From Hoops Stats to OddsDeity to EdgeGoat: The Name Game

Name 1: Hoops Stats

The first name was obvious, boring, and accurate. It was a basketball stats app. "Hoops Stats." Done.

This name lasted about two weeks. It was fine when the app was just a personal parlay tracker pulling NBA data from ESPN. It described exactly what the thing did.

But names have a ceiling. "Hoops Stats" hit its ceiling the moment we added NCAAB support and started thinking about hockey. You can't call something "Hoops Stats" when it also tracks NHL skater props. Well, you can, but you shouldn't.

More importantly, "Hoops Stats" sounds like a reference site. It sounds like Basketball Reference or StatMuse — passive, informational, encyclopedic. EdgeGoat isn't a reference site. It's a tool for bettors. The name needed to convey action, not just information.

Cause of death: Too narrow (basketball only) and too passive (stats, not edge).

Name 2: OddsDeity

On March 19th, two and a half weeks into the project, we shipped the rebrand:

4:44 PM  Rebrand to OddsDeity with landing page, waitlist API, and UX polish

"OddsDeity" was born from the idea that we were building something that could give bettors a god-like view of the odds landscape. All the information, all the analysis, all the sportsbooks — omniscient visibility into the betting market.

The name was fun. It had personality. It worked well visually — the logo possibilities were great (a deity figure overlooking a sports field, an all-seeing eye made of odds numbers). And it communicated what we wanted: this tool gives you a higher power over your bets.

For about three days, we loved it.

Then the problems started surfacing:

It sounds like a gambling site, not a tools company. When you say "OddsDeity" to someone, their first thought is "online casino" or "gambling platform." We're neither. We're a prediction and tracking tool. The name created the wrong first impression.

It's hard to spell and say. "Is it O-D-D-S-D-E-I-T-Y?" "Odds Deity or OddsDeity?" "How do you pronounce that — diety or day-ity?" In the era of word-of-mouth and app store searches, a confusing name is a liability.

The deity angle felt grandiose. There's a fine line between confident and arrogant in branding. "Deity" crosses it. We're not gods of odds. We're obsessive nerds who built a really good prediction engine. The name over-promised what the experience delivered.

The legal entity was "OddsDeity LLC." This one's practical. When we later changed the name, we had to update the legal entity to "InnateDuty LLC." More on that below.

Cause of death: Wrong first impression (gambling site, not tools), hard to spell/say, too grandiose.

Name 3: EdgeGoat

The final name came from two words that perfectly describe the product:

Edge: the statistical advantage you're looking for in every bet. Edge is the gap between what the sportsbook thinks and what the data shows. It's the entire reason EdgeGoat exists — finding, measuring, and exploiting edge.

Goat: greatest of all time. The aspiration. Not that we're the GOAT (yet), but that we're building for people who want to be the GOAT of their betting circle. The friend who always seems to have better picks. The one who says "I told you to take the over" and is right more often than they should be.

Together: EdgeGoat. The GOAT of finding edge.

It's easy to spell. Easy to say. Easy to remember. When you Google it, there's no collision with an existing major brand. The domain was available. The app store name was available.

The name also works as a verb in conversation: "Did you EdgeGoat that game?" "What does EdgeGoat say about the Celtics tonight?" That's the sign of a good product name — it becomes a natural part of the user's vocabulary.

The EdgeGoat personality

The name has a playful quality that we embrace. A goat is a funny animal. It's stubborn, it climbs things it shouldn't, and it eats everything. That's... actually a pretty good metaphor for what our prediction engine does. It's stubborn (16 rounds of calibration and counting), it climbs to places it shouldn't be able to reach (65% win accuracy against efficient markets), and it consumes everything (play-by-play, odds, game logs, player data, coaching history).

The logo writes itself: a goat with an edge. Literally.

What The Names Reveal About The Product's Evolution

Looking back, each name corresponds to a phase of the product's identity:

Hoops Stats (March 2-18): "I built a personal tool to track my NBA parlays."

• Basketball only
• Stats viewer
• Personal project

OddsDeity (March 19-22): "We're building a platform to dominate sports betting."

• Multi-sport
• God-complex branding
• Business ambitions (waitlist, landing page, billing)

EdgeGoat (March 22+): "We find edge in sports betting markets using data and ML."

• Focused identity
• Approachable personality
• Clear value proposition (edge, not omniscience)

Each rebrand happened because the product outgrew the name. Hoops Stats was too small. OddsDeity was too big. EdgeGoat is just right.

The Practical Nightmare of Rebranding Twice

Let's talk about what rebranding actually involves in a monorepo:

• Package names in package.json (every app and package)
• Docker image names and compose files
• CI/CD pipeline filters
• Database names and volume mounts
• Domain names and nginx configs
• Legal entity (LLC name change)
• App store listings and bundle IDs
• Environment variables
• Import paths and barrel exports
• Landing page copy
• Email templates
• Error tracking (Sentry) project names
• Analytics tracking (Umami) site names
• API endpoints and CORS origins

The OddsDeity rebrand was a single massive commit that touched every layer of the stack. The EdgeGoat rebrand was distributed across several commits because we learned from the first one — smaller, testable changes instead of one big bang.

If you're thinking about rebranding your project: do it early if you're going to do it. The longer you wait, the more things break.

The Legal Entity Journey

We started as an informal project. Then we formed OddsDeity LLC to hold the domain, handle billing, and look legitimate. Then we rebranded to EdgeGoat and had to update the LLC.

Rather than changing the LLC name (expensive and annoying in most states), we formed InnateDuty LLC as a holding entity. Why "InnateDuty"? It was available, it's not tied to any specific product name, and it won't need to change if we rebrand again. (Please don't make us rebrand again.)

Naming Advice From Someone Who Got It Wrong Twice

1. Say the name out loud 50 times. If it's hard to say, it's hard to spread.
2. Type it 50 times. If it's hard to type, it's hard to search.
3. Describe the product without using the name. The name should feel natural in that description, not forced.
4. Check if it works as a verb. "Just EdgeGoat it" > "Just OddsDeity it"
5. Avoid names that describe what you do today. "Hoops Stats" died when we added hockey. Name for where you're going, not where you are.
6. Don't be grandiose. Your users will give you a reputation. The name should let them do that, not pre-assign one.
7. Just pick one. A great name you ship with is infinitely better than a perfect name you're still brainstorming.

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Hoops Stats was too small. OddsDeity was too loud. EdgeGoat is just a stubborn animal looking for edge. That feels right.