OpenPhone’s next chapter. Why we’ve rebranded to Quo

Last October, our leadership team got together in Petaluma, an hour north of San Francisco.

The main topic (and the goal) of the offsite was new fiscal year planning.

There was a lot on the agenda, but one discussion unexpectedly became a topic of interest for our group.

After we spent time reviewing our product roadmap, Mahyar brought up the question about whether OpenPhone was still the right name for our company.

While I say “unexpectedly”, this question has come up before among the two of us a handful of times, but changing the name never felt like a serious option. Up until then, every alternative name we considered felt worse than OpenPhone.

When Mahyar brought it up, I was the most skeptical.

First — it’s hard to transfer brand equity to a new name. Especially after working so hard to establish your initial brand over the years.

Second — there’s no playbook for a rebrand later in the journey. I’m not talking about cases like Facebook → Meta or Google → Alphabet. Those are multi-product companies changing their corporate names.

For startups, early-stage rebrands are much more common. Zenpayroll → Gusto. Zeit → Vercel. Codeium → Windsurf. We're beyond the stage at which those companies made the call.

Third — as a founder, the name “OpenPhone” had become a part of my identity. Seeing it turn into a brand among small businesses and startups was the best reward for all the late nights. I felt inseparable from it.

Fast forward to today, and while it’s bittersweet to close that chapter, I’m truly excited for this new era: OpenPhone as Quo.

So how did we get here? What led to this change? And… why Quo?

The perfect name

Before I share how we ended up with Quo, let me give you a little context on the story of how the name “OpenPhone” came to be.

Mahyar came up with the idea in less than a minute. He needed a name for the GitHub repo that would turn into what we now know as OpenPhone.

Mahyar shouted “OpenPhone” from across the room. I said, “Not bad.” He shrugged, “It’s just a placeholder.”

We all know there’s nothing more permanent than a temporary solution. 😅

While I later realized there are real downsides of a descriptive name, OpenPhone was perfect for us in the early days for a few reasons:

• Made us look bigger. Many people thought they’d heard of us when they hadn’t — it sounded familiar, which built trust.

• Described the product clearly.

• Easy to spell and pronounce.

The need for change

I don’t remember the exact moment I warmed up to the idea of rebranding, but I know it was around the time I got introduced to Lexicon, the branding agency we partnered with.

They’ve created iconic names like Sonos, Azure, Impossible Foods, BlackBerry.

Around the time we engaged them, Lenny’s Podcast released an episode with their founder, David Placek. He shared that companies often rebrand when their current name tells only part of the story.

That was us.

When people heard “OpenPhone,” they immediately thought “VoIP solution.” The description was accurate, but it limited what we could become. We wanted to tell a bigger story.

We realized OpenPhone would inevitably constrain us, and the longer we waited to rebrand, the harder (and pricier) it would get.

The other thing that got me warmed up to the idea of having a new name was the thoughtful process ran by the team at Lexicon.

I remember leaving the very first call with them and thinking that worst case scenario is we won’t pick any of the names but learn a lot from the process.

The first thing David and Kennedy from Lexicon shared with us was that each name is a vessel that carries the story of the company into the market. And the goal was finding the name that would allow us to tell our story.

One of the most unexpected things about the naming process was that Lexicon has three teams working on each client project, including one that deliberately knows nothing about the product they’re naming — giving them freedom to explore ideas far outside the obvious.

Our requirements

Here’s what we were looking for in a new name:

• Be unforgettable by being unexpected. Often times names that feel odd, risky, or “wrong” at first create distinctiveness. Impossible Burger stands out here for me.

• Be noteworthy — spark debate, make people think. If a name slides past everyone with no reaction, it’s dead on arrival.

• Less logic. More attitude. OpenPhone is a logical name and departing from a descriptive name meant going for a lot more attitude. Windsurf (formerly Codeium) is a great example of a name that has personality and emotion.

• Future-proof. Have the potential to take us further than “OpenPhone” could.

• Easy to say and write. Important for word of mouth and podcast ads.

We didn’t have a hard requirement of having a path to owning our .com but we certainly considered that and got super lucky with quo.com.

The process

We’ve reviewed 37 names created by the Lexicon team:

• 18 names in round 1

• 19 names in round 2

68% of Lexicon clients pick a name from round 1. We were among the 32% who picked one from round 2.

Quo made it to our top 5 immediately. A bold, three letter word, rarely used on its own. We also felt it connected to what we do.

In Latin, Quo means “by which.”

Quo is the platform by which you build better relationships and make customers feel valued.

It also signals our intent to redefine the status quo in business communications.

It’s short, punchy, and yes — even a little punny. My quo-workers would agree.

Once we determined our top 5 (or even top 6), we had a little over a week to pick the top choice.

Choosing among the final six was nerve-wracking — each could work, but each had trade-offs.

One of the things we did at that stage was conduct a series of brand interviews with our customers. Peter Roessler, our Head of User Research, ran this effort.

Peter asked a group of customers about memorable brands and their traits, then showed our name options in the context of a landing page. The goal was to get their raw impressions of each name without design changes. For every option, we captured gut reactions, what type of company it suggested, similarities to existing names, and perceived strengths and weaknesses. Finally, we had them stack rank the names.

One of the key things we learned is that it was a lot harder than anticipated for our customers to move away from a descriptive name like OpenPhone to something more abstract.

While Quo wasn’t the top choice for the crowd, it didn’t come with any baggage.

Going back to the vessel analogy, it felt like the perfect vessel for us to fill with meaning.

I don’t remember the exact moment Quo went from top 5 to #1 for us, but once it happened, there was no moving back.

Later we learned that Quo was created by the team at Lexicon that didn’t know anything about our product. They thought they were naming something entirely different.

Maybe this proves that sometimes knowing too much can be limiting.

The result

Here’s the note Mahyar shared with the company after announcing Quo at the All Hands.

As Mahyar reminded us in that moment:

I’m so energized to keep building the best product and service for you 💪

The wrap-up

I usually end each post recapping lessons learned but this time the lesson is still unfolding.

Rebrands are leaps into the unknown. We can’t yet know how “Quo” will land, but it gives us a bigger canvas for where we’re headed. And that’s enough of a reason to take this leap.

Thank you to our team for the care and energy you’ve poured into making this milestone happen — alongside the big Sona launch and the $105 million in growth financing we’ve announced today. Learn more about them here (link).

Thank you to David, Kennedy and the Lexicon team for being amazing partners and for bringing us Quo.

And of course thanks to our amazing customers for trusting us and supporting us from the very beginning. I’m so excited to keep building for you.

Welcome to Quo!

Daryna

ps - come hear Mahyar and I talk more today’s news at our launch event →

pps - let me know if there’s anything you’re curious about that I can share in a future post