Jake Huber

Scaled 3 unicorns🦄 & teams from 0→250+ | 125+ founders read my newsletter to scale their teams smarter 📈🧠

At Uber, I scaled my team from 0→50 people <1yr.

Now I help Seed & Series A+ startup founders scale their teams. Here's how ↓

I learned how to scale teams the hard way.

At Uber, I grew our team from 0→50 in under a year. 

At Industrious, we launched 10 locations and I built a 30-person team. 

At Veho, we 4×’d headcount (70→285) and increased weekly inbound applicants +495% in 6 months. 

Those wins all had one thing in common: a great recruiter embedded with the team—and simple, repeatable systems.

Before that, my first startup failed. I didn’t know how to hire, train, or manage yet. If I could go back, I’d tell “Past Jake” to stop duct-taping recruiting and bring in real help—without signing up for agency commissions or a full-time hire too early.

That’s why I built Venture Scaler.

🚀 Venture Scaler = A Startup-Friendly Way to Hire

We place an expert, senior recruiter (ex-Uber/Dropbox/Spotify, etc.) directly on your team—fractionally. Hourly. Month-to-month. No commissions. No long-term contracts. We run the full search like your in-house recruiter so you can stay focused on building product and talking to customers.

How It Works (It’s simple on purpose):

1. Perfect-Fit Profile Guarantee: We align on 5–10 candidate profiles before outreach so we don’t waste cycles.

2. End-to-End Execution: Sourcing, screening, coordination, and candidate experience handled.

3. Tight Comms: Weekly check-ins + async updates so you always know pipeline, blockers, and next steps.

4. Flex Up/Down: Add hours when you’re sprinting; pause when you’re not hiring.

Why founders pick us:

4× Faster to Hire: UpSmith’s first sales hire closed in 5 weeks after a 5-month stall.

~90% Cost Savings vs Agencies: Honey Homes saved ~$230k in two months of hiring.

Scale at Speed: At Veho we 4×’d the team and built an engine for inbound talent.

If you’re Seed or Series A, need to make a few critical hires, and don’t want to overbuild headcount or pay 25% fees, this model was built for you.

💬 Hiring right now? DM me here or visit venturescaler.com. I’m happy to share my hiring playbooks (the same ones we used at Uber/Veho) or dig into your roles and recommend a plan.

Learn more: https://venturescaler.com

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P.S. Outside of work and scaling startups:
👯‍♀️ I’m a girl dad x2
🏕 A backpacker/camper
🎭 Trained at UCB in improv comedy
💍 Secretly proposed to my wife using Uber: https://youtu.be/uRi_B5CxWZ8

Startup Mentor

“Jake is an incredible sounding board that provides tactical tips, resources and introductions to help navigate crisis’ and challenges. He has an innate ability to level with you on any subject. During my three months with Jake I looked forward to every call as we hashed through 5-10 topics at a time spanning from affiliate & growth strategies to recruiting and mindset.”

~April Dominguez, CEO & Founder of Handsome

First Round Fast Track by First Round Capital matches seasoned startup leaders with early-stage founders and team members within a unique mentorship community. First Round Capital is a seed-stage venture capital firm focused on building a community of technology entrepreneurs and companies.

“Oh no... We don’t even have 23 good candidates in our pipeline!”

~founder friend of mine

They said this to me after I shared data showing you need to talk to 23 candidates to hire 1 great one.

They also said they didn’t have the time to screen that many candidates.

“Many early-stage teams underestimate how many candidates they need to speak to to make one hire. In our data we also saw that only 13% of inbound applicants even make it to the first screen. You will either need a lot of inbound, or more likely, you will have to fill the funnel with sourced candidates and referrals.” 

—Benji Encz, CEO of Ashby

Hard Truth: Recruiting at your startup is a numbers game. 

You need volume to find the right candidate.

For most startups, this means you’ll need to do your own outbound sourcing. 

At Venture Scaler we’ve helped startups like Pepper, Veho, Honey Homes and UpSmith with sourcing and making great hires. 

👉Need help with hiring at your startup? Send me a DM! Or check out 𝗩𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗨𝗥𝗘 𝗦𝗖𝗔𝗟𝗘𝗥 in my bio to learn more.

Scaled teams from 0→250+ at 3 unicorns🦄 | Early Uber | Startup Founder & Operator

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Hot take: if you’re leading recruiting as a founder, you’re paying for every hire with your best hours.

Most Seed and Series A founders don’t fail at hiring because they can’t spot talent.

They fail because founder led recruiting turns into a daily game of whack a mole:

Inbound comes in.

You skim resumes between meetings.

A great candidate waits 6 days for a reply.

Someone “owns scheduling” until they don’t.

Pipeline notes live in 4 places.

Then the search “mysteriously” drags for 10 to 14 weeks.

Here’s the real issue: nobody owns the hiring engine end to end.

So it runs... whenever the founder has free time.

If you want hiring to stop stealing your best hours, you need one clear owner for:

1. Sourcing
2. Screening
3. Scheduling and follow ups
4. Pipeline hygiene and weekly reporting
5. Offer process and close plan

That’s exactly where a fractional recruiter shines.

Not a full time headcount.

Not a big fee agency.

Just an experienced operator who drops in, runs the machine, and keeps momentum week to week.

