Testimonials

“OpenView provided a very effective and engaging workshop that provided our team with excellent info for moving forward with User Centered Design.”

• Matthew Almand, UI Designer
• VersionOne

“OpenView’s focus on continuous improvement sets them apart from most VCs – I love working at one of their portfolio companies.”

• Jay Bolgatz, VP Engineering
• Intronis

“The UX workshop was amazing. Normally with these types of workshops I expect to find 15%-20% of the content useful to me. The UX workshop openview provided was more like 80%-90% applicable. The UX workshop far exceeded my expectations.”

• Nacho Andrade , Product Manager
• Instructure

“As a result of our work with OpenView we’ve made adjustments in our messaging, product backlog, sales process, and buyer personas that will allow us to better target, sell to, and manage our most lucrative opportunities.  There’s immense value in that.”

• Scott Roza, CEO
• Skytap

“OpenView gave us the objective market and customer analysis we needed with the personal touch of a firm that legitimately cares about our future success.  They delivered recommendations and meaningful data that have influenced almost every component of our organization.”

• Oren Michels, CEO
• Mashery

“A lot of venture capital firms talk about their value-add services, but OpenView is one of the few that actually provide them.  When we were looking at potential investors, we chose OpenView for this exact reason.”

• Scott Roza, CEO
• Skytap

“I’ve found in the past that the vast majority, if not all, of the best candidates are working elsewhere.  We want highly sought after, highly thought of people, and they aren’t easy to find let alone have a conversation with.  Jess and the OpenView team seem to have an uncanny ability to make that connection.”

• Erik Smith, VP of North American Sales and Alliances
• NextDocs

“It was an eye-opening experience for me.  They were able to listen to my target, build lists according to that, and then deliver people that were qualified personally and professionally.”

• Scott Samios, VP of Sales
• Monetate

“If you’re handling the recruiting process yourself, you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find a prince. With OpenView, I was able to bypass the frog kissing and just choose the best prince or princess.”

• Kirsten Spoljaric, Co-founder and VP of Human Resources
• Mashery

“Just a little feedback on your newsletter. I subscribe to a few and I must say this is by far the most practical and relevant newsletter I receive. Whoever puts this together really has hit it on the head!”

• Bill Hite, CEO and Founder
• Hull Speed Associates

“One of the unique things about the Sales Execution Workshop, and OpenView workshops in general, is that there is a commonality among attendees.  This workshop in particular includes VPs of Sales and CEOs from expansion stage companies across the country, within similar stages of development.  As a result, we are all facing a number of common challenges or obstacles in our companies, across our respective markets.  The benefit of the relationship with OpenView allows all participants to openly collaborate and communicate lessons learned and best practices, which is unique to most training venues.   Having the agenda built around the feedback and challenges each of us are facing on a daily basis, was of great benefit and will help tremendously with our 2012 plans. The presentation materials were well structured and generated a lot of active dialogue among the attendees. Each session left me thinking, how can I implement part,…”

• Erik Smith, VP of NA Sales and Alliances
• NextDocs

“The OpenView team helped us to design, implement and hire an inside sales team early in 2011.  By the end of 2011  the team had become a consistently producing machine that is poised to grow significantly in 2012.  The team started off 2011 from scratch contributing 0% to topline revenue and has grown so rapidly that in 2012 we expect inside sales to deliver over 20% of company revenue, which is an amazing feat.”

• Pete Gombert, CEO
• Balihoo

“I think Rich Chiarello has done a fantastic job leading the workshop on Sales Execution.  I really like that a number of the topics discussed tie back into the Sandler methodology and I have specifically learned about new ways to use some of the Sandler skills that I have known, particularly in recruiting and focusing on making hiring decisions up front.  I feel like that is a gold nugget that I will be able to take back to Balihoo and Boise for sure.  Also, I really appreciated the preparation of the OpenView team by querying the attendees well in advance to the workshop in order to put the schedule together because it ensures a meaningful session for the participants.”

• Ron Clevenger, VP of Inside Sales
• Balihoo

“In the aggressive business world of expansion stage companies, you can’t afford to stop learning or stop making time to learn.  Thank you OpenView for placing importance on continuing development and creating a culture where it is okay to pause, analyze, learn, and then dive back into our business better than we were before.”

