OCV contacts potential founders/CTOs once we have an informed hypothesis that there may be a commercial path for a specific open source project. While our research is a good starting point, it is not exhaustive, and there may be many other paths to success. We believe the best path is to just get started, and we follow the typical startup-building model of hypothesizing, testing, and iterating often and quickly. Our founder outreach process focuses on finding the right founder who’s ready to jump into building a startup.
Project selection
OCV conducts research to determine commercial viability before contacting potential founders. Our research criteria are based on existing traction—typically the number of GitHub stars and monthly pull requests—and an overview of the potential market opportunity, trends, current competitive landscape, etc. We only reach out to founders when our research indicates there’s a commercial opportunity.
Outreach Process
- OCV completes internal research doc and establishes the basis for commercialization.
- OCV contacts a potential founder and schedules an informational meeting.
- OCV schedules 1-2 additional calls to discuss details of starting the business.
- If there’s mutual interest in proceeding with forming a new company, OCV completes its internal approval process. This may include a conflict of interest check.
- Once approved, OCV sends the founder an indicative offer letter and begins the company formation process.
The outreach process typically includes 2-3 live calls with our team to discuss OCV’s model, potential commercialization plans, and answer questions. The process from start to finish can vary in length depending on availability and complexity. We are happy to take more calls and answer questions throughout the process.
Requesting OCV references
We understand founders would like to speak with other OCV companies as a reference as part of their decision-making process. To best respect our founders’ time, we ask that you allow us to make direct intros after we have a mutual interest in moving forward.
Evaluating our model
OCV’s model is different from the typical VC model making it difficult to compare with other venture models. Our model includes highly personalized and ongoing advisory and support from company formation through the Seed fundraising process. We understand that it's natural to seek advice when assessing a new opportunity and caution that without a full understanding of our model, it may be difficult for someone to offer educated advice. We encourage you to ask as many questions and request as many calls as needed when evaluating an opportunity with OCV.