My co-founding team and I have been working together for almost 10 years. We’re high-functioning, very good at what we do, individually excellent, and our whole is greater than the sum of the parts. We have solved some very hard engineering problems.
But bar none, the hardest thing we’ve ever done as a team is name our company.
We named our company 4TLAS.
If the first thing you see is our logo (https://4tlas.io), you might intuitively know that we pronounce it “atlas.” If the first thing you see is the word typed out as above, you’ll be confused. Is it “four-tless” or maybe “four-atlas?”
At first, I disliked the name because of this. Nobody knows how to say it. It’s too hard. There are a million companies called “atlas.” I pass four companies named Atlas on my way from Berks County to center city Philly to see my daughter.
A funny thing, though, has happened along the way — conversation. The confusion or the foible leads to converation. People ask how to say it and how and why we came up with it.
The name has become an opportunity for me to tell the story. To have conversation.
And more conversation is how we move forward.
P.S. I haven’t told the story above of how and why we came up with 4TLAS, but I’m happy to have that conversation with you. Reach out to me and I’m happy to tell it.
