Before it made a big splash, Nothing had purchased some of the remains of Essential, and it turns out that was almost exclusively about the name of the company.
9to5Google was first to report back in early 2021 that Nothing had purchased Essential, buying out the IP and trademarks of the dead brand. But nothing ever seemed to come of that purchase, as Nothing moved along with its own name and no real ties to the other once-beloved Android startup it had purchased.
As it turns out, “Nothing” purchased the brand because it was almost called “Essential” instead.
In a new video, Nothing breaks down the story of why it purchased the “Essential” brand, with founder Carl Pei outright explaining that the purchase was about the name. At one point, Nothing was almost called “Essential” instead, with the name going as far as making its way to product renders. “Essential R1” was shown both on a smartphone as well as a pair of earbuds.
Pei explains that the “Essential” name was experiemented with “for a few weeks” before “we changed our minds.” He went on to say that “we had analysts and loops of discussions and then I just made the call.”
Why the name Essential? Pei says:
We were like, this word, it’s so simple, it’s so elegant, it means so much. That was the only thing that we actually bought. The trademarks, the social media handles, and the web domain, essential.com… When we started the company we had a step-by-step process of all the things we needed to do and figuring out the branding was one of them. So when we got to that point we acquired Essential and after doing it we were like, this is somebody else’s thing, in the same category of products, so we don’t want to confuse the market that this is a revival because we’re about to do something very different. A brand name is a decision that is very hard to change, and also we’re building our own legacy, so let’s rethink and we thought about it, couldn’t come up with anything, so it became Nothing.
He also adds that “Stone” was another alternate brand name that was considered.
In the purchase of Essential, Pei says that Nothing didn’t gain any of the company’s patents, but rather just the trademarks. As for reviving the canceled “Gem” smartphone, the cost of creating such a device with its unique design would be prohibitive, so it’s very unlikely at bare minimum. As for the price paid for Essential’s branding, Pei said that an NDA was signed, so that information won’t be shared.
Meanwhile, Nothing is gearing up for the launch of the Phone (3), its self-proclaimed first “true” flagship release.
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