CASE STUDY: ALONGSIDE
A new brand name for an up-and-coming HR tech startup
Yves Boudreau’s HR technology company was on a hot streak: the Canada-based startup had just attended 500 Startups, a prestigious incubator in San Francisco. But while the company was receiving rave reviews from investors and users alike, its name was not. Problems with “Qimple” (“quick” and “simple”) included mispronunciations, misspellings, and a failure to convey what the company truly stood for. In Yves’ words, it “was holding us back.”
Based on Qimple's brand essence of together—bringing the right people together to do their best work—Heirloom generated hundreds of name ideas, including metaphors, abstract ideas, and coined words. Through a series of naming presentations and feedback from the entire company, we arrived at the name “Alongside.” A simple, real word, it stands out in part because the majority of real-word brand names are nouns, verbs, or adjectives, whereas “alongside” is a preposition.
Paired with an internally developed visual identity and website, the new name launched six weeks after the name was chosen. Yves describes the name as “our commitment to working with employers and job seekers, so they can connect in a meaningful way and do amazing things together.” And Emily Brennan, Marketing Manager at Alongside, had this to say about working with Heirloom:
Working with Rob and his team at Heirloom was incredible. We were struggling big time to find a name that reflected who we are as a company. Heirloom came in to save the day with a sophisticated, professional approach to naming which completely exceeded our expectations. … [Rob] went above and beyond and made it his mission to help us better identify ourselves. I’d recommend Heirloom to anyone looking for naming support.