The Startup Studio Newsletter | Ed. 6

In this edition, we highlight several stories from thought leaders + news from Earth VC, Novel Ventures, Wavemaker, Softeq, Seaworthy Collective, MVL, and gener8tor + tons of events!

Mar 29, 2022

Welcome to this week's Studio Stack newsletter.

I’ve been in the Venture Studio space since 2016 and, when I started, there were a mere 12 Studios operating out loud. Over the past 7 years, the Studio ecosystem has experienced an estimated 625% growth. Since 2019 when Enhance Ventures published the now iconic White Paper, Innovating Innovation, the number of active Studios worldwide has increased from 334 to 710.

I just want to highlight this incredible and rapid development and note that this growth outpaces both accelerators and funds. Back when I started I had put those 12 Studios on a Google sheet as a makeshift database and over the years it’s grown quite a bit. I smile every time a new name is added to the Studio Database list- if you’re a Studio, add yourself to it and share with colleagues.

Studios support each other and it’s so great to see the ecosystem blooming.

Enjoy the newsletter!

From The Stack

This week, I'm thinking about why successful serial entrepreneurs work with Studios.

From the Studio perspective, I’m curious about how these founders evaluate their options and, instead of going the traditional VC route, decide to partner with a Studio. From the entrepreneur perspective, I wanted to learn about the experience, challenges, and lessons to be shared.

Recently, I had the opportunity to talk with Matt Blumberg about this exact topic. Matt has been founding tech businesses since 1999. His company, Return Path, a venture-backed email marketing company doing $100M+ in revenue, had a massive successful exit in 2019 and, naturally, he went looking for his next challenge.

Matt could have done anything, but he chose to build his next venture, Bolster- the on demand executive talent marketplace, with High Alpha Innovation- a highly successful Studio known for pioneering the Venture Studio model.

Why did Matt choose High Alpha?

There were many reasons. For one, he liked the Studio’s tight focus on B2B SaaS. Secondarily, he thought they had a great blend of Studio services and capital. But, most importantly, they had strong strategic partnerships with perfect GTM customers.

Diving deeper with Matt, I learned that there were 3 key factors that influenced his decision to work with a Venture Studio:

#1 Network: High Alpha came to the table with high-value partners.

#2 Speed: Studios build startups faster than founders can on their own. Even the most experienced entrepreneur is excited by the opportunity to hit the ground running.

#3 Support and Services: Playbooks and recruiting aren’t really the unlock for serial founders. You need to be world-class at filling the gaps with experienced talent.

If you want to learn what building with an elite Venture Studio looks like and understand the expectations of a serial founder, I encourage you to read the full article.

Read Full Article