It started like one of the many conversations we had in our former employers company in early 2009:
“Why does your team need the extra space?”
“It will let the team remotely backup and share source code.”
“But it’s going to cost us $200, I don’t think you need it. You’ll have to create a business case.”
This is paraphrasing the actual event but not an unfamiliar story for many people. However, for us this was one of many and the tipping point.
Sure, justification is needed to minimize waste but we believed there’s a balance. We could do this better. We could do this much better. We’d talked about it on numerous occasions on business trips across the USA. Walt Disney once said, “the way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” So, we followed his advice and Freya was born.
We started Freya on a foundation of values that lived up to these ideals with as little bureaucracy as possible. We put learning first, so that it became a cornerstone of our growth. Whether it is leaning a new software language or more about a specific customer requirement, it just made sense to us. Learning led to understanding which resulted in a better solution to any problem. We knew this wasn’t a solo pursuit though. Sharing our learning with each other paid back ten-fold, as we all learned together, we all grew together. This resulted in us focusing on collaboration internally and with our customers whenever it was possible. It also means we constantly add insights to our ever-growing domain knowledge. When you add in a healthy dose of fun and a love for problem solving you get an idea for the Freya way.
Applying the Freya way with our exceptional team, we continue to take our customers data: clean it, augment it, capture it, trend it, model it, visualize it and tell its story. We aim to advance their understanding and empower them to do more with their data.
Why Freya?
We’re often asked, “Why Freya?” Like many companies we wanted something to symbolize who we were and what we stood for. Freya (sometimes written Freyja) was a Norse goddess who amongst other things was the birth of seidr, (or Seiðr) a type of magic relating to telling and shaping the future. Software sometimes seems a little like magic to some, so it was very relatable when we started. With the addition of predictive data analytics, which is all about predicting the future, it seems even more relevant.
She was also queen of the Valkyries, the angels who watched over the battlefield. Our initial projects, as much of our work is today, are in support of defense aircraft. This equally felt appropriate and led to the wing in our logo.
Our Next Chapter
We’re happy to say that our story doesn’t yet have an ending, but a bright future turning data into wisdom for everybody. If you’d like to join us and help to write the next chapter send us your resume today!
