We've gotten interesting feedback on the name Obvious Corp. Some people think it's brilliant. Others, not so much. Others think it's supposed to be ironic. It's not.

If you have to explain why your name is a good one, it's probably not. So consider this not an explanation, but rather a revealing of the subtlety of Obviousness.

Great ideas tend to be obvious—later
We hope to make the type of things that make you say "Of course!" The Internet, Google, the wheel. These are all obvious things, but hard to imagine before they existed. When we started Blogger, we were working on a much more complicated product. We almost wrote Blogger off, because it was too simple, too trivial—too obvious. It wasn't obvious until much later what blogging would become.

People don't have time for things that aren't obvious
Obviousness is a better goal for software than "ease-of-use" or "intuitiveness." You don't need your intuition if something is crystal-clear in its form and presentation. In an increasingly complicated world, people don't have time to figure out unobvious things. Of course, if you're trying to invent new things, obviousness is a big challenge. So we try to remind ourselves by naming our company that.

Many obvious ideas are opportunities in disguise
Obvious things are unquestioned things. And it's by questioning things that one discovers new ways and new truths. Like whether the world is flat. In Silicon Valley, there are obvious ways (and reasons) to do business. We plan to ask a lot of dumb questions about those, too.

Let us be clear
Being Obvious, to us, is also about being straightforward and transparent in our intentions and business dealings. We don't want to leave anyone guessing—least of all our co-workers or ourselves. We strive for clarity. (We don't always succeed.)

We thought it'd be fun
We realized if we named the company Obvious, we could have "An Obvious Party," "The Obvious T-Shirt," "Obvious News," "Obviously (the blog)"...it hasn't gotten old yet.

Labels: naming