How Opnbook Uses Forecastr To Manage Runway and Gain Financial Insights

Todd Smith, co-founder and CEO of Opnbook, spent years immersed in data center infrastructure. Alongside his co-founders, he recognized a growing problem across the industry: the demand for high-performance computing was outpacing the available hardware. AI, gaming, video streaming, and other compute-heavy applications were putting intense pressure on data centers, and the traditional approach simply couldn’t keep up.

“There’s just not enough hardware to support the high-performance computing needs in the industry today,” Todd explained.

To solve this, the Opnbook team created TAHO, a powerful infrastructure software platform that reimagines how data centers are orchestrated. “What we’ve done is we’ve built a new infrastructure software that reinvents how these data centers are orchestrated,” he explained. “It allows for everyone to get more computing horsepower from their existing data centers and hardware.”

As TAHO gained traction, Opnbook’s internal operations needed to scale just as efficiently as its software. But behind the scenes, the finance team was still relying on spreadsheets to manage forecasting, runway, and burn—an approach that quickly became unsustainable.

Outgrowing Google Sheets

Before partnering with Forecastr, Opnbook managed its finances using a spreadsheet-based model. At first, it seemed manageable—but it didn’t take long for the limitations to surface. “It was clunky,” Todd recalled. “Every time you want to shift your forecasting logic—whether you’re modeling revenue from headcount or staffing to support a revenue goal—you have to recraft an entirely new sheet.”

The spreadsheet also aged poorly. “It starts going stale the second you log out of it.”

Todd first discovered Forecastr at a Founders and Funders event hosted by Jeff Erickson. “I went there with no knowledge of Forecastr,” he said. “But I got to see it in action through a demo, and I was very interested in following up.”

What stood out most wasn’t just the product—it was the people. “The product capabilities were there. It made sense to me. But the decision to purchase was indexed to the people. I felt really good about the Forecastr team. The culture aligned with the kind of businesses I like to do business with.”

As a pre-revenue company supporting a full-time team of eight, Opnbook needed tight control over its burn rate. “Our burn rate is something we gotta pay a lot of attention to,” Todd explained. “We’re not going to be breakeven yet. Keeping an eye on that, as well as monitoring burn to see around the corners—like where trouble might lie or when we might need to revisit investor solutions—that’s key for us.”

Forecastr helped create that visibility. “Indexing to Forecastr in that realm is critical for us,” he said.

The platform also became a key asset in Opnbook’s fundraising workflow. “We actually send a Forecastr link along with our investor deck. So every time we send it out, investors get a cursory view of where we are and what our financials look like.” One investor even responded with: “Oh, great. Love Forecastr.”