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Ever wonder what it takes to build a successful venture studio? In our latest blog post, ICEO Studio breaks down what you should consider when designing and building a thriving venture studio. Key points you'll read about 👇 • Foundation: Familiarize yourself with the studio model and establish a solid base, • Team Building: Assemble a dynamic, skilled team, • Financial Planning: Secure funding and manage expenses, • Studio Lifecycles: Navigate from ideation to scaling, • Final Checklist: Cover all bases when setting up your venture studio. Read the full article below https://lnkd.in/e2amjG-D

This is one of the deepest conversations about the venture studio model I have ever had. Here are some key insights from Ben Yoskovitz, a co-founder of Highline Beta, a $10M+ venture studio that has built 9 startups since 2019, created $70M+ of equity value, and had 1 exit. Ben has been in the tech industry for 28 years, launching his first digital agency in 1996, during the early days of the web. Later, he joined a startup that was acquired by Salesforce. In 2010, he began partnering with entrepreneurs and investing capital to launch companies. They called it Year One Labs and built five startups, one of which was acquired by Airbnb. Before diving in, comment “+” and like this post to receive a list of useful content created by Ben. This includes a comprehensive venture studio design spreadsheet with 58 questions (and answer options) and several articles on the venture studio model. 1. At Highline Beta, they invest up to $500K in cash in addition to providing 6 months of hands-on support from a 14-member studio team. They take 10% equity as co-founders and 8% for the first $250K, then invest $250K on market terms with other investors. “That differentiates us from other studios that are more in the 30, 40, maybe 50% range.” 2. They don’t charge for their services. “I've always found it awkward to give somebody money but then require them to give you some of the money back for services.” 3. Unlike VCs, studios don't always need to raise large funds because many companies they build from zero are capital-efficient. However, to scale your model, you might need more funds and a strong team. 4. “The studios don’t really compete with each other, not in the same way that VCs compete. There is a tendency that more and more studios are emerging with a vertical, focus on a very specific industry or a niche. So, the founders in one niche will look for the studio that also addresses that need.” 5. Attracting founders is every studio's number-one challenge and risk. The company's success or failure depends on the founder or the founding team. 6. Dual revenue-generating and equity-generating business models help sustain the studio’s operations and fund further venture activities. 7. Companies started with corporations often face difficulties securing funding later on. 8. Even if you start a company independently, your network of corporate partners can help with validation and attracting initial customers. 9. The studio’s role is to provide more resources (a mix of development and capital) than less. You can do this in-house or bring in partners (freelancers, dev shops, agencies) for equity or cash to meet your founders' needs. 10. It could be too expensive to have the full dev team in the studio, as you might not know what the needs of your future founders are or what the best resources to deploy are. 11-14 in comments. Much more insights and details in the interview: https://lnkd.in/dnn4D_CJ

Hi all! We are now moving towards exploring the world of venture studios. We are very interested in receiving a variety of opinions and experiences from professionals in the field. We're looking for experts to share their stories, lessons, and insights about venture design. Your experience and knowledge can have a huge impact on our research and help us understand this industry more deeply. If you: - Work in a venture studio - Have interesting ideas or experience in this field - We would like to share our thoughts and views Please contact me! We value every vote and look forward to your feedback. Just write me in the comments or send me a message. I also wanted to thank Max Pog for his in-depth research on this topic, I received a lot of information from this research. The research is here: https://lnkd.in/dWXRFgrJ And if you know someone who could share their knowledge, I would appreciate it if you shared this post! Together we can reach more great people. Thank you! #VentureStudio #SharingExperience #ProfessionalCommunity #venturebuilder #vc #vcfunding

How do we define venture studios? Yesterday we had the great pleasure of welcoming Matthew Burris to our venture studio research group meeting where he shared his expertise on venture studio design. It is greatly appreciated that Matt Burris could join our discussion, yesterday chaired by Matthias Neumann, on how to define and explain venture studios. 💡Based on his own research including several hundreds of venture studios, Matt Burris suggests that a venture builder needs to take on three core roles to fulfill the definition of being a venture studio. The role as the i) entrepreneur, ii) operator, and iii) investor. While this is great input to the discussion, yet, there is no commonly accepted definition of venture studios in academia. ➡️Köhler and Baumann (2015), as one of the first academic contributions on the topic, suggested the following definition in their conference paper from almost a decade ago: “A recent type of business incubator that create new ventures in a factory-like manner, i.e. with a focus on efficiency and scale, and by using standardized processes and shared resources.” Although given increasing attention, the research on venture studios is still sparse, however what is interesting is that within the community, there are now several academic papers in the loop and a number of master theses coming up as well. As a highly current topic, research on venture studios will continue to grow to the benefit of both practitioners and academia. So, stay tuned. 👇 If you are interested in joining the research group meetings, reach out to either John-Erik Hassel, Matthias Neumann or Olfa Chelbi to get on the meeting invitation list. #venturebuilders #venturestudios #startupstudios #companybuilders #venturefactories Did you like this post? Connect or Follow @john-erik hassel

👩🏫 Understanding Equity Dilution in a Venture Studio. 👨🏫 There is no standard equity model amongst global Venture Studios, but we can observe patterns, which I define in two main models. START WITH "COMMON" TRAITS OF A VENTURE STUDIO ☑ Invest capital to concept, build, and launch, they don’t acquire startups ☑ Studio experts (Serial Founders) drive effective growth and rigor ☑ Recruit “Founding Team” to lead solution and scale ☑ Assume all financial risk until launch ☑ “Founders” adopt a validated company with a team behind it ☑ Lead fundraising, compliance and operations Model 1: Venture Studio Majority Share ☑ Retain major equity share until Series A/B ☑ Studio experts are Founders until Series A/B Model 2: Venture Studio Minority Share ☑ Retain majority share until Pre-Seed ☑ Studio experts consult like VC’s post pre-seed 🚀 THE DIFFERENCE - ROBUST & ACTIVE SUPPORT 🚀 🚀 🚀 Model 1: The venture studio team invests more time, people, and resources through to Series A +, creating more robust companies. #venturestudio #startup Nobody Studios

