Every founder Googles their own company. When I typed in "Knock2," I got festival lineups, YouTube sets, Spotify links and a guy in a hoodie getting 20,000 people to jump at the same time.
That guy isn't me.
He's Knock2, a DJ and producer from San Diego, and "dashstar*" has more streams than our website will ever have visitors. We build software that tells B2B companies who's on their website. He builds bass drops. Google can't tell us apart, and as it turns out, neither can a big chunk of the internet.
Here's what that has looked like from inside hello@knock2.ai.
Exhibit A: We've been offered a private jet
A private aviation company that flies "the leading EDM talent" wanted to quote our "upcoming routings." The best detail is that the email was sent to the DJ's actual management company, with our inbox BCC'd. Somewhere a database decided we were part of his team.
They even offered flight credit in exchange for social posts. Our LinkedIn audience is RevOps managers. I'm not sure a jet would convert.
Exhibit B: A vape brand wants me to wear their product as a necklace
"We've been following your work for a while on TikTok and absolutely love your content." They loved our energy, our music and our "DJ sets and event appearances."
The ask: wear a vape around my neck at my events, film it, and make sure it has "70%+ visibility in the videos."
My events are mostly webinars about pipeline attribution. Visibility would be high, but I'm not sure it's the audience they want.
Exhibit C: The mixtapes
Aspiring producers send us their tracks, constantly. Pre-release copies. "Out now" follow-ups. Promo lists for festivals we will never play. One producer sent the same song twice, a pre-release and then a release-day reminder, which honestly is better follow-up discipline than most SDRs have.
My favorite is a producer who sent his tracks to David Guetta, Steve Aoki, Afrojack, Laidback Luke and us, all on the same email. Somewhere there's a spreadsheet of the biggest names in dance music, and we're on it.
And yes, sometimes we listen.
"Drop hits at 0:29." It does. Our support team told him the intro was underrated. He sent two more tracks. We now have a favorite producer nobody else in B2B SaaS has heard of.
Exhibit D: We were asked to cover Lollapalooza India
A photographer wanted to document "Knock2's set at Lollapalooza India this January." For the record, our current festival schedule is zero festivals.
Exhibit E: The one that got me
Not every email is a pitch. Someone wrote in hoping Knock2 could wish her boyfriend a happy 21st birthday. He'd flown from Phoenix to Montreal to see the show, and she'd gone with him. It was a genuinely sweet note, it reached the wrong Knock2, and it's a reminder that real people are on the other end of every one of these mix-ups. (It was also addressed to his real agency, so hopefully it landed.) Happy belated birthday, whoever you are.
The part that isn't a joke: SEO and GEO
Every one of these emails came from a person or a tool that matched a name and filled in the rest. That's funny when it's a vape brand. It's less funny when it's the system deciding whether a buyer ever finds you.
Branded search is supposed to be the easy win. It isn't for us. When someone searches "Knock2," Google gives them what most searchers want: music. He has years of YouTube sets, a Wikipedia page, streaming profiles and fan sites all reinforcing one meaning of the word. We have a product page.
AI answers have the same problem. More buyers now ask ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity or Google's AI Overviews instead of clicking links. Those models learn who you are from everything written about you. So I asked ChatGPT.
It's a tie, which honestly is a win. On Google the name mostly belongs to him. In ChatGPT we're half the answer, because of everything below: we pair our name with our category everywhere, we answer the questions buyers actually ask, and other people write about us. The goal now is for it to stop asking "which one did you mean?" when the question is about visitor identification.
You don't need a famous namesake to have this problem. A common-word name, a bigger competitor or simply not being written about enough does the same thing. What's worked for us:
- Say your name and your category together, everywhere. Not "Knock2," but "Knock2, the website visitor identification platform." Repetition plus context is how both search engines and models learn which one you are.
- Win the question, not the name. We may never own "Knock2," but we can be the best answer to "how do I see which companies are visiting my website."
- Get written about where models read. Reviews, comparison posts, partner pages, Reddit, podcasts. Third-party context is the tiebreaker.
- Measure what you control. Branded rankings may be a lost cause. Pipeline from the people who do find you isn't.
Would I change the name?
No. It's short, it's memorable and it says what we do: when a buyer knocks, you should know who it is. Clearly at least one other person thinks it's a great name too.
And it's given us a running joke that every marketer gets right away, because everyone is fighting some version of this. A famous DJ, a bigger competitor or an algorithm that hasn't figured you out yet. You can't always win the search for your own name. You can make sure the right people find you anyway.
To the other Knock2: congrats on everything. If any of your fans ever need B2B visitor identification, send them our way. We'll keep forwarding you the mixtapes. And the jet.
The Knock2 AI Mixtape
These producers sent their music to the wrong Knock2. The least we can do is send some listeners their way. Give them a spin.
- Joucher, "Bassline Hits": the one our support team called underrated. Drop hits at 0:29. Listen on SoundCloud
- Jace Mek, "Simmer": the pre-release and the release-day follow-up. Stream "Simmer" or follow Jace Mek on SoundCloud
- ThomC: an Italian DJ and producer who put us on the same email as David Guetta. ThomC on Instagram
Producers: if you'd rather keep sending us tracks than pitch the real Knock2, we're honored. Just know our A&R department is also our support team.
And if you'd like to know who is visiting your own website (no mixtapes required), start with the plans and try Knock2 on your site.
