate parties in more than 85 countries. But we haven’t shared the story behind the name zkipster before.

While we’re headquartered in Zürich, Switzerland, zkipster has teams around the globe in New York City, London, Amsterdam, and Hong Kong. All of us are working hard to make zkipster the industry standard: if only it wasn’t so tricky to spell...

Here’s a little peek behind the scenes at just how zkipster came to be. In late 2008, an idea came to life. While co-founders David Becker and Daniel Dessauges started to work on the beta version, they had to come up with a compelling name for their product: a guest list app for nightlife hosts.

So first things first, why did we choose the name zkipster?

Funnily enough, zkipster wasn’t the first name we chose. Originally we planned to call ourselves “Nitedigit” since we were aiming for the nightlife market, and were a digital product. However, after speaking with branding experts, we were told that creating a completely new name (rather than making a new compound word) and giving it meaning had more impact.

Once we had carte blanche to create a name from scratch, we started playing around with words starting with the letter z. We were focused pretty exclusively on nightlife, and wanted to be edgy. Because both founders are Swiss-German, we chose to work off of “zkip,” which we pronounce as skip. It came from the idea that we would help you “zkip” the line.

Little did we know that it would cause so many spelling and pronunciation issues! Thankfully, if you type in skipster.com, you’ll be redirected to our site.

What are some of the most common ways people confuse our name?

We promise, we don’t take offense! But we’ve seen some unusual spellings and pronunciations. The most common mispronunciation involves trying to say the name phonetically, like z-kipster (zee-kipster). This happens mostly with native English speakers; native German speakers don’t always have that trouble.

How else have we seen people spell zkipster?

Here are a few of the search queries we’ve come across in Google: zkipsters, zskipzter, zkipsta, szkipster, zkister, zkip ster, zikipster, zkispter, zekipster, kzipster, zhipster, pkipster, kzkipster, zkipstet, zkipstr, zkister, zikhipster, zkispter, zkipter, xzkipster, kipster, zkipsterr, zkispter, skypster. We’ll blame a few of these on autocorrect, but really there’s only one way to spell zkipster in our world!

So why does “zkipster” work?

One of the best things about zkipster is that it’s a name that didn’t exist before, which means that the meaning can be totally created from scratch, according to Ish Obergon, founder of Oiishi Creative and a member of the zkipster Board of Advisors. Alternately using a simple generic word enables the company to grow and change without having to change their name.

Look at the example of Apple, the name they used on their products in 1984 was Apple Computers. As they expanded they adjusted their name and just became Apple. zkipster won’t have that problem.

zkipster also has a unique twist in that it describes both the user and the service in one word, which is no easy feat. It might still be a bit of a tongue twister for new clients, but the bigger and more well known the app becomes, the less of a problem that will be.

“After all, success overcomes all obstacles", Obergon says. “That’s the main reason we’re all trying to learn Chinese.”