Today we’d like to introduce you to J Obakhan.
Hi J, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
My journey to founding Varmodel wasn’t a straight path; it was defined by 20 years spent at the high-stakes intersection of Sales, Engineering, and Business Development. After years of running growth strategies for major technical organizations, I recognized a fundamental flaw in the scaling process: traditional sales and marketing are expensive and slow, but strategic partnerships—the true engine of acceleration—remain chaotic and manual, also…there is no mechanism for independent professionals and small business owners to leverage partnership business development to grow their business. It is a major gap we’re filling, and using our expertise to help this group fight back against job destruction/loss being fueled by
The ‘Aha!’ moment arrived when I realized how much growth is lost for independent professionals and small businesses not because of a lack of ability, but because no one was building tools for them to capitalize on the partner economy growth engine like bigger and more well funded business do every day.
This confirmed our North Star: Varmodel needed to build the platform that democratizes the partner economy, and brings the same growth that well funded businesses enjoy to small businesses and independent professionals. I brought together a specialized team to create VARI AI, designed to automate the entire business development process—from identifying a non-obvious partner to executing a Joint Value Proposition (JVP). Today, as the Chief Varmonaut, my focus is singular: empowering small businesses and independent professionals to achieve growth previously reserved only for mid market and enterprise businesses. We’re currently planning our launch in Q1 of 2026.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Refining Varmodel’s core vision and translating it into a tangible product that resonated with our customers was perhaps the toughest challenge. We spent months grappling with the “Partnership Paradox”—the conflict between the massive potential of alliances and the chaotic, manual reality of execution—before realizing our product couldn’t just list potential partner collaborations for small businesses and independent professionals; it had to also do the work, and automate the strategy and execution itself. The breakthrough came when we focused on creating VARI AI to solve for the specific friction points, like the lack of a quantifiable Joint Value Proposition (JVP) and task automation which enabled us to finally connect with the deep, unmet need for predictable, data-driven growth not previously accessible to independents and SMBS.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
My career spans over three decades, rooted deeply in the convergence of Engineering, Sales, and high-stakes Business Development for major technology organizations.
My background provided extensive experience in driving successful growth strategies and executing large-scale technical initiatives. The pivotal moment in this journey was the realization that traditional sales methods were inefficient for scaling high-value expertise; this insight directly led to the founding of Varmodel. As the Chief Varmonaut, the focus shifted from optimizing legacy enterprise processes to building and democratizing AI-driven tools (VARI AI) that automate strategic partnership execution, empowering small businesses and independent professionals to achieve growth previously reserved for organizations with big budgets.
We all have a different way of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
I don’t define success by the size of compensation packages, vacations, or stock portfolio balances.
Those things are certainly nice to have, but being that I believe success is tied to resiliency, it has to be fundamentally connected to things we have control over within ourselves. For me, its the satisfaction of knowing when I’ve made a genuine impact in peoples lives that allow me to go home feeling truly accomplished. I’ve sacrificed building alot of friendships to deliver that for my family and teams, but no doubt have alot more to work on being better in living out my philosophy. I believe that both knowing our success philosophy and being self reflective and honest about our shortcomings in fulfilling it help define our growth trajectory towards ultimately arriving at our idea of success.
I strongly believe that success doesn’t come without failure. There’s nothing to learn in being perfect in life or getting lucky.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.varmodel.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/varmodel/?viewAsMember=true