• Terry Douglas, Dir. Product Marketing
• Kareo

“OpenView’s Content Marketing Workshop was a productive and enjoyable learning experience that benefited my team and company in three key areas: 1) actionable takeaways to jumpstart our content marketing program, 2) the ability to compare notes with and learn from marketing peers in other portfolio companies with similar challenges and goals, and 3) the opportunity to meet some of OpenView’s staff and key players and have stimulating discussion around our marketing needs and plan.”

• Linda Souza, Associate Vice President of Marketing
• Central Desktop

“Once again, OpenView has organized on an outstanding workshop.  Content marketing needs to be at the center of every expansion stage company’s marketing efforts.  OpenView recruited the best in the business to show us how to make that happen.  Thanks guys!”

• Dan Rodrigues, CEO
• Kareo

“A quick note to thank you for putting together a great seminar on content marketing.  The presenters and content were excellent of course and so was the interaction, the facilitation and the overall setup…  Amanda did a fantastic job in keeping the session moving but kept it lively and interactive.  The seminar was informative and enjoyable at the same time!”

• Zikria Syed, CEO
• NextDocs

“OpenView’s Content Marketing Workshop delivered clear and concise takeaways for entrepreneurs and marketers to take back and implement now. After attending the workshop, it’s clearer than ever to the Monetate marketing team that by using content to solve our customers’ problems–ideally before they even have the problem–can solidify relationships and differentiate our solution from the competitor. Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose presented the workshop in a unique way by understanding the needs of the companies who attended while introducing everyone to seeing their customers as publishers and not just as marketers.”

• Rob Yoegel, Content Marketing Director
• Monetate

“Great work locking down Bill Price as the newest Senior Advisor! He has been so helpful to us at Kareo over the past 9 months as we have worked hard to adopt his strategies for customer support. I highly encourage the other portfolio companies to take full advantage!  ”

• Dan Rodrigues, CEO
• Kareo

“Bill and I worked together to complete a gap analysis of Kareo’s current operations relative to his recommended best practices.  Throughout the process, Bill was the consummate professional, always inquisitive and quick to learn the intricacies of Kareo’s business model, while keeping the project on task and delivering an actionable plan.  Bill’s experience and track record of success are undeniably impressive.  Bill’s true value as an advisor is his unique ability to be both a thought leader in the space as well as a practical, execution-oriented consultant that can see projects though from conception to implementation.”

• James Armijo, VP of Customer Service
• Kareo

“I attended the OpenView Labs M&A workshop and found the presenters and information provided highly valuable.  The content was highly relevant to some current business transactions my company is looking at.  I would recommend the course to anyone and am keeping the materials provided for reference and to use as templates for future transactions.  It’s not very often a growth phase smaller company gets access to ask questions to the caliber of professionals that presented and attended  the workshop.”

• John Woolard, CFO
• uSamp

“As you know, Devon offered to help us with an urgent position in Sales, Account Development Manager. Her team graciously agreed to share her with us and in a couple of short weeks, Devon identified a great candidate…an “A” candidate…a candidate we would not have otherwise found. I could go on, really I could. Not only did Devon source Rachel (our new ADM) but she also went through the resumes I received from “the regular channels.” Thank you Devon, you were great to work with and you knew exactly what we needed. You saved us hours upon hours of work and more money than I dare count in lost revenue. I hope we’ll get to work together again.”

• Tracy Field, Director of Human Resources
• Instructure

“Ultimately we chose OpenView because the firm offered more than just a track record for helping startups become successful. The difference is the OpenView model – specifically OpenView Labs – which supports portfolio companies with specific research, marketing projects, sales model refinement, and recruiting. We look forward to working with the Labs team to enhance our marketing expertise and market knowledge.”

• Scott Roza, CEO
• Skytap

“Our sales reps can have 150 deals in their pipeline at a time, so we needed a very systematic approach to the way they sell and manage that pipeline. The Sales Execution forum helped us put that in place and we’ll be much more efficient going forward because of that.”

