The Story Behind Zypher

NOTE: This blog was written for my client Zypher.

Parents take months and sometimes, years to name their offsprings. For every business owner, every startup founder, their venture or start-up is no less than their own baby. A baby they grow and nurture with their own hands, brick by brick, step by step.

This is the story of two such parents and their child. Prabhakar Mohan and Nandha Kumar were sure of their goal.

They wanted to start India’s largest book rental platform that not only rents books but pioneers the culture of reading amongst today’s generation which is trapped inside screens instead of pages.

In 2017, the work on the website had begun and was shaping well. The makers were faced with another colossal challenge i.e. “What should we name it?”

Both Prabhakar and Nandha wracked their brains and of their friends to suggest good names. From ‘www.bookaholiccs.com’ (with an extra c) to ‘www.bookrental.com’,‘www.getbookshome.com’, everything was suggested. But to the both of them, none of the generic names sounded good.

Nandha wanted the name to showcase their love for codes, to highlight the virtual aspect of the website and at the same time to portray that they wished to make a significant response to the society. They thought of the number ‘0’. Zero is an important half of the binary code and always adds value to the number it’s placed next to. India’s contribution to world mathematics has been 0 and even after centuries is still remembered.

The English synonym for zero is ‘cipher’. Both Prabhakar and Nandha, being Tamilians were aware that the Tamil word for cipher is சைஃபர் which is pronounced as ‘szaah-ay-phur’. They decided to incorporate a part of their homeland into their principal venture.

And thus on November 16, 2017, after the harmonic amalgamation of Tamil and English, the word Zypher was coined. A hashtag preceding the name was later added to depict the concept of trends in digital media.

Branding a startup is the key and there’s nothing better than zero to start from, you can only go up from there and Zypher believes that it shall carve its name upwards as India’s preferred reading platform service.