This week I caught up with Ethan Diamond, one of the co-founders of email startup Oddpost, which in 2004 was sold to Yahoo and became the Ajax-y interface for Yahoo’s Mail. I first met Ethan that same year, when I was researching my “The New Road To Riches” story for Business 2.0. It was back in the early days of Web 2.0, when everyone knew everyone.
I was introduced to Ethan, Oddpost’s other co-founder, Iain Lamb, and former Oddpost CEO Toni Schneider by Anil Dash. Long story short, but that meeting essentially set off a chain of events that led to me leaving my job, going solo, and getting financial backing for GigaOM from True Ventures, where Toni is now a partner.
Today, Toni is also an investor in Ethan’s new startup, BandCamp, which rather than email is focused on music. While Iain isn’t part of this reunion, Shawn Grunberger, also from Oddpost/Yahoo, is.
So what is this four-man startup — which is currently completely virtual — doing? Ethan was coy when I first met him, and he hasn’t changed. The first offering from his new company is ClubWiki, venue info and booking wiki. He explains why they started it on the company blog. It seems to be getting good reviews from the musical crowd, despite the early days.
Here, here, Om. I was so enamored too with how these guys started their business. Every day I would browse their photo collection of them working in libraries and coffee shops for inspiration. I just had to try and accomplish my startup dreams with the same perseverance. They’ve been a huge motivator in how we got started at Inkling.
It’s so cool how those connections play out over the years. The best thing is that everybody you’ve mentioned is still out there trying new things and being entrepreneurial, including you! 🙂