The answer might surprise you...
It came to me on a warm summer day after a cold beer and a nap. I'd been struggling for weeks with what to call our new app. Nothing I thought of seemed to fit. I was out of ideas and feeling frustrated.
Sitting in the backyard lounge chair, my brain kept replaying an idea my daughters gave me. They knew I'd been searching for the right name and coming up short.
"Hey Dad, why don't you pick some type of clothing?"
After Googling ‘clothes’ one day, we explored names to see if any particular piece of attire might resonate. Pants? No. Jacket? Nah. Socks? Nope. Sleeve? We were reaching.
We needed to find a cool metaphor that would give us a catchy name. Nothing seemed to click. Aaack!
Then one Saturday afternoon, after more hours of Googling, feeling worn out and deeply discouraged, I took the advice of my wife Sue who told me to take a break: "It will just come to you."
So I grabbed a bottle of Corona and escaped to the backyard lounge chair. Sleep found me quickly.
A few minutes later, my eyes suddenly popped open. I was staring straight up into a deep blue summer sky framed by frothy white clouds. VEST.
It was then that the word "Vest" beamed into my brain, as if dropped down from the purity of those summer clouds. I knew at that moment we finally found it. The perfect name for our app.
I ran into the kitchen, empty Corona bottle in hand, and yelled out, to no one in particular, “Vest!! How does that sound?!”
Sue and our two teenage daughters rushed into the kitchen where I kept shouting excitedly, "Vest! It's a Vest. Why can't it be a Vest? What do you think of Vest?"
My wife and daughters concurred, pointing out that:
A Vest that you wear has pockets where you put important stuff that you need to have on hand and get to easily when you need it (our app helps special needs parent store important information in "Vest Pockets" and retrieve it instantly, from any device);
A life Vest keeps people afloat and helps them survive when stranded in dangerous waters (our app enables special needs parents to ensure their child's well-being, protection, and care after you're gone); and
Parents are completely Vested in creating a system for the lifelong protection and care of their child with special needs (our app supports special needs parents with tools and solutions to actually do that).
Finally, thanks to a beer and a nap, and some excellent advice from my wife, we had a fitting name for our app! (pun intended).
