WHAT'S IN A NAME

Grexit, the unfortunately named software startup, is changing its name

You can’t escape it.
You can’t escape it.
Image: Reuters/Michalis Karagiannis
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After a tumultuous summer of negotiations between Greece and its lenders to avoid a “Grexit,” the debt-stricken country remains part of the Eurozone (at least for now).

The other “Grexit,” an unfortunately named software startup based in Palo Alto, California, has moved on in any case—rebranding with a new name and trying to move past the mixup.

The email software startup, which launched in 2011 to make it easier for coworkers to share email and collaborate on projects, has renamed its company “Hiver”—a play on the word beehive.

“Picture a bee, and once you’re done thinking about honey and the sting, you’d think about work ethic, organization and efficiency,” the company wrote in a blog post announcing the change.

The company, which by the way expressed a strong belief that a Greek exit from the eurozone will not happen, explained the rationale of rebranding the firm nevertheless:

1. With the term becoming more popular, we had a great deal of people getting confused about what we do.

2. The term GrexIt has a clearly negative connotation. We don’t want our product to be associated to a term that is looked upon negatively.

The founders spent months trying to get behind a new name—and have even pounced on the moment of additional attention to release a half dozen new product features.

The whole episode shows just how hard it is to name a new company. Hiver is also the name of a British craft beer company, and translates in French into ”winter”—but the chances of the name being misappropriated into the geopolitical lexicon are probably slim.