In biotech we need drugs that work for patients and in the market #NotSoEasy #HardestGameForAllInvolved #InHighInterestRateEnvironments #ExpensiveDrugsAndTestsSeemsOutOfReachNow #YouWillWantDrugsWithSuperpowers #ToSaveTheDay #ForYouAndYourFriends

CEOWORLD magazine just published an article article discussing the benefits for large organizations partnering with venture studios like Nobody Studios to drive innovation and stay ahead of the competition. These collaborations have the potential to be game-changing for driving growth, fostering innovation, and staying competitive in the rapidly evolving markets, especially with large companies that struggle with innovating within. What do you think? Could intimate partnerships with venture studios be the future of innovation for large corporations? I'm curious to hear people's thoughts on this, from both sides of the aisle... Let's get the comments going on this and see where the discussion leads us. #innovation #venturestudio #corporategrowth #nobodystudios

This “venture fractal” will blow your mind: After selling ExactTarget for $2.5B, four partners launched a venture studio, High Alpha (layer 1), which has launched 40+ startups since 2015. One of the companies it started became a venture studio called High Alpha Innovation (layer 2), creating not only startups with corporations and universities but also corporate venture studios (layer 3), which in turn launch startups (layer 4). This is a must-read story about one of the world's top venture studios. Before diving in, please like this post and comment “+” to receive the “Co-founder Support” doc from High Alpha Innovation. It includes a list of the 6 stages of launching startups, covering 29 processes, and details about the 8-week “Founder Bootcamp” program, which consists of 17 modules. Elliott Parker, CEO of High Alpha Innovation, shared key insights: 1. High Alpha Innovation tries to answer what it looks like to scale a venture studio model, for example, to launch 100+ startups a year. You’re playing with the power law asset class, and you must have a very broad & diversified portfolio to find those 1-2 outliers that will make the most returns. “It’s hard to do when you’re only launching 4-5 companies a year.” 2. They aim to become the world's most valuable venture portfolio, with plans to launch 500+ startups in the next 10 years. 3. High Alpha and its portfolio companies have raised $500M+. 4. High Alpha Innovation (HAI) launched 20 companies during the first 3 years, raising $50M+. HAI plans to launch 20 new companies in the next 18 months. 5. HAI started with 3 people on the team in 2020 and grew to 50 employees in 2024. 6. The business model is taking 20-25% equity in startups as a studio, getting $1-2M in capital from corporate or university partners to launch a company (for ~20-29% of equity), and allocating at least 51% of equity to startup co-founders: CEO & other partners. 7. After launching some companies with a corporate or a university partner, HAI pulls a VC fund of $25-50M and becomes the GP managing the underlying studio. Now, they have 4 underlying studios. 8. Co-founder profiles they attract to each company are ~45-year-old successful founders or early executives in startups with experience in creating products, fundraising, & building teams. 9. The process starts with generating 200-300 business ideas, which are then assessed and narrowed down to about 30 through rapid testing, and further refined through extensive validation and customer research to 5-10 viable concepts, from which 2-3 are selected for the sprint week leading to a launch decision. Watch the full podcast to learn about the studio model, the cons & pros of partnering with corporations, and reasons why studios fail: https://bit.ly/EllPar 📔 Elliott recently published a book, "The Illusion of Innovation," which discusses why corporations have a harder time producing breakthrough change and what they can do about it: https://bit.ly/HAIbook

🎉 𝐄𝐱𝐜𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐧𝐞𝐰𝐬 - I'm Now Certified in Venture Studio Management! 🎓🚀 I've got some news that I'm pumped about sharing. Last week, I completed an incredible journey – the Venture Studio Boot Camp by Morrow Global Network and I'm now officially certified! 🏆 I learned from some of the brightest minds 🧠in the venture studio world for 🔟 intense weeks. 🌟 The curriculum? Mind-blowing🤯. We dove deep into the nitty-gritty of building and running successful venture studios, covering everything from critical design choices to structuring studios for maximum impact. Talk about a goldmine of insights! 💎 I'm walking away from this experience not just with a certification but also with a toolbox complete with cutting-edge strategies and a network of incredible professionals. 👩💻👨💻 I can't wait 🤩 to apply these insights and contribute even more to our thriving regional startup ecosystem. 🌍 A massive shoutout to Morrow, the global network behind this top-notch program, and to all the instructors who shared their wisdom. You've genuinely leveled up my game! 🙌 Speaking of which, I've got to give a particular round of applause 🫡👏🏻 to our incredible instructors and moderator. Steve Hayton, Attila Szigeti & Alper Celen, you're rockstar moderators – thanks for keeping us on track and engaged! And to our amazing instructors: Alper Celen (Wearing two hats 🎩🎩), John Carbrey, Michael van Lier, Miles D., T. A. McCann, Wenyi Cai, Todd Ehrlich & Amy Oughton — Your insights, experiences, and guidance were invaluable. Each of you brought a unique perspective that has enriched my understanding of the venture studio world. Thank you all for your dedication and for sharing your expertise so generously. 🙏🏼 Feeling grateful, inspired, and ready to tackle new challenges! 💪🏼 Who else here is excited about the venture studio model? Let's connect and chat about the possibilities!💡 #VentureStudio #Entrepreneurship #Innovation #ContinuousLearning #MorrowNetwork