What fascinated me wasn't just the music. It was the combination of creativity, technology and experimentation behind it. Factory Records felt different. The artwork, the design, the ideas and the culture all mattered as much as the records themselves.
Years later, when I was looking for a name for a new company, I kept coming back to Factory.
We were nearly called Factory33 because Love Will Tear Us Apart is a better song than Blue Monday… But the name had already been taken.
Weirdly, as an aside, we were also nearly called Digitonic. I’d gone as far as registering the domain name when, a few months later, my friend called to ask if they could buy it.
They’d already registered the name with Companies House and, when they looked up the domain, out of everyone in the world it could have been, realised it was me who had it (great minds). I gave it to them as a favour and we’ve been best business buddies ever since.
We ended up sharing an office for the first couple of years, and things came full circle again in 2024 when we moved back in together at our current shared office high in the lofts across from Glasgow Central Station.
Anyway, back to the main story, I decided to go with Factory73 which was a nod to New Order's Blue Monday and Factory Records' famous catalogue numbering system.
At the time, it was simply a cultural reference that meant something to me. Looking back, the name turned out to fit surprisingly well , and the number 73 has lots of interesting things going on too.
Factory Records was where art, design and technology collided.
Factory73 became a place where strategy, engineering and creativity come together to build things that last.
And for a company built by engineers, there's something pleasing about the number itself. Seventy-three is a prime number, full of mathematical quirks and patterns that programmers love discovering.
