Rewind & Capture

How Tech Brands Got Their Names

Why is Slack Called Slack?

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The inspiration behind Instagram was not beautiful images and filters, the inspiration behind Twitter was not hashtags (#) and 140 character updates and the inspiration behind Flickr was not hosting and photo-sharing. Like these powerhouse brands that evolved over the years, Slack was no different. Believe it or not, the idea behind Slack was derived from the struggle of team communication when developing a gaming company called Glitch.

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Why is Buffer Called Buffer?

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Successful companies are a result of talented people, which is why so many leaders are incredibly generous with their time to mentor other entrepreneurs to-be. Often when listening to serial entrepreneurs, you’ll hear some consistencies like build something useful, get to market before you think you should and start building your subject matter expertise. Easy enough, right? If it was that easy, 90% of startups would succeed instead of fail. Unlike most sane people, entrepreneurs glue their eyes on the 10% and don’t look back. The story is no different behind the inception at Buffer.

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Why is Trivago Called Trivago?

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Not long ago, booking a hotel was complicated, time consuming and stressful. It was not exactly easy to compare prices – always leaving you unsure if you got the best bang for your buck. Then came sites like Expedia, Orbitz, Hotels.com and Booking.com, which allow consumers to efficiently compare prices, read reviews, view high res images and even compare amenities. This improvement in the booking experience not only reduced the purchasing fear, but it also makes sure hotels deliver a great experience, consistently. For the first time, consumers could get a strong understating of what they were going to get before they checked in. In 2005, Malte Siewert, Rolf Schrömgens and Peter Vinnemeier saw the success of these websites and launched their own hotel aggregation site called Trivago.

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Why is Moz Called Moz?

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Here’s an inspirational tale of a curious man who grew his company, even in the face of a $500,000 debt, no college degree and at one point in time, just rudimentary knowledge of why one little blue link ranked above others.

Moz, previously SEOmoz, was founded in Seattle, WA by Rand Fishkin and Gillian Muessig (Rand’s mom) in 2004; however the startup journey commenced years before then. In 1981, Rand and his parents moved from New York to Seattle after his father accepted a position with Boeing. Shortly after arriving in Seattle, Gillian started a business called Outlines West, which provided a variety of marketing services to small businesses.

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Why is Wistia Called Wistia?

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Six billion hours of video are watched every month on Youtube, 300 hours of new video content are uploaded per minute and the average mobile users spends over 40 minutes per day watching videos on Youtube. Surprised? It goes without saying, but how we consume has drastically changed in a relatively short period of time – how we buy, how we watch, how we listen etc. This behavioral change has led to new market opportunities for entrepreneurs.

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