Seems like a crazy time to start a business in Louisville, KY—home of the Kentucky Derby. The derby was on May 4 in 1991, just 3 days after we opened our doors. In case you don’t know, NO ONE in Louisville pays attention to anything during derby week (except derby activities)! So, our business opening was largely unnoticed until after the fabulous win by Strike the Gold! Hum—did Oasis Strike the Gold too? Some days yes, some days not so much.
I am often asked why we named the business Oasis. There is really no astounding story, only that we had a list of names that we thought people would remember. Also, it could be a bit of our love of the sun and warm weather. We have always resisted the temptation to be kitschy with the name. Like, Let us be your Oasis in the sea of software. Or, how about, rest under the Oasis palm tree while we cure your software stresses. You get the idea. Our first 2 company logos were variations of palm trees.
I was thinking about another memory from our beginning days. Let me set the scene, as it is MUCH different than 2011. PC’s for businesses were just coming onto the scene with out of the box software like Sage MAS 90 being installed. We were in a meeting with a prospect and discussing hardware needs for the new software. Carl asked the prospect if he had a UPS unit (battery backup) and the prospect was perplexed and responded: “ No, we use Fedex.” Things have certainly changed since then and we are all far more educated.
Reminiscing sure is fun. Keep watching the blog for more fascinating stories !
