It took us a long time to pick the name Offseason. Too long, if you ask most social media "gurus".

It took so long because I was incredibly picky about it. Because it was important to me that whatever name we picked had meaning that extended beyond just us. I was adamant that it be a name that resonated deeply with the type of people we wanted to attract as partners and team members. One that people could see and know what we stand for, even before knowing what we do.

In that process, we rattled through dozens of options. None of them stuck. Some because we just didn't like the sound of them, but most because even though they sounded great on paper, we didn't see a clear path towards building a brand.

Why did I care so much?

Let me explain.

A product is what you buy.

A company is who you buy it from.

Brand is why you choose to buy it from them as opposed to anybody else.

I believe people to be the biggest competitive advantage of any successful organization. If we were going to attract the best people, we needed to give them a reason why. To me, that starts before they even know what you sell or who you are. It starts with a name. It starts with brand.

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The Off-Season

In 2021, Grammy-award winning rapper J. Cole released an album titled “The Off-Season”. I was listening to that album on a Saturday morning while I did yard work and, because naming things was on my mind, I looked up what inspired the album title.

In an interview where he was asked a similar question, J. Cole had this to say, “For an athlete, if they take their career seriously and if they really got high goals and want to chase them, the offseason is where the magic really happens, where the ugly sh-t really happens, where the pain happens, the pushing yourself to uncomfortable limits… So that’s really what it represents. It represents the time spent getting better and pushing.”

I read that and knew we had found it.

Offseason Ventures, or just, Offseason.