• Dan Rodrigues, CEO
• Kareo

“We wanted to thank you for providing us with the opportunity to work with Diana. She has been great. First, she found Dave Szoke, our new Director of Support. He accepted this week and starts on June 13th. I am sure you heard the story…Diana is thousands of miles away and she found Dave Szoke who works 50 feet from Instructure. Gotta love LinkedIn. Second, Diana and Devon are both providing candidates who not only match our demanding hiring profile but also have great personalities. Diana and Devon are a pleasure to work with and incredible resources in so many areas. Thank you!”

• Tracy Field, Director of Human Resources
• Instructure

“Zmags is really excited about the OpenView studio space.  It is a great resource for the portfolio companies.  We have already taken advantage of the space by filming customer testimonials and a product launch video with our marketing team.  We are looking forward to utilizing the space more in the future.”

• Jens Karstoft, Co-founder
• Zmags

“OpenView has organized a few product oriented forums in the past.  The key difference with the Product Team Leaders Workshop with Marty Cagan is the focus on pragmatic customer and product discovery that helps ensure you create products your customers will love.  I am taking away a number of key practices related to product management and customer experience that we will be incorporating into the way we discover, design and deliver our products.”

• Ian Culling, CTO
• VersionOne

“OpenView Partners brings expertise into our organization to help fill in the gaps.  We are a small company and we don’t have everything covered.  We can approach OpenView and ask for help in particular areas.   They assemble the experts, bring the data, and put the work in for us to help us be more successful.”

• Shane Vaughan, VP of Marketing
• Balihoo

“As a portfolio company, OpenView had provided us with outside expertise.  They have helped us with research projects.  They give us a strategic perspective on what is going on in the market and they question our assumptions.”

• David Funderburke, VP, Operations
• VersionOne

“The Rapid Strategic Planning Workshop provides an output and a strategy map identified discretely to very low levels that, when reassembled, can be communicated quite easily to your whole organization to create all-critical alignment.  I am not familiar with any venture fund that goes to this level of detail to provide resources that help the entrepreneurs learn some of the techniques that are typically available to much larger companies.”

• Kent Plunkett, CEO
• Intronis

“One of the biggest benefits of the Rapid Strategic Planning Workshop is putting a process in place that allows you to pinpoint and work toward a few very important things.  We’ve got better clarity and greater alignment on what we’re trying to do and why we exist.”

• Ramsey Evans, CEO
• Prognosis

“Because we hadn’t run any formal strategy sessions in previous years, I thought the Rapid Strategic Planning Workshop was a really great opportunity for us to get some structure.  We all know now that this is the most important thing for us.  Everyone is aligned on the things we need to do: who we need to hire, the markets we need to target, and how that all relates to our mission and vision.”

• Matt Dusig, Co-Founder and CEO
• uSamp

“George Roberts legitimately cares about everyone at the company.  I think it shows how invested OpenView is.  They obviously casre about how we’re doing as a company, but they care about the people, too.”

• Pete Gombert, CEO
• Balihoo

“The Lead Scoring Optimization Project helped us figure out which marketing programs to nuke and which programs to invest more in, or replicate.  We just didn’t have the resources to analyze the volume of data to determine how our model was performing and what we could do to improve it.  OpenView helped us do that.”

• Denise Grey, VP of Marketing
• VersionOne

“OpenView brings a lot more to the table than other VCs.  Other VCs typically bring a tremendous Rolodex for business development.  OpenView brings that along with operational experience and management that you can apply to a startup.”

• Matt Howland, CEO
• Loyalty Lab

“With a lot of VC firms, there might be some very high level and long term direction, but little if any collaboration to help resolve near term issues.  OpenView was the opposite.  They are always looking for ways to help us; whether it is for this month, next quarter or next year.”

• Richard Fuller, VP of Sales
• VersionOne

“The influencer program Amanda and OpenView ran for us was very highly targeted in the education sector and the results speak for themselves.  We can track the results and we’ve seen a measurable increase in sales in the EDU sector.”

• Kevin Suitor, VP Marketing
• Exinda

“Before we went through the Market Segmentation Workshop with Luke and OpenView, I think we had an idea of what segmentation was, but we had no idea what to do with it.  It’s made us much more aware of segmentation within our customer base.”

