Opendoor is listening to its retail “$OPEN Army”

Opendoor Technologies new interim leader, Shrisha Radhakrishna, has a new strategy: dance with the ones who brung ya.

The online real estate company did not shift from about a 50-cent stock to a ~$5 stock because of any big, fundamental turnaround in its business.

The shares made those leaps and bounds because a mix of retail traders and some smaller institutional investors are willing to dream on how big that turnaround might be. And the so-called “$OPEN Army,” led by EMJ Capital’s Eric Jackson, has some thoughts on how to get there. They are more than willing to share these on social media, often tagging members of the board or executives in their posts.

What’s different now is that management, typically Radhakrishna himself, is a) actively engaging with these suggestions made on social media, and b) following through with action.

That was punctuated by this announcement from the president and chief technology and product officer’s announcement on Thursday after the close:

Radhakrishna purchased 30,000 shares (or approximately $128,000) of Opendoor on Thursday in two transactions. He now owns 4.28 million shares.

10b5-1 plans are predetermined schedules that govern how insiders transact in their company stocks without running afoul of any insider trading rules.

In our interview with EMJ Capital’s Eric Jackson in the early innings of Opendoor’s surge, he commented on how important it was for him to have seen Carvana CEO Ernie Garcia add to his holdings of the company even during its darkest days, and how he wished that Opendoor’s management would do the same.

Shares were up as much as 15% in early trading Friday following this news, but since went on to pare most of that advance.