Every great brand has a story. Ours has a herd. And now, it has Ori.
When I joined Oryx in April 2025, one of the first things I did was sit down with our founders, Dr. Rania Saleh and Kay Saleh, for an eight-hour session focused on something I believe is foundational to building any great company: who we are, what we stand for, and why we exist.
We talked about our mission. Our vision. Our values. The kind of company we wanted to build, the experience we wanted to create for our customers, and the behaviors we wanted every employee to embody.
That conversation ultimately became the foundation for Oryx’s strategic narrative and the company values we proudly share today.
But it also sparked something unexpected.
A little character named Ori.
Culture Is the Operating System of a Business
I’ve always believed that an organization’s culture is its operating system.
You can have the best technology, the strongest product, and the most ambitious growth plans in the world. But if your people aren’t aligned around a shared purpose and a common set of values, scaling becomes infinitely harder.
Culture isn’t a poster on a wall. It isn’t a slide in an onboarding deck. It’s how people make decisions, how teams communicate, how we treat our customers, and how we show up for one another when things get hard.
When everyone is operating from the same playbook, something powerful happens. You create clarity. You create consistency. And, most importantly, you create a sense of belonging.
That was exactly what we wanted to build at Oryx.
And as it turns out, the inspiration was hiding in our company name all along.
Wait, What’s an Oryx?
During that initial branding session, I asked Dr. Rania and Kay to walk me through the story behind the name Oryx.
Now, I have to admit, I didn’t know much about the animal at the time.
An oryx is a beautiful, antelope-like animal native to the deserts and dry grasslands of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. Known for its remarkable resilience and ability to thrive in challenging environments, the oryx is also a deeply social animal.
And suddenly, it all clicked.
Here were two founders who had built Oryx Dental Software, a cloud-based dental practice management software platform, from the ground up. A bootstrapped, profitable technology company in an industry where building something truly innovative requires extraordinary perseverance, conviction, and resilience.
Sound familiar?
The parallels between the animal and the company were impossible to ignore.
But there was one detail that the marketer in me absolutely loved.
Oryx travel in herds.
A herd!
Immediately, I thought: We’re The Herd!
Not just employees working for the same company, but a community of people moving in the same direction, supporting one another, and building something meaningful together.
It was simple. It was authentic. And it felt so uniquely Oryx.
And Then Came Ori
After we formally introduced our refreshed mission, vision, and values to the company during an All Hands meeting, I started thinking about how we could bring this new identity to life.
How could we make our culture something people could actually see, connect with, and rally around?
So, like any marketer in 2025, I turned to a trusted AI image generator.
I started experimenting with creating a little oryx character that could embody the personality of our team: approachable, resilient, curious, optimistic, and just a little bit playful.
And there he was.
Our very own mascot.
But he didn’t have a name yet.
When we introduced him to the team in June 2025, we invited our employees to help name him.
The response was overwhelming.
Ori.
And just like that, Ori was born.
What I love most about this part of the story is that while I may have helped create the character, our employees gave him his identity.
He belonged to The Herd from day one.
From a Little Mascot to a Big Part of Our Culture
What happened next was something I hadn’t entirely anticipated.
Ori started showing up everywhere.
At our Oryx Unlocked events, he became a collectible sticker, with special versions created for the different cities we visited.
New employees started receiving Ori stickers welcoming them to the team with a simple message: “Welcome to The Herd!”
He made his way into our Slack conversations as custom emojis. He became part of our internal celebrations, our team identity, and the little moments that make working at Oryx feel special.
And yes, we’re even working on a plush version of Ori. Because apparently, every herd needs a mascot you can hug.
What started as a fun creative experiment became something much more meaningful.
Ori gave our culture a face.
He became a recognizable symbol of who we are and the community we’re building together.
And that is where the real magic of brand comes in.
A Brand Isn’t Just What You See. It’s What You Feel.
As a marketer, I’ve spent much of my career thinking about brands, how they’re built, how they evolve, and why people connect with them.
And one thing I believe deeply is this:
Your brand isn’t your logo, your colors, or your tagline. Your brand is the experience you create and the emotion people associate with it.
It’s how your employees feel when they come to work.
It’s how your customers feel when they interact with your team.
It’s the trust you build, the promises you keep, and the consistency with which you deliver on what you stand for.
The strongest brands create an emotional connection, both internally and externally.
That’s why I believe employee culture and customer experience are inseparable.
When employees feel connected to the company they’re building, that connection naturally extends to the people they serve.
At Oryx, our mission is rooted in empowering dental professionals to deliver exceptional care. Behind that mission is a team of passionate, hardworking people who genuinely care about the success of the practices that trust us.
Ori represents those people.
He represents the resilience of our founders, the creativity of our employees, the community we’ve built, and the belief that we’re stronger when we move forward together.
The Herd Is Growing. And Ori Is Coming Along.
For the past year, Ori has largely been our little secret.
He’s been part of our team meetings, our events, our onboarding experiences, and our everyday culture.
But something exciting is happening.
As Oryx continues to grow, we’re thinking about new ways to bring the same warmth, personality, and sense of connection that Ori represents to the dental professionals we serve.
After all, our customers are part of The Herd, too.
And while we’re not quite ready to share everything just yet, let’s just say you’ll be seeing a lot more of Ori very soon.
What started as a symbol of our internal culture is getting ready for his next chapter.
And I couldn’t be more excited.
Because at the end of the day, great technology helps people do extraordinary things.
But great brands make people feel like they’re part of something extraordinary.
Welcome to The Herd.
Stay tuned. Ori’s story is just getting started.
