The food: Tortilla de Patata

Where to find it: Barcelona, Spain

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Welcome to another edition of #FoodEntrepreneur Friday, where I serve up an order of international food with a side of guidance for entrepreneurs.

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Today we’re going to talk about the big early-stage startup question: does your business name matter?

As I sauntered into the breakfast room, I took a whiff of the baked Barcelonean beauty displayed before me. The baker oven-crisped it to perfection, and now steam whirled from the center of the pie like an oasis whirlpool. Me. Want. Now.

I was sold.

I inhaled a slice before I could think of another analogy or alliteration for this masterpiece. The crisp outside, the juicy inside: it tasted almost as good as a Danish pastry. Then I went for another slice.

I was a repeat customer.

Like an idiot, I looked up starry-eyed to the baker and asked with a mouthful still in my gob, “wha is dis food called?” From the looks of it, it could have been a pie, a quiche or a pizza. “Tortilla de Patata,” the baker chirped, “Or we call it a ‘Spanish Omelette,’ Señor Longa.”

An omelet, a pie or a flying saucer from food heaven, whatever it was, it was awesome. And I didn’t even know its name before devouring it.

In the Silicon Valley startups often plaster motivational posters around their office spaces. They’re like the motivational posters you’d see in the 1990’s corporate offices—you know, the posters with words like “Motivation” and “Challenge” on pictures of buff, white dudes in Tevas scaling mountains. However, they’ll say things like “Proceed and be bold” or “Think Bigger.” Or my new favorite: Fuck it. Ship it.

Yes, you heard me right. I wrote a swear word and I’m promoting imperfection. As a recovering perfectionist, I’m beginning to learn the detriments of dwelling on things being perfect. You miss opportunities. You stall growth. You usually don’t know if your ‘perfect’ will be the customer’s ‘perfect’. Basically, sometimes you’ve got to: “Fuck it. Ship it.”

If you deliver a great product or service, then most of the time your business’ name won’t matter. Your customers will still buy.

As a food consumer, I had no idea I was devouring tortilla de patata, but I knew I wanted it.

This week I made a small, public announcement of the name of the documentary series I will release next year: TASTE with Kevin Longa. It’s a series that features the stories of the people who innovate what we eat—food entrepreneurs. Will the name stick around? Who knows. Customers and tastes change (no pun intended). I spoke with a startup lawyer this week for TASTE with Kevin Longa, and she said that most companies change their business name after starting up.

When first starting your entrepreneurial venture, don’t worry about the question: does your business name matter? Sometimes you’ve just got to slap a f**king label on it and ship it. Then you’ll have more time to grow your business’ future “pie charts”—one of the most delicious parts of entrepreneurship.

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TASTE with Kevin Longa: a documentary series releasing in 2014 that will feature the stories of food entrepreneurs. To stay up to date on the series, like our facebook page. And if you’re a food entrepreneur and you feel like you have a story to share with the documentary series, then please fill out this email form. A ‘food entrepreneur’ is anyone who dares to create and innovate with food: from an aspiring chef to a global food enterpriser.