One of the questions I get asked the most is some variation of “Where did the company name come from?”, “What does the goose have to do with engineering?”, and “Do you just like geese a lot?”
The name is really an inside joke that I’ve decided to lean into. It was inspired by Aesop’s fable, “the goose that laid the golden eggs”. Except, that full title is too long for a company name. So we went with “the golden goose”. Hmmmm, that still wasn’t quite right, because it implied the goose itself was golden (more like the Grimm’s fairy tale instead of Aesop, with a very different moral). My cofounder is originally from Spain, and in Spanish, “El Ganso Dorado” is more nuanced; it is describing a goose with gold, rather than a goose made of gold. That’s it! It’s a tongue-firmly-in-cheek nod to both founders: to his Spanish roots, and to my vision for the company.
When I decided to found a GmbH for the purpose of creating a new type of consulting company, it was partially in reaction to the disillusionment I had faced in my experiences with some other consulting firms. I had (and still have) a vision to change the typical consultant paradigm.
Many consultants make unrealistic promises to get a contract, then end up consistently late, under-performing, or adding change orders before the originally-quoted project is complete. Worse, the consultants I hired in my previous life often didn’t actually have the technical skills in-house to do the work they were contracted to do. I saw a need in the industry for transparent consulting services for clients who were looking for help with solutions, rather than simply throwing person-hours on a product.
The way I see it, consultants are rarely invested in the client’s best interest; they are instead more invested in “billable hours”. This is a short-sided action that destroys the longevity of an asset. Companies need highly technical engineering consultants (a goose) that can quickly grasp their mission and pain points and provide solutions on a reliable basis (golden eggs).
I named the company El Ganso Dorado because this team is where the great ideas begin. We may be small, we may not be able to throw 20 fungible engineers on a project to meet a milestone for customers, but that’s not what we’re here for. That’s why we’re different. We want to be relentless to get our customers on track, and then we want to get out of their way as quickly as possible. The long-term asset for us is in building partnerships with our clients, and we are invested in their success because we have the idealistic notion that sound engineering principles still mean something.
Of course, it’s strange to have a Spanish name, in Germany, for a GmbH. It’s odd for a goose to be a logo for a company of engineering innovators. It’s also memorable. You won’t soon forget our goose, and maybe you’ll think of us the next time you encounter an engineering challenge where you need a creator of new technology rather than someone to simply build a product. Don’t get me wrong, products need to get built. But there are already plenty of companies that build products; that market is saturated. We partner with clients that need a fresh perspective to solving complex problems and we offer the expertise to actually deliver on our commitments.
Every time I see the EGD logo I am still reminded of the lesson from the fable. Essentially, that choosing greed (short-sighted) over innovation (golden eggs) would defeat the purpose of why all of us here at EGD became engineers in the first place.
-Aimi
Managing Director, EGD