My Grandma taught me how to Invest

While attempting to bake apple pies and toll house cookie pies for my family’s Thanksgiving Dinner tomorrow, I started to notice how similar baking is to OpenView’s philosophy on investing.

Baking is very different than any other type of cooking. It is much more exact, scientific and closely linked in chemistry. OpenView also follows a very exact “recipe” when getting involved with our portfolio companies and with investing.

Getting and preparing the right ingredients: getting all the right processes and people in place at OpenView to be able to set ourselves up for success. Chopping and mixing the ingredients needs to be done in a particular way for the pie to come out right, have the filling be the right consistency, etc. We are always changing our internal processes to ensure we have the right formula and are the most efficient. Nobody wants a non-flaky crust.

Following the recipe: this is very important to OpenView and we have an extremely exact criteria that we look for and a process in getting to an investment.

Baking: The “baking” is like the deep dive into the company, sales and marketing support and economics, market size, etc. After a prospect speaks with the Research Analyst and Partner, and all the ingredients seem like they’ll work together to create something amazing, the Labs teams do research around everything. Basically I think of this part as all the ingredients are together in the pan and there is a lot of heat and energy around it bringing everything together and creating all the chemical reactions to simulate if the company will be a success.

Taste testing and tips: This is where our management teams come in as well as our outside network of individuals. If we want advice on a particular market or how to improve product and development in a particular field, technology and law help, or process we are not experts at ourselves, we ask this team. I just had to call my Grandmother to ask her how to fold over the crust, so my Mom and Grandmother are my outside consulting team. I’m sure my big Italian family will have a lot to add tomorrow when they are enjoying the pies as well.

OpenView does not just throw a bunch of things together and hope for the best just as I could not chop some apples and throw in some sugar and butter and expect the most delicious pie. Almost all aspects of a prospect need to be in the right place, at the right stage and a recipe needs to be followed to make the initial investment and then to help them grow to a 100M dollar company.
 
Happy Feasting!