Don Spear spends his days on a deceptively simple problem: there is more corporate training available than ever, and it is still hard to find the right course. OpenSesame, the Portland company he co-founded, exists to close that gap. It is a marketplace - buyers on one side, course publishers on the other - and its job is curation at scale. Today that means a catalog running into the tens of thousands of titles across compliance, leadership, safety, and technical skills.
The current chapter is about AI. Under Spear, OpenSesame has leaned into machine-driven curation and coaching tools meant to help a learner practice real workplace situations and land on the course that actually fits. The pitch has not changed much since 2011, when he described the goal as making learning "accessible, easy and affordable, for everyone, anywhere." The tooling underneath it has.
Spear is candid about his own role in that. Profiles of him note he is "significantly more business oriented than inventor or educator." He builds the company and recruits the people who invent. It is a self-assessment, not a limitation, and it has shaped how every one of his ventures was staffed.
Make it as easy to buy and sell elearning courses as it is to buy a song on iTunes.— Don Spear, on the founding idea for OpenSesame
An operator who kept finding broken models
A career built on scaling companies, not inventing them
The thread through Spear's career is not an industry. It is a habit. He looks for a conventional model that is not working well and rebuilds it. Before elearning, that meant pet retail and veterinary care. He was at PetSmart from its founding through its IPO, in senior operations, strategy, and logistics roles. Then he became president of Banfield, The Pet Hospital, and led its expansion from four locations to 250 during a period of rapid growth.
In 2003 he founded BlueVolt, an online learning management company aimed at manufacturing, construction, and service industries. That decade in elearning is what set up OpenSesame. Spear and his co-founders - Joshua Blank, Aaron Bridges, and Tom Turnbull - kept running into the same wall: the hardest part of elearning was not making courses, it was finding and choosing good ones. In November 2010 they applied a digital-marketplace model to the problem and OpenSesame was born, launching publicly the following year.
He studied electrical engineering and economics at Rice University, then earned an MBA from Harvard Business School. The engineering and the business degree map neatly onto how he talks about companies: systems that can be measured, and then improved.
PetSmart
Senior operations and strategy roles from founding through IPO.
Banfield
President during expansion from 4 to 250 pet hospitals.
BlueVolt
Founded an LMS company for industrial markets.
OpenSesame
Co-founded the elearning marketplace in Portland.
$50M round
Strategic growth investment led by JMI Equity.
AI tools
Expanded catalog and rolled out AI curation and coaching.
Drucker on the desk, iTunes in the pitch
The Daily Drucker
Spear keeps Peter Drucker's book on his desk and uses it to connect long-term objectives to the decision in front of him. He recommends founders study Drucker for the same reason.
Complements, not clones
He deliberately paired his operator instincts with co-founders who brought technology, software, business development, and design. Great teams, in his telling, cover each other's gaps.
Build for the learner
"We are inspired by the hundreds of millions of people worldwide who want to get better at their jobs through professional training," he has said. The person, not the org chart.
Disrupt the model
"I enjoy creating companies that disrupt the conventional industry model." Across pet care and elearning, the pattern held.
Accessible and affordable
The founding goal was to make learning and development "accessible, easy and affordable, for everyone, anywhere." Short enough to remember, clear enough to act on.
Aim, not haste
OpenSesame came after roughly a decade in elearning. He founded it on a repeated observation, not a sudden hunch.
In his own words
Don Spear on OpenSesame, from eLearnChat
Five things worth knowing
- The iTunes analogy came first. His original elevator pitch was to make buying a course as easy as buying a song.
- Engineer, then MBA. Electrical engineering and economics at Rice, then Harvard Business School.
- A detour through pet care. Before elearning, his resume ran through PetSmart and Banfield.
- Four companies, one habit. He has founded or helped scale ventures across very different industries.
- A book he returns to. The Peter Drucker volume on his desk is a management touchstone for decisions.
Frequently asked
Who is Don Spear?
Don Spear is the co-founder and CEO of OpenSesame, a Portland, Oregon-based marketplace for elearning courses used by companies to train their workforces.
When did he found OpenSesame?
He co-founded OpenSesame in 2010 with Joshua Blank, Aaron Bridges, and Tom Turnbull, and the company launched publicly in 2011.
What did he do before OpenSesame?
He founded the LMS company BlueVolt, served as president of Banfield, The Pet Hospital during its growth from 4 to 250 locations, and held senior roles at PetSmart from its founding through IPO.
What is his education?
He studied electrical engineering and economics at Rice University and earned an MBA from Harvard Business School.
What is OpenSesame's mission under him?
To make learning and development accessible, easy, and affordable for everyone, everywhere, largely by making it simple to find, buy, and manage quality elearning courses.