How Squaretree Got Its Name
In 1992, Larry Mandelberg and I were contemplating starting a business together. We needed to find a name that both of us liked. We spent months coming up with name after name: ones that he liked and I didn’t, and others that I thought were great that he hated. Twice we found names that we both liked and our wives hated them.
The evening before we were to show at a conference, we still didn’t have a company name or business cards. Of course, neither of us wanted to use the other person’s current company name so we had to do something. We decided to wing it and just randomly try words hoping for two that combined would create the feeling of what we wanted to create. The name had to look good on hand made cards in script print.
We both were in agreement that we wanted our company to focus on using technology to benefit business with the focus on business. This meant that we didn’t want to use some whiz-bang cute computer techie name. We wanted it to emphasize stability and longevity. We shot some words back and forth and decided to try starting with the word Square, as in “square shooter”, “he’s a square guy”, and “they treated us fair and square”. Besides, the S and q looked good together.
Next we thought we needed a word with a lower case riser like l or t. Soon we tried the word tree and both thought that this word added a feeling of longevity and solidity and reliability.
Thus Squaretree was born. We both figured we could change it as soon as we wanted but at least we had cards for the show. Now over 25 years later, through numerous successes and challenges, it’s still Squaretree Software.
Larry has since left the company for other pursuits but the name lives on and, more importantly, says just what I want it to say. While the two words together have no real meaning I think it creates a feeling of honesty, integrity and reliability. These values are what I want Squaretree to symbolize: honesty, integrity and reliability in using technology to help businesses and organizations realize the most value from their investments.
