Miki Agrawal talks about trademarking Tushy, a bidet brand that shares its name with a porn site. The naming choice created unexpected marketing opportunities and investor conversations that became part of the company's story.
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Tushy is a porn site. When we were looking to trademark our brand Tushy, with our really cute logo mark, which is this water drop with a cute little butt inside the water droplet, we were, you know, when we set out to trademark our logo and trademark our brand, we've discovered kind of naively that we didn't figure it out earlier that Tushy is a porn site like tushy.com is a porn site. We had to make sure that we could still own the name, and it was such a scary process. But then we realized, well, we're very far away from a porn site space. So we were able to trademark the name Tushy under bidets and bought hellotushy.com instead, because tushy.com was taken. And so what was interesting for us was, like, when we were thinking about our brand and creating the brand and actually trademarking it, we were at first, like, trepidatious, like, should we keep this name? Because of the association with the porn site, we didn't want anyone to think that we were related in any way. But then we were like, nah, people are gonna go to hellotushy.com. it's only a certain audience that watches that. And this is everyone with a but. So we decided to proceed. And we also decided that if people do land on the other website instead of hellotushy.com, that it would be a funny dinner table conversation and that'll actually probably bring more attention to our brand anyway. Which turned out to be true because people were like, oh, my God, I went to the wrong website and, oh, God. And we have so many reviews of people, you know, like, with their mom and saying, like. Or their grandma and saying like, I found this awesome product for you because I know you have some issues down there. Like. And then it's like, boom. Like the porn site. And she was. And they were like, ah. Like. So then of course, that story is now a story they tell to all their friends. And so we learned that sometimes, you know, having a brand that has another name or association isn't necessarily a horrible thing. The ideal is to have your own name. But we decided to keep it. So it also happened with us with investors where they went to the wrong site and they were just like, oh, my God. And then of course, the cookie was dropped and they started following them. And it was just a really bad situation. But of course, we had a great chuckle about it. Most of them invested. So, you know, it still ends up a really good story. Satisfaction.
