Our Genesis

I started Ohos because I was tired of treating the symptoms of bad management. The core of any culture is it's leadership and, sadly, the majority or managers don't want to be managers (at nearly 68% according to a survey in 2011) - they just want to make more money. Ironically, the people who don't want to manage other people are making over 2/3rds of your company's decisions about who should become managers. The instrument that is at the core of most leadership employment decisions is the performance review. This antiquated and inherently flawed tool, used to make business decisions for what is almost always the most expensive part of a business (salary/benefits) is reviled, abhorred, untrusted, misused, and considered a horrible time suck. 

Think about that. Companies make their most important and most expensive decisions based on a tool no one likes and everyone agrees (even HR pros) is ineffective at pretty much everything it is intended to do - and the decisions are being made by people who really didn't want the job in the first place. The performance review needs to go.

And so Ohos. 

In September of 2015 I started fleshing out the concept. By November, I felt confident to run it past a few people I knew. And lo and behold, the first person I really shared it with (the CEO of regional fast casual restaurant chain, Larkburger) stopped me mid conversation and told me he wanted to invest. That energy set off a chain of thought and learning.

I am not a CEO or a founder by experience. I have never invested in a company nor have I sought investors for anything. I had no idea what I was doing (still don't) but I knew this had to be built. After finding an attorney in December of 2015 to make sure I did not screw anything up, Ohos became a company in January of 2016. Since then we have built a prototype, landed a number of early adopters and paid beta testers, and secured a modest office in a growing tech area of Denver. In March, I was fortunate enough to meet Alicia Yanik and convinced her to become employee number 2.

We continue to progress in different areas each week and we look forward to the journey ahead. It will not be smooth, it will not be easy, but changing the world for the better never is. There are those in power who have created and benefit from the status quo and will do what they can to protect their status - we aim to make it better. The world deserves it, businesses need it, and you are ready for it.

We hope you join us, help spread the word, and contribute to changing the future. The future of performance feedback is Ohos because everything else is just hindsight.