The Invested Matchmaker

When OpenView Venture Partners made an investment in Central Desktop in March of 2008, the up-and-coming software company had four employees. But in order to grow into the company co-founder and CEO Isaac Garcia knew it could be, Central Desktop needed to expand its team.

Unfortunately, hiring top talent that will help the company grow and fit seamlessly into its well established office culture isn’t always easy. Garcia had experienced the turmoil hiring the wrong person could cause before and didn’t want to run into the same wall again.

So rather than go the staffing firm route, Garcia opted to collaborate with OpenView Labs. Two years later, OpenView and Central Desktop have brought in 36 new employees that have helped the company realize triple digit growth each year.

Central Desktop’s success mirrors that of several other companies in OpenView’s portfolio. Now, with the addition of Recruiting Analyst Diana Winings, the firm can offer something many other VC’s can’t: consistent, methodological staffing services with the kind of invested interest in long term success that its companies might not get from outside recruiters.

“We are invested in these companies, so we like to treat the process like we’re hiring the candidates to work for OpenView,” Winings says. “OpenView truly has a stake in these hires succeeding with these companies and helping them grow.”

Since the OpenView team understands each portfolio companies’ culture and hiring needs, the firm can find the best fit to portfolio companies.

Isaac Garcia, co-founder and CEO of Central Desktop, found that hiring the right talent was challenging as an expansion stage company.

“If the wrong people are hired, you have to factor in lost production or lost sales for the time they were there, the related cost of their affect on the efficiency or morale of their coworkers, and the obvious cost of finding another person to replace them. The cost is enormous to an expansion stage company and it’s a mistake that most companies at that stage of their growth can’t afford to make,” Garcia says.

Since 2008, when Garcia started to get support from OpenView to grow Central Desktop, the company has gone from a team of four to a well-oiled 40 person machine. “Every year, we’ve had triple digit growth. We owe a lot of that to OpenView and their ability to help us staff up with the right people that were ready to help us grow the company,” says Garcia.

Read the case study in its entirety to learn about the hiring success stories of our portfolio companies.