It's Obvious
I really like what Evan is doing with Obvious Corp.
I know plenty of entrepreneurs who have a number of ideas rattling around in their brain and want to build something where they can operate in parallel instead of in serial.
I don't have time for a longer and more thoughtful post on this topic right now and I've learned my lesson throwing out half baked posts, so I'll just leave it at that for now and bookmark the thought and come back to it when I have more time.
As someone who has accepted VC funding a number of times, I can tell you from personal experience that taking money makes it much harder to experiment and try different things.
Once you've convinced people to hand over millions of dollars to fund one idea, don't expect them to react well when you tell them that, er, you were wrong about its potential, and that now you want to try something completely different.
The one problem with the self-funded approach is the absence of an outside perspective--we entrepreneurs are overly optimistic by definition and that's not a good recipe for wise investments.
Posted by: Chris Yeh | October 26, 2006 at 11:48 AM
I currently have a full-time day job as an hourly IT contract consultant.
On the side, I am working on several business initiatives. The goal for me is to supplement my current income and provide an annuity to smooth out the volatility of the IT industry.
I run a salvage business on the side. When a truck tips over on the highway, or a company has excess inventory, I work to find a buyer.
I am also developing several .com sites.
Mobflix.com - a website dedicated to Organized Crime Movies. My revenue model will be as an Amazon affiliate for the movies and games I list on the site. I currently have a list of over 200 movies from silent films to modern day.
Battleflix.com - Do the same thing to war movies from "All Quiet on the Western Front," to "Braveheart" to "Blackhawk Down".
Electorates.org - A Bi-Partisan political website. On the left side of the site, I will have links to left leaning organizations. On the right side, I will have links to right leaning organizations. In the center, I will have links to all 3 branches of the Federal Government. I was going to invite bloggers from each side to debate an issue, but I think that might spiral out of control and descend into name calling.
My biggest problem is not funding, but energy. After I get home at night, help kids with the homework and get them to bed, it is after 9:00 pm and then I'm tired.
Posted by: JEiden | October 26, 2006 at 12:30 PM
Am I missing something? Isn't Obvious an incubator?
Posted by: steve | October 26, 2006 at 12:39 PM
This is awesome for Evan, and I totally believe in the model and everything he outlined on his blog post about Obvious.
Its funny how I thought, I was reading my own thoughts as I read through his justification, as we have build exactly the same model at Better Labs (http://www.betterlabs.net) since Dec 2005. Most importantly, we have build this completely out of our Pune, India office which bring a lot more scalability for the experiments - what we call as the 12-24 month web service, beyond which the successful ones will thrive as independent companies. dealplumber (http://www.dealplumber.com), indiagoes (http://www.indiagoes.com), iNods (http://www.inods.com) are already in their 1.0 versions.
However, there is a BIG CHALLENGE of how do you follow through after your 1.0 version to drive traffic and customer acquisition, which will make or break this model for everyone who attempts it.
Its re-assuring though, to think someone else who is a lot more accomplished thinks the same.
All the very best to Evan, and his team.
Posted by: Vaibhav Domkundwar - Better Labs | October 26, 2006 at 02:03 PM
I wish them all the best, as well! However, I think they could use a better name or a different version of 'Obvious Corp'. After all, image, branding, and URLs are key to all things web these days...
Posted by: Jake L. | October 26, 2006 at 03:27 PM
Surely it makes sense for them to buy back the Odeo, if they dont need the money and want to manage it their way. Im really excited about the new products too, and cant wait to experience the Obvious.
Posted by: Giordano | October 26, 2006 at 07:29 PM
While good for Ev on what he's doing...
Obvious Corp. may possibly be the most pretentious company name I've ever heard.
Posted by: Erik Schwartz | October 26, 2006 at 10:39 PM