You’ve gotten this far. So, you know our name is The Juice.
Weird, huh? Different, huh? Good, we think so too.
That’s one of the big reasons we chose this name. In the landscape of B2B “sameness,” we wanted to choose something that causes you to stop and react. We hope that reaction is a smile, an eyebrow raise, or another positive emotion. If not, we know we’ll get some of that also. Just wait until you see how we shake up the content marketing space with our product. More eyebrows raised, more reactions. Coming soon!
It wasn’t an easy decision. Brett and I have talked about it on two different podcast episodes. And we talked about it a lot as a team behind-the-scenes. I thought I’d come to the blog to share more about my personal perspective on what we’ve learned from this renaming process.
First, let’s talk about why “The Juice.”
The content marketing space is inherently noisy and crowded. We knew we needed something that cut through the noise. Already, our team has taken pride in turning left when others are turning right. We call out the broken B2B Marketing processes that we’re now fixing. So, we wanted a name that didn’t sound like the old B2B Marketing landscape. The Juice is energetic. It’s punchy. It’s fun. It’s different. It’s just like our team -- the most important aspect of a brand.
We’re as much a B2C company as we are a B2B Company. We need content consumers and content marketers to come together on our platform. We felt The Juice best aligned with our content consumers. Without being to cheeky, we can provide The Juice with less squeeze for marketers and consumers of B2B content. After all, you are what you eat and you are increasingly, becoming what you read.
So why not just “Juice?” As a Purdue Boilermaker, anything that emphasizes “The” gives me nightmares about a particular state university from Ohio.
We thought a lot about other sources of content we respect. The New York Times, The Athletic, The Atlantic, the list goes on…
We felt the “The” makes it less about us as a company and more about you as a content consumer. It turns Juice into The destination for your professional content. It adds a layer of curiosity and is yet another way to stand out from the B2B sameness.
And finally, as we strive to build in public, here are few personal takeaways from the naming process.
First and foremost, progress over perfection. We knew Fathom likely wouldn’t be our final name. We could have prepped to very intentionally not go-to-market until we were ready with our final name.
That would have been very coordinated, might have caused a larger “splash,” would have avoided a beautiful cease and desist, and may have caused less friction in the short-term. This is what I would have done in my past. However, what we’ve learned in a couple of months while using Fathom has been absolutely priceless. Now, we’re ready to move even faster as The Juice.
I’m a people-person. I like harmony. I like … being liked. Admittedly, this will cause me to not be as direct in feedback and decision-making as I would like. In my role, that can’t happen with too much regularity.
It would have been “easy” to have two three-hour meetings talking through all of our options until we had a consensus on one of our naming options. Begrudgingly perhaps, we all would have agreed at the end of these marathon sessions.
Instead, we had one 60-minute meeting and encouraged everyone to be radically candid with their feedback. We wanted everyone to be heard. We did not let consensus hold us hostage. I’m a big believer in speed. And I’m learning that in my role, that means listening often but deciding quickly.
Dave Girouard, CEO of personal finance startup Upstart, and former President of Google Enterprise Apps explains it much more eloquently than myself in this First Round article Speed as a Habit: “Note that speed doesn’t require one leader to make all the calls top-down. The art of good decision-making requires that you gather input and perspective from your team, and then push toward a final decision in a way that makes it clear that all voices were heard. As I’ve grown in my career, I’ve moved away from telling people I had the right answer upfront to shaping and steering the discussion toward a conclusion.”
Most importantly, we were surrounded by incredibly talented and intelligent people throughout the entire process -- our own (dream) team, the High Alpha team, customers, and colleagues. Surround yourself with smart people and go. Surround yourself with juicers. 💯
