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To better engage its retail investor base, Opendoor's IR team rapidly shifted from traditional audio calls to video livestreams on platforms like Robinhood. This strategy meets modern investors where they are, rather than forcing them into staid, institutional Wall Street forums, demonstrating that even compliance functions can innovate.
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Opendoor has no PR department; the official press email auto-replies with instructions to DM the CEO on X. This radical approach forces direct, unfiltered communication and ensures the CEO's authentic voice defines the company narrative, bypassing traditional media gatekeepers.
Instead of scheduling a pitch, Owner.com's CEO immediately sent his last three investor updates to a potential investor. This act of radical transparency showcased strong performance and trajectory, building instant trust and leading to an investment without a meeting.
During major internal changes (e.g., tech refactoring, price hikes), users can feel neglected. Bending Spoons found that monthly video updates for Evernote were crucial for reassuring the community, demonstrating progress, and putting a human face on the company to directly address concerns.
By reimagining dull earnings calls as engaging media events with live video and retail investor Q&A, Robinhood increased its audience from hundreds to over 100,000. CEO Vlad Tenev borrowed from the entertaining, unscripted format of NBA post-game interviews to better connect with all shareholders.
Status update meetings are a major productivity drain. Replace them with asynchronous videos (e.g., Loom). This method is more efficient, allowing people to consume updates on their own time. It also conveys more signal—tone, emphasis, and personality—than a written update, fostering better connection on distributed teams.
Rainbird live-streamed customer focus groups back to its engineering team. This allowed engineers to hear feedback directly, eliminating skepticism and creating immediate alignment on necessary design changes without requiring them to travel.
Instead of using meetings for context-setting, Loom’s team sends a required 'pre-watch' video walkthrough of the strategy. This forces stakeholders to arrive with full context, allowing the live meeting to be shorter and entirely focused on critique, asking clarifying questions, and making decisions.
Archer's CEO highlights that a strong retail investor base, cultivated through communities like Reddit, creates high trading volume. This liquidity is a strategic asset, making it easier for the company to raise capital as institutional investors are more confident they can trade the stock in and out.
Unlike many public companies that use "retail investor" as a pejorative term, Opendoor proudly embraces its broad ownership by average Americans. This community, or "army," is seen as a core part of its mission and a source of strength, validating its goal of making homeownership more accessible.
To unify their brand across channels, the store hosts a weekly live stream discussing new products. This single event allows them to interact directly and simultaneously with both their in-store regulars and online-only customers, creating a shared experience and a cohesive community that transcends physical location.
