Menopause meets its match with Womaness
1.1 billion women are expected to be postmenopausal by 2025, representing over $600 billion in market opportunity. These numbers have been overlooked by traditional consumer products and beauty companies for…well, forever.
We’re excited that this is finally changing in a big way, and even more so to announce our investment in Womaness.
Best practices for respectful email marketing
When I ask CEOs “Do you value your long-term relationship with your customers?” they all emphatically answer YES! “Do you value your customers’ time and respect their choices when you interact with them?” They again nod their heads and say OF COURSE.
So how did it become acceptable to aggressively opt consumers into email marketing and then make it so difficult for them to unsubscribe?
The objective of this post is to shine a light on the current email marketing practiced by the largest consumer websites in the United States, and celebrate the brands that are doing it right.
Of…
The OK Company launches today with OK Play, its first product encouraging children’s social and emotional growth by inspiring kids and parents to play together
The year 2020 will be remembered as an unbelievably challenging time for parents with young children: quarantine at home, work from home, and teach children to learn from home. At Obvious, we believe technology can play a positive role in early childhood education, and this year we know that parents need it more than ever before. That’s why we’re thrilled to announce our Series A investment in The OK Company.
OK Play, a new app launching today from the OK Company, is designed to use screen time as a catalyst for real-world play where parents can foster connections with kids…
A recipe for effective and enjoyable startup board meetings
The folklore of bad board meetings at venture-backed startups is too strong to ignore.
Desultory meetings run by sleep-deprived CEOs pulling all-nighters to get the board slides done. Frantic product teams racing to cobble together an innovation demo for the just-conjured roadmap. And let’s not forget cranky, unprepared investors asking minutia questions about slide #4 that will be fully answered on slide #7.
What if you could flip all that into a truly delightful collaboration between founders and investors that help the business stay true to its purpose and (hopefully) achieve great success?
Recent events pushing leadership teams to all-remote…
Obvious invests in Taika
I’m excited to share the story behind our investment in Taika: a new kind of functional beverage company based in San Francisco, CA.
We first met Taika co-founders Michael Sharon and Kal Freese in early 2019. We were on a quest to find and fund a next-generation beverage company that could deliver a health and wellness boost alongside the taste and quality of a world-class coffee or tea to start the day.
The Taika founders were on a similar journey they call Stealth Health — a vision to hijack everyday food and beverage habits with efficacious wellness benefits. …
Announcing Obvious Ventures’ Third Fund: $271,828,182
Today we’re announcing our third fund, OV3. In the Obvious tradition, this fund size has an interesting number: $271,828,182. It’s a nod to one of the most important constants in mathematics: Euler’s Number, universally known as e.
The number e (2.71828182…) is the limit of (1 + 1/n)ⁿ as n approaches infinity. You may have learned about it studying compounding interest or calculus. It’s named e after Leonhard Euler (pronounced “Oiler”), who is downright legendary in mathematics. More details for math nerds below the fold.
e is essential to the mathematics of proportional growth, and OV3 marks an important growth…
Helping healthcare professionals find and do their best work
We first met Iman Abuzeid at the fourth NFX Guild Demo Day in March 2017. Her startup, Incredible Health, was a fledgling marketplace idea with a huge mission: help nurses find and do their best work.
Iman has a lot of distance traveled in the world of healthcare. She received her MD in London, subsequently focusing on systemic healthcare challenges with stints at Booz & Co., the Harvard School of Public Health, and McKinsey & Co. After moving to the U.S. and completing her MBA at Wharton, she went to work at a clinical-grade mobile health startup. …
How a Seasoned Entrepreneur Created a Category Disruptor
On April 18, 2019 Unilever announced the acquisition of Olly into their family of global brands. Obvious Ventures is fortunate to be the largest investor in Olly and I’ve had a ringside seat since the beginning. Here’s my quick story of how a San Francisco startup reimagined the vitamins category and built a valuable new brand in record time.
The story begins (and repeats) with Eric Ryan. Eric is the co-founder and CEO of Olly, who set out in 2014 on a mission to make nutrition fun and easy so consumers could pursue good health without compromise.
Our new Venture Partner at Obvious Ventures
Di-Ann is always on the move. In 2009 she started the U.S. office of Waze, the community-driven navigation service we all know and love. Di-Ann was Director of Growth for Waze including platform, business development, and marketing (acquired by Google 2013). While at Waze she founded the Waze Connected Citizens Program which worked with 650 cities and departments of transportation to use data to reduce congestion and improve emergency response times.
Currently Di-Ann is incubating new urban systems at Google’s Area 120 and, in parallel, joining us at Obvious to help find and fund world positive startups across the full…
James Joaquin
#worldpositive investor @ Obvious Ventures (and the former CEO @ Xmarks, Xoom, & Ofoto)
