In October 2013, a pitch was made to Tony Hsieh to request funding to launch ROCeteer. This was to be an independent company created to support the companies and people in the entrepreneurial ecosystem that was being grown in Las Vegas. ROCeteer had a soft launch in 2013 and is now ready to launch in full in August 2014.
One of the first things we’re asked is “How do you pronounce ROCeteer?” (It’s ROCK-EH-TEAR)
Next, they inevitably ask “Why the name?” There are four main reasons why the name ROCeteer was used for our program.
The first reason we came up with the name ROCeteer is due to the use of the acronym ROC which is what we are working toward as a company and in supporting all the people we work with, their are four ROC’s that we focus on increasing:
Return on Capital
Money is the lifeblood of a business and without sustainable financial returns for the ecosystem as a whole there is no community. So we work with our teams to support their increased Return On Capital.
Return on Community
Treating people as whole beings and ensuring that the collective value of the community is increased even if individual companies may “fail” the community only loses if the talent is lost. So, we work to increase the return on community of the entrepreneurial ecosystems we work with.
Return on Co-Learning
Providing a platform where entrepreneurs can help each other within the ecosystem and learn from each other. So we support and co-create content from our the members of our ecosystem so that we can provide learning opportunities.
Return on Collisions
Curating connections between entrepreneurs and the ground and cloud ROCeteers to match personality, passion and skills together. So we assess personality types and skills needs or other support needs and curate collisions which benefits all parties
ROC is a very important acronym which is why we wanted to have those 3 letters in the name of our company. We have said that we are supporting four ROC’s or ROC4
The second reason why we chose this name instead of naming it the “Mentor Program” was the realisation that mentoring is just one of the support roles that our portfolio companies need. We also believe that from time to time our portfolio companies will need: coaching, facilitating, consulting, training and mentoring services. Given mentoring is just one of the support modalities that we need when launching and building a business we did not want to have this overstated by having it in the name of the program. We believe that the coaching aspect of ROCeteer is one of the factors that differentiates our program from other accelerators and incubators.
The third reason why we chose this name was that we wanted a word that could be turned into a verb that could describe the work that we do. So we can say we are ROCeteering when we are working with our portfolio companies which is the combination of all of the support modalities that we will be offering the portfolio companies.
The fourth reason for ROCeteer is that it is an action sounding name that also implies taking off, launching, going beyond the norm etc and we liked that. We want to work with all the portfolio companies to help them to take off, to reach their potential and we felt that the name ROCeteer resonated with that.