OCV follows a handbook-first approach. When a decision or recommendation is made, the first action item is to document the change in the handbook. Decisions aren’t “final” until they are in the handbook.
A handbook-first approach minimizes duplication and provides a single source of truth. While the advantages of a handbook-first approach are well documented by GitLab, there are OCV-specific advantages to ensuring the handbook is always up-to-date, maintained and relevant:
- Recruiting founders. The handbook is a powerful marketing tool. Sharing our startup advice publicly helps build trust with potential founders because they can review our processes, perspectives, and philosophies before starting a company with us. Advice that is relevant beyond our portfolio can be shared by anyone, building our public profile.
- Onboarding founders. The more companies we add, the more demand there will be on our time. Our handbook enables founders to self-serve and get up to speed quickly on their own. Documenting relevant startup advice in a single place accessible by all will allow us to focus 1:1 conversations on highly specific and nuanced situations.
- Scaling efficiently. Effectively increasing the volume of companies we start is dependent on our ability to scale our internal operations. Meticulous documentation ensures critical processes like company formation, legal procedures, and founder onboarding are not siloed to a single person or group. All team members are empowered to act if necessary.
Scope of this handbook
The handbook is focused on content that helps OCV start and scale open core companies. It includes anything OCV team members and OCV founders need to do their jobs effectively. The startup advice included in this handbook is highly specific to Pre-Seed founders. Generic, google-able content is out-of-scope.
Public by default
OCV defaults to documenting in the public handbook according to the following guidelines.
- It’s ok to be messy. Prioritize getting relevant information into the handbook quickly and worry less about organizational structure, word choice, etc.
- Avoid linking to internal docs and add templates to the handbook whenever possible. Linking to internal templates may be unavoidable in some cases, like linking to a spreadsheet or legal and financial documents.
- Avoid naming software and systems in the handbook to prevent phishing attempts.
- Do not share personal, financial, or sensitive HR information in the handbook. Security-sensitive finance and HR processes should be documented in our project management tool.
How to use the handbook
Use the handbook to provide shared context when onboarding, answering questions, during discussions, and when asking for feedback.
- Answering questions: Provide a short answer covering any situation-based nuance and a link to where the question is covered in the handbook. Add the answer if it isn’t already in the handbook.
- Discussions: Include a handbook link when adding discussion topics to agendas. Document any resulting decisions or changes.
- Feedback: Include a handbook link when asking for feedback on an existing process, guideline, or startup advice.
- Onboarding: The majority of founder onboarding is self-serve via handbook links. Share handbook links when following up on onboarding tasks.
Contributing to the handbook
Everyone contributes to the handbook. Default to making live updates as decisions are being discussed, rather than listing them as an action item for later. If an update is small (i.e., updating existing content to reflect the most up-to-date thinking), make the update yourself instead of waiting for someone else to make the change.
Ongoing changes will be automatically logged in the #handbook-updates channel. Always tag any relevant reviewers in the channel or tag them in comments regarding the relevant section. This ensures a continuous flow of updates, feedback and edits.
Handbook entries that require more research and draft work should be entered into and tracked in the OCV project management tool.
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