Obvious, from Odeo

On October 24, we noted the loss of Odeo's Audioblogger. Since then, Odeo has become Obvious, through entrepreneurship decisions that are still reverberating.

Timothy Post, of Flying Seeds

... Evan’s decision to “fold/buy” Odeo and create Obvious Corp (even the use of “corp” versus “LLC” is refreshing) is so startling. Mark your calendars with this date, October 26th, it might just be an inflection point in the current VC investment cycle.

David Galbraith

The sustainable model is not new, it is the way that almost all companies outside of the bubble-prone technology world work, however, sometimes the bleeding obvious is worth pointing out. Venture backing should be for the exception - for the exceptionally rapidly growing. The correct model for web 2.0 should be sustainable growth, its the Obvious Corp.

And Odeo investor, Josh Kopleman, at RedEyeVC

... Evan Williams announced the creation of a new company, Obvious Corporation, that purchased the assets of Odeo. As Evan wrote today in his blog, Odeo "was a humbling and highly educational experience." And he concluded that although there was real value in what the team created, the structural constraints/requirements of venture investors were not a good match for the company. So he did something that amazed and surprised me. He dug into his own pocket to return capital to his investors. 100% of our investment. Evan did not have to do this. His shareholders are sophisticated investors and we went into this with our eyes open. We know startups are risky. ... The reason I invested in Odeo in the first place was because I wanted to make a bet on Evan – and his recent actions have shown me how right I was.

Finally, Evan Williams himself, at EVhead

I believe there is a lot of value in what we've built—both Odeo and Twitter—but I did not believe the structure was going to lead to the kind of success we wanted.
The Obvious model goes something like this:
Build things cheaply and rapidly by keeping teams small and self-organized.
Leverage technology, know-how, and infrastructure across products (but brand them separately, so they're focused and easy to understand)
Use the aggregate attention and user base of the network to gain traction for new services faster than they could gain awareness independently
When justified by growth, resource needs, and desire of the team, we will spin off growing properties to form their own entities (with outside investment). ... But we're also not an incubator, with the goal of hatching companies from everything we build. Some things are perfectly worthwhile but don't need to be a company.

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