Founders often obsess about what to name their companies, spending time with focus groups, analyzing different names, and paying for expensive domains, but one of the most recognizable brands in the world got its name because of the size of the signboard for their first outlet.
Iconic Pizza chain Pizza Hut got its name because the signboard that the founders had chosen for their outlet only had room for 8 letters. In 1958, brothers Frank and Dan Carney had borrowed $600 from their mom to open a pizza place in Wichita, Kansas. The duo were Wichita University students, and set up their first outlet at corner of Kellogg and Bluff in the city.
Their signboard, however, had room for only 8 letters. They presumably wanted Pizza in their name — they were serving pizzas after all — and had to come up with a name that would fit. With ‘pizza’ taking up 5 letters, they were left with 3 letters to pick. They chose to go with hut, and put up the sign outside their outlet shown in the picture.
The rest, as they say, is history. Today Pizza Hut has more than 19,000 outlets across dozens of countries on six continents. It employs more than 350,000 people, and earns billions of dollars every year. It is one of the most recognizable brands in the world, and has a presence in places ranging from Japan to Argentina. And the story behind its name — Pizza Hut — is two college-age founders needing to come up with a name that fit their eight-letter signboard.