How Steph Nass of OpenVC connects founders to VCs

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Steph Nass is the co-founder of OpenVC. He is on a mission to create an open gateway between founders and investors across the world. I interviewed Steph to talk about how OpenVC drives deal flow from 1200+ VCs, Angel networks, and Corporate funds.

What is OpenVC?

OpenVC is an open resource (think Wikipedia) that helps investors and founders find each other in a more efficient way. We are a 2-person team.

What problem did you see and how did you come up with a solution?

When I used to work at Microsoft Accelerator, I would get pitched by startups all the time. What was curious was every one of them kept their own VC list. It felt very inefficient. With OpenVC, we are trying to make this more collaborative and more efficient for everybody so anyone can find the right investor for them.

How do you prepare this list?

It's a collaborative effort. Like Wikipedia, an investor can come in and create a profile for their fund and enter their data if there isn't one already. We don't have the problem of folks entering bad data. We do however have a verification process where the data updated by the fund itself will be tagged as 'Verified' and show higher up in the results.

How do you maintain quality on OpenVC given the nature of the VC business?

Write short emails with a clear subject line and a specific ask at the end. OpenVC limits you to 1400 characters. Another thing I would say is don't misrepresent numbers. Growing from 1 sale to 2 over 1 month doesn't mean 100% growth. The numbers need to be consistent for at least 6 months.

OpenVC website: https://www.openvc.app/

Follow Steph on Twitter: https://twitter.com/StephNass

To get your pitch deck roasted: DM @StephNass on Twitter

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