Why are we called Beekin? It’s something we get asked a lot. It’s a great question, and the answer has to do with dinosaurs.

When we started the company, our name was “Beacon” because we saw ourselves as a data beacon for the property industry. It was a pretty good concept, but there are so many other companies called Beacon that we got lost in the shuffle. At the same time, it still suited us, reflecting the kind of work we do. We decided to modify the name to be a bit more unique, and we stumbled upon something interesting: Evidence shows bees have been around over 145 million years, since the early Cretaceous period, best known today for its rich variety of dinosaurs.

Dinosaurs may have ruled the Earth back then, but the mass extinction event 66 million years ago wiped out three quarters of life on Earth – including all non-flying dinosaurs (crocodiles and a handful of other larger species managed to survive.) But you know what managed to survive? The bees, which migrated to the northern hemisphere and became a major factor in the rejuvenation of the ecosystem, by pollinating the plants of the Cenozoic era in which we live.

So why did we change our name to Beekin? We want to be the bees, not the dinosaurs. The dinos may have looked cool and ruled the earth, but ultimately, they couldn’t survive major change. Bees, on the other hand, made it through the mass extinction event just fine and became a critically important species along the way.

One thing we really admire about bees is their ability to evolve through collaboration. In many ways, bees are the ultimate social animals because they survive and thrive when hundreds or thousands of them work together toward a common goal. This is where the “kin” part of our name comes from. After all, there really isn’t a better example of kinship in the natural world than the functioning of a complex bee colony. In a homogenous investment world, our goal is to stand apart from the crowd by building true kinship around data-driven decision making to remove inefficiencies for landlords and renters alike.

The name Beekin came about because bees have prospered through kinship, communication, and collaboration. They’ve been around for all of history and have outlived the dinosaurs. And in the technology world, no one wants to be a dinosaur!