Obviously
Evan Williams tells the next chapter of ODEO’s history.
Looking at the entrepreneurial landscape he sees a new company model emerging because:
- Sites are cheaper and faster to build
- The consumer web is increasingly hits-driven and increasingly crowded, which makes it more difficult to predict what’s going to work.
- Sites that do get attention can make money with advertising and/or subscriptions.
Therefore the resulting model is:
- 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
As services mature, the goal is to get them to profitability with advertising and/or subscriptions, so they can add to the network (and fund more building). 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). It’s not that we’re against investors and acquisitions. That model works great for some things—especially once the idea is proven. 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.
In September he outlined what he thought ODEO’s top 5 mistakes were [via GigaOM]
- “Trying to build too much” – Odeo set out to be a podcasting company with no focus beyond that.
- “Not building for people like ourselves” – For example, Williams doesn’t podcast himself, and he says as a result the company’s web-based recording tools were too simplistic.
- “Not adjusting fast enough” – The company thought its comprehensive web-based strategy would win out over the competition, primarily Apple, in the long term. “It turns out long term is not soon enough for a startup if you’re trying to get a foothold.”
- “Raising too much money too early” – Williams seeded the money with $70,000 of his own money, and after the TED excitement added another $100,000. After he tied up over a million in angel funding, a term sheet came through from Charles River Ventures at three times the angel round valuation. They took the money.
- “Not listening to my gut” – “When you’ve got a bunch of money and you’ve hired a lot of people and you’re talking to your board and you’re talking to reporters, your gut can get drowned out.”
Nice to see the frankness. Wish him luck.