When Saratoga High School alum Scott Johnson's oldest daughter came home from school having learned a new word, she probably didn't think she was laying the groundwork for a new company.
But that's exactly what she did.
Johnson and fellow SHS alum Rob Babcock founded Googol Press earlier this year to produce music and books. Recently, the company released its first compact disc, called Googol On! The CD is a compilation of songs written by Johnson.
The company's name and the title for its first music release stem from a word Johnson's daughter learned in grade school: googolplex. A googol, Johnson explains, is the number one followed by 100 zeros; a googolplex is that number to the power of itself. A googolplex is the largest number in the English language. Johnson's daughter told him that she loved him googolplex; in other words, a whole lot.
The experience not only served as the inspiration for the title track of the CD, it gave rise to a new philosophy for Johnson, and that philosophy spawned the new company.
"To 'googol on' means to think for yourself and live big and sing your own song," Babcock said. It was Babcock who jokingly suggested the idea for a CD to Johnson when he heard Johnson's two daughters singing the songs written by their father.
"So there are these two little girls just belting out these great songs and I kind of half kiddingly said to Scott, 'We should publish these,'" Babcock said.
And an idea was born.
Babcock took the "googol on" philosophy to heart, quitting his job at Adobe Systems--where he had worked as a software marketing manager for 10 years--to dedicate himself to Googol Press and the production of Googol On! full time. The move was a scary one, but well worth it, Babcock said.
"I just kind of thought that as long as I was working for Adobe, I wouldn't be doing something else," Babcock said. "Something like this." But it also helps, Babcock said, that he's a single man. "I don't have a family to support, so it's a lot easier for me."
Johnson, who works as a graphic designer in Boulder, Colo., said his daughters, ages 6 and 7, were the inspiration for the songs on the CD. Many of the songs, he said, began as homemade nursery rhymes.
"I wrote them, and they liked them. So I thought, 'I'm a songwriter. I'll just put these to music,'" he said.
Johnson and Babcock said the music on Googol On! is geared toward families, although, Babcock pointed out, the only marketing category really applicable to the songs was children's. "When you hear it, though, you don't think of children's music," he said. "It's really appealing to adults, too."
Googol On! is available on CD for $14.85 and cassette tape for $9.95 through the company's Web site, or by calling toll-free to 877/269-5182. The music is also being carried on the Internet at Amazon.com.
Saratoga, California Since 1975
