NOTE: 4/2 – APRIL FOOLS! – Thanks for with us on our April Fools gag. It was a blast! Some people really loved the new “branding”… some thought we were off our rockers! But everyone had a blast with it. Of course Carrot is going NOWHERE and we’re excited at the future of InvestorCarrot and our customers :-) Now… 364 more days to plan next years April fools… ;-)
For the past year, our team over here at Carrot has been working hard to help you grow your real estate businesses… and have fun doing it. We’ve grown from zero customers to well over 500 active members now… and growing each and every week.
Yes, we’ve had some stumbles as we’ve grown and some growing pains… but we’re proud to say that we’re starting to make our little dent in the universe one Carrot member at a time. We literally get testimonials and stories from our members every single day talking about how Carrot has literally changed their businesses.
In fact, here’s another deal that one of our awesome customers closed this week because of leads she got from her InvestorCarrot websites (way to go Britt!!!!).
NOTE: See her comment in that post on where she says all of her leads come from. Online in her case = InvestorCarrot. We love it!
With All Of The Deals, Leads, Great Conversions, Fun Carrot Bud Shares… It’s Time For A Change.
Our Carrot staffer April Phouls doodling the heck outta our whiteboard to map out our bigger better future. See the full whiteboard hereAround the start of 2014 we really got to looking at things.
We looked at the future of Carrot as a company, a product, our customers needs and goals… and saw things in a bigger brighter future.
We mapped out our next “evolution” of Carrot as a brand… a product… and a force to help change the world… and in the end, decided that with a huge strategy shift… should come a fresh new brand identity to usher in this new era here at our company.
Announcing Our New Name: Turnip (InvestorTurnip). Yep, that’s right… let’s “Turn It Up With Turnip!“
Now, I know what you’re thinking.
First off, why?
Why turnip? Wasn’t Carrot just perfectly fine?
Well, we didn’t come to this decision lightly. We really loved (and still do) the Carrot name.
Our members have come to love the Carrot Bud (our mascot) sightings… getting a random Carrot gift in the mail when you do something cool with our company… and the all around great feeling you get when you see the color Orange all over the place.
We get it. We loved “InvestorCarrot”.
But we’re all about staying ahead of the curve.
Whether it’s keeping our technology at the cutting edge so you as our customer stay at the cutting edge… or continually providing epic training to help you stay sharp…
… and we did some research and noticed that the brand of carrots in general (the vegetable) has remained stagnant over recent years… while the brand of turnips has actually increased in popularity with Americans.
Since we’re all geeky with Google search data… we ran some reports and found that Google Trends shows that turnips have really grown in popularity over carrots in the past decade. See the chart below from Google Trends.
And we don’t want to have our brand attached to a “dying” vegetable.
Turnips are the future. And InvestorTurnip is your future.
Further Research That Helped Shape Our Rebranding Decision
When I initially came up with the “InvestorCarrot” brand back in late 2012… I really loved the ring of the name “Carrot”.
But I really didn’t do any “market research” on people’s perception of the Carrot.
Once I saw the startling data above (that Carrots are losing popularity to Turnips) I decided to actually do the right thing this time around… and put in some time in market research. As we all know, your brand can be HUGE in how people perceive you.
Name a shoe company “Slow Shoes”… and you’re dead in the water. But “Air Jordans”… and the sky is the limit.
So surprisingly, once I got out there and started asking around and doing “blind taste tests”… I started to see the same.
In fact, at my daughters pre-school we ran a taste test with a bunch of 3 – 5 year olds... kids who have grown up on “Go-Gurt” (is that even real yogurt? I’m still not sure… ) and baby carrots (kids these days don’t even know what a real carrot actually looks like! They think they all grow to be just “baby carrots”)… as you can see in the picture below…
Turnips beat out carrots by a wide margin in this taste test
Kids are our future… and if this company wants to stay relevant and “on the cutting edge”… we feel that by getting on the turnip bandwagon before the majority of American’s realize there’s even a band wagon to get on… we’ll be setting a trend and get a lot of early adopters who just like to be the “first” to do the new cool thing
We feel that turnips are iN…
… and Carrots are on the way out.
We found some interesting facts about the turnip that we really loved too… check them out on the Turnip Wikipedia page. I think you’ll find them pretty darn awesome too.
