Aesop: a platform that offers small businesses access to high-quality AI naming solutions
A brand name is more than just a word; it is the first impression, the initial connection between a business and its potential customers. That’s where Aesop comes in.
Aesop is a verbal identity storytelling agency co-founded by Tanya Gustafson and Andrew Macken. The platform offers small business access to high-quality naming solutions at an accessible price point. In their quest for software development assistance, Aesop encountered GlobalOrange, recommended by a friend. Tanya Gustafson remarked, “GlobalOrange turned out to be a perfect solution for us and our set of circumstances.”
Curious about how this partnership started? Want to know our approach and how it benefits your business? Book a call with Yvo to explore what this approach could mean for your product.
CHALLENGE
GlobalOrange and Aesop faced a joint challenge to build a well-designed SaaS platform to provide SMBs (small and medium-sized businesses) with affordable access to professional naming solutions.
APPROACH
Aesop and GlobalOrange shared a common goal: to create a user-friendly, accessible, and delightful SaaS solution that would approach the advice a human brand naming expert would give. They achieved this by a close collaboration with our team of multidisciplinary experts, including an AI specialist to model human naming expertise.
RESULT
- Human naming expertise modelled into a high quality AI algorithm
- The Aesop platform provides smaller businesses professional guidance in naming their brand.
- A faster and more approachable, enjoyable, and affordable brand naming process.
Human naming expertise modelled into a smart algorithm
Aesop started with an idea by Tanya Gustafson. She has been working as a verbal identity specialist and brand strategist for nearly two decades. She saw a big problem: it was hard for small businesses to find good names without spending too much money or time. Tanya learned from talking to many clients that naming things can be fun but also really hard. There are lots of languages and finding the perfect words is tough. That’s where Aesop comes in. It wants to help people find great names by using a smart tool. This tool is like having an expert with you, making naming easier and more enjoyable. Aesop uses a computer program that acts like a human expert. This means it can help people all over the world and it costs much less than traditional agencies.
“Working with Global Orange was very refreshing. Everyone was an elite talent but also a really great person to spend time with. We enjoyed every minute.”
Unique features of Aesop
1. The (structured) discovery journey
Aesop acts as someone’s own mini professional led ideation session. For instance, give 10 words that are related to your offerings, which provokes people to think about their offering in a different way they had not done before. They will think across different dimensions; functional, emotional, and experiential. During this phase, you will align with all features of the company, which may seem like something that happens just throughout the course of creating a business, but that is not always the case.
2. Algorithm
Aesop has taken generative AI and employed it in a very powerful way to help with things like hyperfocus and strategic language mining. This is used as an input into a broader proprietary algorithm that is designed that encodes the processes of a human naming expert into software. The names are created as a result of software that mimics what a human brain does as a professional when you’re searching for and identifying the best named candidates for a given offer.
Why was the name Aesop chosen?
Tanya Gustafson says, “Aesop is like an ancient fable. By choosing the name Aesop, we wanted to emphasise that we really value human imagination and the power of human storytelling in our work. It is not just a machine or technology. Instead, it is a result of human expertise and human vision. By adopting the name Aesop, we want to show that we care about using technology together with human creativity, not solely relying on the power of technology.”
InfraKit for infrastructure management
InfraKit gives Aesop a scalable cloud infrastructure that can grow with the product. Cloud setup and management are automated, allowing Aesop to focus on its platform and users.
Security, monitoring and management are part of this infrastructure approach.
“Learning about the importance of a great name was an eye-opening journey. Shaping a platform that encapsulated Tanya’s creativity and addressing the pain points in the naming process was challenging, yet exciting. The amazing quality of the output, a result of the incredible power of AI and the algorithm that we have developed, is impressive.”
The collaboration in 3 words
Success factors
Potential users responded positively to Aesop in the first user tests. Their feedback identified practical improvements to the user experience, the discovery journey and the names presented.
Those tests also revealed new ideas, helping the team refine the solution around how people actually use the platform.
The collaboration with GlobalOrange
We came across GlobalOrange through a referral from a friend and his colleagues who had worked with GlobalOrange beforehand and made the recommendation and also the initial introduction. Our friend already did the diligence process comparing you to all of your competitors. We put our trust in the hands of our friend. And that turned out great! The collaboration with GlobalOrange was a variety of project management to development, front end, back end, and even UX and UI, which has been perfect for our needs. Even though we are not geographically in the same place, it definitely feels like were a close team, which we value greatly. Andrew Macken said, “GlobalOrange turned out to be a perfect solution for us and our set circumstances.”
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