Introducing venture collective Y·US Ventures

I've always been terrible at naming things.

I called a music festival 𝘗𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘢𝘭. Even though it ended up being nominated for Europe's Best Small and Best New festival back then. With smiles on the faces of the audience of promoters.

Launched an advertising agency - called it 𝘔𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘤 𝘍𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘐𝘥𝘦𝘢 𝘉𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 and then tried to abbreviate to 𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘤𝘍𝘐𝘉. Co-launched a consultancy helping companies enter Baltic markets through Riga, Latvia — and called it 𝘌𝘕𝘙𝘐𝘎𝘈. Enter Riga. Yes, exactly. It has been reoriented since then to corporate - startup partnerships.

I wrote a book and started a podcast in Latvian and called it [𝘶𝘯]𝘧𝘢𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨. A Latvian book with an English name. It still became quite popular — no thanks to the language confusion. At least I was sensible enough not to name the international release in Latvian, and called it 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘉𝘢𝘤𝘬𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘨𝘦.

And when I needed a name for a venture portfolio group, I called it 𝘟𝘠𝘡 𝘊𝘰𝘮𝘣𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘰𝘳 (no association with Y Combinator at all). The most common outcome was people's smiles, polite confusion, and my awkward comment: That's when you have to come up with a name in 3 seconds.

After two years of 𝘟𝘠𝘡𝘊, it's now been renamed. And more focused.

𝗠𝗲𝗲𝘁 Y·US Ventures (https://yusventures.com). As always, work in progress.

Why Y·US? Because every person and venture in the portfolio should be able to answer one question every day: 𝘄𝗵𝘆 𝘂𝘀? Why are we the right people to do this? Is what we're building good enough to keep going?

P.S. If the name is bad again, please tell it straight away.