Bengaluru only, for now.
openhour is people helping people in Bengaluru's startup community. Meet new people and fresh ideas at events, find someone who has been where you are going, and join a community or start your own. Free by default, paid when you choose, and we take no cut.
A founder with a pricing question can sit down with someone who has repriced a product, without needing a mutual contact.
Experienced people give time when they have it, free or for a fee, and keep what they earn.
Introductions turn into sessions and events, and the record of what happened is there for funders.
Members meet, book and attend. Experts share what they know and publish events straight away; members publish too, after a short review. Communities give it a name and a home. The pilot circle starts in November.
Members and founders
Go to events that bring you new faces and fresh thinking, find people by the question you have, and book a 1:1 online or in person. Free to join. If someone sets a fee, you pay them directly.
Find your peopleExperts: members who applied and were vetted
Apply, get vetted, and be found by topic in every community you join or run. Share your time free when you have it, or set a fee and keep all of it. openhour takes no commission.
Apply as a founding expertCommunities: accelerators, incubators, angel networks, coworking spaces
A branded space where members meet, host events, book experts and share knowledge, with vetted experts when you want them. Members publish events for their own unit, and you can turn that off. The impact report writes itself from the bookings. Free for up to 2,048 monthly active members; five Bengaluru design partners get onboarding done for them.
Bring your communityBeing one city deep beats being ten cities thin. A founder in Koramangala can meet an operator in HSR on Thursday.
Experts are listed by topic and proven results, in every community they belong to. Rank is never sold, on any plan.
Twelve topics. Any member can apply; five years of experience, a verified result and roughly three in ten accepted.
The unit is time together: an hour, a workshop or an event, online or in the room.
Free by default. Everything on openhour is free during the pilot. If paid plans come, they will be for communities only, and announced in advance.
Free. Create up to 3 communities and join up to 3. openhour takes no commission on any hour, only a transaction fee if one applies.
Free for up to 2,048 monthly active members. Once paid plans start, a paid community has no member limit.
Payments go directly between the founder and the expert, who also handle refunds between themselves. A community can choose to charge its own commission on hours booked inside it.
Three alternatives exist today: expert marketplaces, link-in-bio booking tools such as Topmate, and building it yourself. Each does one part of the job.
| openhour | Expert marketplaces | Booking-link tools (e.g. Topmate) | Your own website | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cut of each hour | No commission from openhour | 15–30% | 10–20% plus processing | Gateway fees only |
| Who brings the founders | The directory, plus every community and programme you belong to | The marketplace, at its own ranking | You: your followers and your link | You, entirely |
| Who else is listed | Vetted GTM operators, ~3 in 10 accepted, rank never sold | Anyone who signs up; paid placement common | Everyone; no vetting | Only you |
| Communities and programmes | Branded spaces, member rates, create up to 3 and join up to 3 | None, or a generic feed | None | Build it yourself |
| Events, online and in person | Included, with tickets, waitlists and phone-verified in-person sessions | Online calls only | Webinars; in-person not supported | Separate tools |
| Calendar sync and payments | Free: Google and Microsoft sync; payments go directly between founder and expert | Included, USD-first | Included | Integrate and pay for each |
| Reporting for programmes | Impact report by cohort, exportable | None | None | Build it yourself |
| Where it works | Bengaluru, in the room and online | Global, online | Global, online | Wherever you are |
| What it costs an expert | Free to list | Commission on every booking | Commission on every booking | Hosting, tools, and your time |
Competitor figures are typical published ranges as of September 2026 and vary by platform and plan.
Every programme on openhour can organise members in three levels, and calls each level what it likes. Members see only the sessions, events and experts of the levels they are in; admins see the whole tree and its report. Pick the kind of community closest to yours.
Cities → locations → member companies
Experts run floor clinics at one location, member companies book at the operator's rate, and the operator reports usage per building.
Chapter = city · Unit = location · Group = a client company
Industry tracks → batches → startups
Track-specific mentors sit at chapter level, batch workshops at unit level, and each startup's founders share a group with its own session history.
Chapter = industry track · Unit = batch · Group = a startup
City chapters → interest circles → syndicates or companies
Chapter presidents run their city's events; circles host sector office hours; a syndicate's portfolio founders get member rates from the network's experts.
Chapter = city · Unit = interest circle · Group = a syndicate or company
Campuses or schemes → programmes → teams
The funder report filters by scheme, so a SISFS return and a campus annual report come from the same data.
Chapter = campus or scheme · Unit = programme · Group = a team
Business units → programmes → teams
External startups and internal teams sit in separate units with separate experts, under one corporate space with one bill.
Chapter = business unit · Unit = programme · Group = a team
Just groups, or nothing at all
Structure is optional. A single expert's community can be one flat room, or a couple of groups for a recurring clinic and a paid cohort.
No chapters or units needed — groups alone are enough on every plan.
Joining isn't a filter laid over the same screen. The moment you're in, openhour hands the room over — this is how the platform works today, not a plan.
Browsing openhour
Every category, every city, every community you've joined, one tap away from any other.
Inside Redwood Circle
No other community in view. The switcher becomes Redwood Circle's own chapters and units — its mentors, its events, its name on the header.
Leaving is one tap back to the open directory. Nothing you saw inside follows you out, and nothing outside follows you in unless Redwood Circle's own admin lets it through.
Every expert is listed under one to three of these. Highlighted categories are staffed first for the pilot.
Nothing is live today. The first thing you will see is the pilot circle running, from October. The figures below are our targets.
Oct – Dec 2026
20 vetted operators, 50 founders, 100 free pilot sessions, the first workshops, and the first communities onboarding. Every flow tested live.
Jan – Apr 2027
75 operators across all twelve categories, 200 founders, cohort workshops and in-person sessions.
From May 2027
Same city. A second city only once founders here rebook. Founding operators and partners keep their terms.
A directory of vetted GTM operators you can book by the hour, workshops and clinics you can attend, and communities you can join. Joining is free; you pay the expert directly for a session or a seat. If your programme is on openhour you get its member rate. Calendar sync is free. Founders pay openhour nothing, and you can create up to 3 communities and join up to 3.
Both. Every accepted expert is in the openhour directory by category from day one. They can also belong to any number of communities, and run their own; each community shows its experts to its own members with member rates. Communities add reach and trust; the directory is always there underneath.
Three ways at once: experts are vetted into twelve GTM categories with roughly three in ten accepted and rank never sold; founders find them by the question they have, not by follower count; and openhour takes no commission on the hour.
In-person sessions, meetups and programme cohorts all need density. One city where operators, programmes and founders can meet on a Thursday beats a thin national listing. A second city comes only once founders here rebook.
A real profile with two priced services and at least four bookable hours a week, one event online or in person in the first 90 days, either opening a community or referring two operators they trust, and thirty minutes a month telling us what is broken.
Fifteen mentors and forty founders onboarded before the next cohort, a named ops contact, one cohort workshop and one in-person session in the first 60 days, and a case study with their numbers if they are happy with them. In return, onboarding is done for them.
No. The pilot circle runs from October to December 2026 with hand-picked operators and founders — free of charge, with the first communities also onboarding. Sign-ups and programme conversations start now so the circle exists on day one.