1️⃣
Open Core Ventures Handbook/1️⃣First Week

First Week

Your official first day is typically the “start date” listed on your offer letter. Founders will have tasks to complete before their official start date and may opt to have their first individual office hour before their first day.
New founders will be welcomed and introduced to other OCV founders in a shared “OCV Founders” channel on their first day. The “OCV Founders” channel is where you can find important updates and information from OCV.

OCV Dashboard

OCV’s internal dashboard is the single-source-of-truth for your company’s information. You will receive an invitation to create an account prior to your first day. Please ensure you have access to the dashboard on your first day.

Company description

The company description field should include your 2-sentence company description and important document links. OCV will pre-populate the description field with links to provided templates and OCV’s blog post announcing your company.

Company documents

Your company’s profile is auto-populated with four important templates: Individual Office Hours agenda, Building Blocks whiteboard, investor CRM, and the Monthly Investor Update template. These templates are saved automatically to your company’s drive. These templates are yours to use, you do not need to make a copy.

Custom utilities

The OCV dashboard includes custom utilities built specifically for OCV founders.
Domain Search: Use the domain search utility to search for multiple TLDs at once.
Headline Checker: Use the Headline Checker to optimize blog post titles.
Visit the documentation section of the OCV dashboard for more information on how to use each utility.

Prepare for Office Hours

Review the
⛸️
Office Hours
handbook page and prepare your agenda. A link to your individual office hour agenda can be found in your company’s dashboard. The first two office hour agenda’s are pre-populated. Feel free to make changes to the format and add your own topics. OCV partners typically want to discuss the project and it’s background, initial commercialization, setting your first goal, and will introduce the Building Blocks concept.
Founders will be asked to share their 2-sentence company description during Group Office Hours. We recommend spending a bit of time writing a first draft on your first day. New CEOs should review the existing 2-sentence description and may either practice delivering the description or edit the description. The description will be workshopped during individual office hours which may occur before or after your first GOH, depending on your start day. Always update your company’s description field on the dashboard after you’ve made changes.

Pre-Read

Please carefully review the following handbook pages on your first day. Please share any questions in your company channel with a link to the relevant handbook page.
  1. 🤝🏼
    OCV & Founder Relationship
  1. 🌱
    Pre-Seed (First 18-24 Months)
  1. ⛸️
    Office Hours
  1. 🎯
    Goal Setting
  1. 📬
    Monthly Investor Updates

Using the handbook

OCV’s handbook contains the most-up-to-date guidance for founders. The handbook is focused content that will help you succeed as a founder of a Pre-Seed OCV company. It is updated regularly and changes are shared in the “OCV Founders” shared channel.
When you have a question about how to do something or how to approach a strategic business question, search the handbook first. Most process-specific questions are answered in the Founder Onboarding and OCV Support Scope sections of the handbook. Handbook guidance on strategic questions like commercialization, pricing, product development, etc. is not intended to tell you what to do but gives you a jumpstart in the right direction. Our strategic guidance is crafted from years of learnings and experience starting open core businesses.

83b election

Founders must file their 83b elections and provide proof of mail to the legal team. Notwithstanding personal tax implications, 83b elections can impact a company’s tax withholding requirements in the future, which is one of the due diligence items during later financing rounds.

Systems access

Founders should confirm access to all core business systems on their first day. If you have trouble accessing a system, reach out to OCV in our shared channel.
  • Founder email(s)
  • Group email alias for core business operations
  • OCV founder group access (Ops, document access, messaging systems, etc.)
  • Payroll service provider (EOR)
  • Internal messaging systems