The name Valormill encompasses two distinct elements of who we are, where we came from, and what we do. 

I’ll start with the Mill. 

Milling is what we do. A traditional gristmill takes grist and grinds out flour that can be used to make bread and many other delicacies. Grist is wheat that has been separated from the chaff. In the same way, ValorMill takes in a bunch of ideas, separates the good ideas from the bad, and grinds out great products that can be used to start great companies. Now to Valor. 

Valor is who we are. But it contains very tight bonds to where we came from. The origin of this name lies a very long time ago in the nation of Israel. Israel was under occupation by a group of people called the Midianites. God had given Israel into the hands of the Midianites due to Israel’s unrepentant sin. The Israelites appeared to be totally unable to defend themselves or resist the oppression of the Midianites. 

The Book of Judges in Chapter 6 describes how the Midianites simply helped themselves to the harvests of the Israelites and desecrated the land on a regular basis. This backstory helps explain why Gideon, a young man of Israel, was threshing his wheat in a winepress. A winepress is not for threshing wheat — that’s what the threshing floor was for. But Gideon is threshing in the winepress nonetheless. While the Bible does not expressly state the reason for this oddity, we can presume that he was undertaking this task at the winepress in order to avoid the conflict that would occur when the Midianites visited the threshing floor and decided to help themselves to his grain. In a word, Gideon was hiding — avoiding the conflict. Enter the angel of the Lord. Judges 6 says that the angel of the Lord shows up and sits down under an oak tree near the winepress. He calls to Gideon and says, “The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor.” The phrase marks the beginning of Gideon’s call to battle. The Lord goes on to direct Gideon to act in the strength of the Lord and save Israel from her enemies. 

Enter Trigg. Trigg was in leadership at a contract manufacturing firm. He was vocal about his faith, but not very confrontational. He had plans to make his faith explicit and to shape the company culture around the mission of reaching lost people, but he was not ready yet. He was waiting for ownership, some time (in the future) when he believed he would have the authority and leeway to make those decisions without too many repercussions. He avoided the conflict between company culture and his beliefs. He avoided the battle that loomed before him and raged around him — and stood threshing wheat at the winepress. 

Through a series of divine interventions, Trigg was called out of manufacturing, called to create a new company, one whose mission stands in direct and explicit opposition to the enemy. One that acknowledges and engages in the battle. Trigg went to the threshing floor. 

This is where we came from — and actually a little bit of where we’re going. The word Valor was chosen to hearken back to this story and remind our team of our primary calling. But the word Valor is larger than the story of Judges 6. It means great courage, dashing boldness. The Valormill team relates to this broader concept in two primary ways. 

1. We encourage others to adventure out, and we excite them to action with our passion for creating and love of the unknown. We’re adventurers, entrepreneurs, dreamers, problem-solvers, creators. 

2. We view the creative and design processes as adventures and each trial along the way as peaks leading to the summit. Hard problems are opportunities to grow, and that gets our team excited.

- Trigg La Tour | Valormill Founder and CEO