What Happened to Friuch?

Some of you who already know us know that until very recently, we were known as Friuch Consulting. The history of the company is available in the “about us” section of the website but I wanted to go into a little more detail about why we decided to change our name. Prior to 2009, Friuch Consulting was essentially a sole proprietorship run by myself with some support from Sean Peters and Melissa Chungfat. About mid-way through 2009, I saw an opportunity to form a larger company that could grow into the next decade and become one of a handful of “go to” firms in BC.

While I have some personal attachment to the “Friuch” brand (that brand was created a number of years ago to reflect what we were at the time – a sole proprietorship with soul), I felt like it was holding us back as we grew from a “me” to a “we”. For one thing, I knew that one of the big risks when transitioning from a sole proprietorship to a firm with multiple people in it is that our customers would only ever want to deal with the founder and not the new people that have come ob board. Another concern is that Friuch Consulting had a strong history of research and the new company isn’t going to be as focussed on research. We needed a clean break from the Friuch brand.

Eric Brooke, one of our Associates, took us through a visioning exercise where we learned a lot about each other and laid out how we were going to work together as a team. That’s how we landed on the concept that we were going to be explorers and innovators for our clients in helping them build new things or take what they’re currently doing in a new direction. We bring a wide range of skills to the table but we want our clients to know that we’re focussed on helping them move forward.

Coming up with a name that described this mandate was challenging and after much deliberation – we came up with the name “Ignitia”. It plays on our desire to help our clients start new things and is a combination of “ignition” and “inertia”. Our tagline is “let’s get started”. As we move forward with this new brand, we want to constantly remind our clients and our friends that we are in the business of new and innovative.

That, in a nutshell, is why we rebranded. We are focused on helping our clients get started in new areas and we wanted our branding to reflect that. Friuch officially became Ignitia on March 1, 2010.