How Does This Affect You As A Carrot / Turnip Member?
First off, if you’re already an InvestorTurnip member (all members have been migrated to our new InvestorTurnip platform effective today) you don’t have to do anything.
Just toss out the Carrot Bud doll if you were lucky enough to get one (or save it as a collectors item and sell it on ebay someday)… and we’ll soon be coming out with our new “Terry the Turnip” mascot dolls… and our new Turnip t-shirts that are almost done with production. More on that soon.
There are a couple things you’ll need to do though before your Carrot account is fully operational on our new InvestorTurnip account.
Follow the quick steps below today and lets usher in the new era and welcome in our new brand identity of InvestorTurnip!
Step 1: Post a quick comment below (and “like” this post) and let us know about your excitement for the new branding! Research shows you’re bound to love it! But we’d love to hear. Comment below!
Step 2: Just so you’re up on the “latest” turnip factoids (and the surprising but true meaning of the word “turnip”… head over to the wikipedia turnip page << Check it out
Step 3: We haven’t 100% committed to the whole “InvestorTurnip” brand yet, our lawyers (dontcha love ’em?) are looking into any possible trademark infringements or other legalities that may prevent us from going all “turnip” on ya. So keep a look out for future announcements.
I’m thinking Investor Spinach or even Investor Broccoli might be better names. It goes with how the world is going green. Turnips are grown in the dirt, hiding from site. You want to be above ground, front and center. Broccoli or Spinach are easily seen and the future.
Just my 2cents
Yes, I think you’ve got something going there w/ InvestorBroccoli Scott. Hmmmm… it may be worth looking at. Thanks for the input! ;-) – Trevor
When is the rebranding going to take place? Not to second guess you at all but seeing that the turnip is more of a winter vegetable a late fall roll out makes sense. If possible you could even time it to take place at the big fall music festival, Turnip Man…
Oh, great point. Ya, rebranding takes effect today. The website has already been transitioned. But I totally get your point… and we’ll just really ramp up the Turnip brand messaging this winter to capitalize on the influx of turnip eaters this winter. Thanks for the feedback!
Lol!! Good one!
Congrats Trevor. I love the vision and the thought you guys put into this.
Thanks. We worked *really* hard on it.
Monthsyears in the planning for a move this big.Turnips? I have no idea whether that will work as a brand. But then again, who thought carrot would work?
Scott – you know we love you but spinach? Turnips are at least purple. I like purple. Somehow I am having trouble visualizing a bunch of spinach or a stalk of broccoli on the front of a shirt.
Trevor must really like his vegetables. LOL
Sharon Vornholt
My mom taught me right when I was a kiddo. Spinach from a can and all. We loved our veggies. But turnips… those are honestly new to me. Just getting used to them. Having a turnip salad today to get acclimated into the way of the turnip.
Honestly, both carrot and turnip implies of being “stuck in the mud”. Have you thought about “Investor Rail Gun”? Brings up images of speed, power, technology, and absolute destruction!
Great point! It’s on the list of potential plan B branding concepts if the turnip doesn’t work out for us.
Nice one! You guys are fun. :) I’ve had my caffeine so I’m on to you this morning.
On to us? This is a serious matter. Carrots are out and turnips are in!
They both work for me and I do like the turnip colors better even though I think carrot is more widely recognized…I mean, who hasn’t had a carrot? I don’t think I’ve ever had a turnip…I’m just sayin’…
Having just received my very own cute little Carrot “Bud” in the mail from you last week, I find it hard to believe that he’ll be upstaged by a Turnip! Sure this isn’t just an April Fools Day prank…! ;-)
That Carrot Bud is now a collectors item as no more will be produced. We actually made this announcement at 11:38pm PST on March 31st… so no, not an April fools joke. Serious business here. ;-)
I really prefer Brussels Sprouts to Turnips – I think Investor Brussels Sprouts is obviously a much better choice for your rebranding….
I already checked that one Bob and it was actually trademarked already. Such a good idea someone beat me to it already. Trademark is attached below :-(
April fools!
Huh?
Turnip…not so much..I vote for … Investor BACON!!! Yeah, that’s it ;)
I could have guessed Bill Walston would vote for Investor Bacon. You will run out of pigs some day so that is probably not a good choice.
Love!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You made my day <3
Haha. :-)