• Kevin Donaldson, VP of Product Management
• Balihoo

“OpenView treated the recruitment process like they were hiring the person themselves.  They were extremely thorough, and because they understand our company’s culture so well, I think it led to finding a group of candidates to choose from that all could have been successful with our company.”

• Jens Karstoft, CEO
• Zmags

“On the product management side, OpenView has helped us become “scrumified.”  We have found the setup of Scrum to be simpler than we thought and it has kept us focused.”

• Arnulf Hsu, CTO and Co-Founder
• Central Desktop

“One experience with OpenView that has been helpful to us is the introductions to industry experts, specifically coming in to support us in adopting agile software development.  We have been able to become more efficient in product management without actually adding more resources to our staff.”

• Kevin Donaldson, VP Product Management
• Balihoo

“From the beginning of our partnership in 2007, we recognized that OpenView wasn’t a typical venture capital firm.  They weren’t going to simply write us checks and chime in at board meetings.  They care deeply about our growth, and give us expert guidance and ongoing resources to help make that growth happen.”

• Sam Gutmann, Co-founder, Chairman of the Board
• Intronis

“After the Capability Maturity Model for Finance workshop, we completed our first audit.  In working through the model, we identified three important target issues for 2010: appropriate analytics, reliable metrics and KPI dashboards.  Now that we have completed our assessments, we know where the gaps are.  We are ready to focus on this year’s most critical issues and match our efforts to key departmental goals.”

• Steve Anderson, Director of Finance and Operations
• Central Desktop

“We got much more value from OpenView than simply money.  Over the years, we got advice and a vision for making our company better.  I think that this has much more value that simply the investment we received from them.”

• Kristof Franek, Founder and CEO
• Open-E

“The Extraordinary Execution Workshop gave us a framework for creating a strategy sustainable at muliple layers in our organization.”

• Scott Johnson, CEO
• AtTask

“OpenView Labs is operationally focused and succeeds by putting a strong emphasis on goal setting. The real value that emerges from a relationship with the Labs is in the alignment of their goals to our firm goals; resulting in a dependency on each other to succeed.”

• Jens Karstoft, CEO
• Zmags

“We were a somewhat anonymous brand a year ago and in a short time our brand awareness – especially in some key segments we wanted to target – has increased significantly.”

• Ed Ryan, Vice President of Products
• Exinda

“OpenView’s workshops have provided our company and our management team with the necessary tools and strategy to scale. The sessions are tailored to fast-growing companies, like ours and with no time wasted, we walk out of these workshops with actionable plans.”

• Isaac Garcia, CEO
• Central Desktop

“I greatly respect the team’s willingness to get their hands dirty in the operational nitty-gritty work that is often required to help small companies like ours. I have worked with the team across two companies, and love the support they provide to me, through formal and informal best-practice exchanges.”

• Ed Harnish, Former VP Marketing
• Acronis

“As a board member, Scott Maxwell has been a tremendous asset to ExactTarget. Through his insight and experience, Scott has made significant contributions to the growth and success of our business.”

• Scott Dorsey, CEO
• ExactTarget

“We are actively working with several OpenView operations experts in our sales and marketing areas. The OpenView team has provided excellent support and insight for the growth of our company, and has accelerated our ability to become the high-growth machine we are today by at least 12-18 months. When you are a fast growing startup in an emerging market opportunity, 18 months is an eternity…”

• Stephen Pollack, Former CEO
• Platespin (acquired by Novell)

“I have worked extensively with the team from an operational perspective. One tremendous benefit for me has been the ability to tap into the concentrated marketing expertise the team distills from its work with many different companies. They have also built a powerful marketing metrics infrastructure for us. This enables me to manage my marketing budget from a return-on-investment perspective, and helps me find opportunities for growing my leads that are both sizeable and profitable.”

• Cadman Chui, Former VP Marketing
• Platespin (acquired by Novell)

“The team helped us greatly in growing our business from $3M in revenues to a run-rate of over $20M in only 18 months. Our success story was only possible because of the help and on-site assistance we received for optimizing our sales & marketing efforts.”

• Walter Scott, Former CEO
• Imceda (acquired by Quest)

“I read your newsletter every time it comes out. I just wanted to let you know that it is just awesome – thank you for investing as a firm in producing it.”

• Mark Newman, CEO
• HireVue