Deciding how to pick a name for your startup is a critical and crucial endeavor. You need something memorable and something flashy—something that highlights both your work and your culture. At the end of the day, your company's name becomes the epicenter of its entire identity. See how these 4 Austin startups with awesome names detail the even more awesome ways they came up with them.
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Answers from Senior PR Manager Rachel Adam
What is the story behind your name? When the Company first launched, it was based in Midtown, New York. Alan, Tas and Chad traveled daily into the city on New York’s Rapid Transit system’s "Rapid7" train (you might notice our logo looks a bit like a bullet-train). With much of the planning and development for the Company discussed on that commute, it seemed only right to name the Company Rapid7. It was perfect!
What does the name stand for now? Has it changed over time? Today, the name embodies our Company's commitment to rapidly responding to our customers’ needs, their evolving IT environments, and the emerging threats they face, so we can help them keep moving forward. Our mission is to solve complex security challenges with simple, innovative solutions.
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Answers from CEO and cofounder Antonio Arocha
What is the story behind your name? My wife is from Turkey and while traveling there, I got to meet more than a few folks that inspired the name for our startup. It turns out it has two meanings (most Turkish words have pretty cool meanings) in Turkish: "constantly evolving" and " the core." I liked the first one as I knew that, like any startup, we would be constantly evolving to perfect both our solutions and our service.
Our market, the asset protection and monitoring market, is a constant "chess game" where the good folks and the bad folks strive to protect and steal valuables such as fuel and cargo, respectively. We are the "road warriors," the 'Mad Max' tribe trying to protect that cargo shipment fuel of fuel, food, pharmaceuticals, etc from being stolen.
So there it is, nuve, the "constantly evolving" startup that will change the way things work in the transportation, oil & gas, construction and infrastructure sector.
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What is the story behind your name? Golden Frog Co-CEOs Ron and Carolyn Yokubaitis were Peace Corps volunteers in Brazil during the late 1960’s. While travelling through Central America in 1970 after their service, they stopped in Panama where they visited the Golden Frog Coffee Bar — a popular spot for travelers. Back in the United States, Ron and Carolyn went on to raise five sons and found several Internet businesses, including Texas.net, one of the first 50 ISP in the USA, Data Foundry and Giganews.
Fast forward to 2008, when they returned to Panama for the Latin American Internet Conference, and wondered if Golden Frog Coffee Bar was still around. The coffee bar was no longer in business, but they discovered a fun fact — the Golden Frog is the national animal of Panama. Even better, they learned that the Golden Frog also has a very unique way of communicating with other frogs – it waves to them!
They decided to name their newest Internet business after the Golden Frog of Panama.
What does the name stand for now? Has it changed over time? Today Golden Frog stands for online freedom, privacy, and security for everyone. The name embodies the same sense of passion and freedom as in 1970 when Ron and Carolyn first discovered the Golden Frog Coffee Bar. Today, anyone visiting the Golden Frog website will see a friendly frog waving back at them from the bottom of the page!
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Answers from John Roa, CEO & Founder of ÄKTA
What is the story behind your name? When I founded our experience design company, I wanted a name that was unique and evoked a bit of curiosity. I didn't want a name that was a common term. I also wanted a name early in the alphabet. Testing out a couple of possible names I came up with ÄKTA (always with the umlaut), and discovered that it meant "authentic," "genuine," or "real" in Swedish. This was a bonus, since my vision was to build a company that would build authentic and genuine user experiences. To differentiate from the Swedish word, I decided to have it appear always as all CAPS, and ÄKTA was born.
On a side note, we regularly get inquiries from Swedish people, companies and business associations, convinced that I must be Swedish. I was actually born in Venezuela. Maybe someday we'll take advantage of the name and open an office in Stockholm.
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