Pro Tip: Before you post the job or message a single candidate, calibrate with 5 to 10 real profiles.

If you can’t agree on what “great” looks like in a stack of actual people, the rest of the process is just expensive guessing.

That’s also why at Venture Scaler we start with a quick alignment sprint, then move fast with a tight weekly cadence.
_____

What’s the part of hiring that’s draining you the most right now: sourcing, scheduling, or decision making?

If you want a fractional recruiter to take the wheel, DM me and I’ll send a simple overview of how we plug in.

In 2 months my rent-a-recruiter service saved our client over $230k 🤯 Here’s how ↓

We sourced, screened, interviewed & hired 13 new employees:

→ 2 senior ops managers @ $110k
→ 9 operations managers @ $75k
→ 2 CS coordinators @ $50k

If our client (Series A startup) was working with a traditional recruiting agency, they would have paid 25% commissions on first-year salaries, totaling $250,000 😱

But by working with Venture Scaler on our flexible hourly plans, they saved over 90% (not a typo).

And by saving them $230k, they effectively hired 3 ops managers for “free.”

That also means we helped them avoid $100k+ of monthly burn.

Imagine what you could do at your startup with an extra $230,000. 

That’s a pre-seed round for a lot of startups!

👉 If you're thinking about (or already started) working with a traditional firm, let's chat. DM me or check out 𝗩𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗨𝗥𝗘 𝗦𝗖𝗔𝗟𝗘𝗥 in my bio to learn more.

“I haven’t talked to this many high-quality candidates before. It’s a little overwhelming!” - Ryan, Founder at Nurseio

I remember Ryan telling me that on one of our weekly calls.

He was now had the “good problem” of having too many high-fit candidates to choose from.

But that wasn’t the case when he initially reached out to me...

Ryan needed help finding his startup's next sale leader.

They didn't have a recruiter on their team and couldn't justify bringing someone on full time.

So the heavy lift of sourcing and interviewing landed on Ryan and his team.

And that's where Venture Scaler came in...

We built a pipeline of sales executive talent and closed a key sales hire in 6 weeks.

___

👉 Need help with hiring? Let's chat! DM me or check out 𝗩𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗨𝗥𝗘 𝗦𝗖𝗔𝗟𝗘𝗥 in my bio to learn more.

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Your network is great. It’s just not built to hire niche roles.

Founders tell me this all the time:

“We posted the role.”

“We asked for referrals.”

“We’re getting people.”

But the shortlist is... weird.

Lots of smart resumes.

Lots of “maybe.”

Very few “hell yeahs.”

That’s the niche role trap.

Specialized roles don’t get filled by hoping the right person wanders into your inbound.

They get filled by proactively hunting a specific profile, then running a tight calibration loop so you stop wasting time on almost right candidates.

Here’s the playbook I use for roles like first AE, product leader, platform engineer, data, security, growth, you name it:

1. Write a role scorecard, not a job description: The scorecard is outcomes. The JD is chores.

2. Build a target list of 30 to 50 companies where your ideal hire is already doing the job: Competitors. Adjacent industries. Same stage companies.

3. Calibrate with 5 to 10 real profiles before you run full outbound: This is the move most teams skip.

Pro Tip: If you can’t look at 10 real people and agree on what “great” is, you’re not ready to interview.

You’re ready to waste 3 weeks.

Only then: Scale sourcing, tighten screens, and run the pipeline with weekly cadence.

Fast follow ups. Clear feedback. No ghosting.

This is where a fractional recruiter from Venture Scaler pays for themselves.

We come in, run the hunt, and keep the process tight so you’re not stuck in endless “interesting” conversations.

What’s the hardest role to hire at your company right now?

If you want help calibrating and building a real target list, DM me.

Recruiting commission fees are a stealth tax on your runway.

Most founders don’t feel it until it’s too late.

You finally find the right candidate.

You’re celebrating.

Then you do the math and realize you just paid the equivalent of a senior engineer’s monthly burn for one hire.

And if you need 3 hires this quarter?

Congrats, you just funded someone else’s growth.

Traditional recruiting is built for big companies.

Big budgets.
Big margins.
Big hiring volume.

Early stage startups are the opposite.

Every dollar has a job.

So here’s the question founders should be asking:

"Do I want to pay for outcomes theater?"

"Or pay for execution?"

Because most of what gets a role filled is boring, repeatable work:

Sourcing
Outbound messaging
Screening
Scheduling
Follow ups
Pipeline triage
Weekly reporting
Offer coordination

That’s why I’m bullish on fractional recruiting.

You rent an experienced recruiter who runs the engine without the long term commitment, the giant contingency fee, or the “we’ll get back to you” agency black box.

Pro Tip: The cheapest hire is not the lowest salary.

It’s the hire you make fast, with a tight process, before the role creates more drag across your team.

At Venture Scaler, founders use us to keep recruiting costs predictable and their momentum high while they stay focused on product, revenue, and fundraising.

What’s your take: would you rather pay a huge fee per hire with a "guarantee", or pay for a recruiting engine you can scale up and down?

DM me if you want a simple breakdown of the fractional model.

You don’t need a full time recruiter. You need a recruiting burst that matches your hiring wave.

Most Seed and Series A teams hire like this:

- 2 to 4 roles hit at once.
- Everything becomes “urgent.”
- Then two months later... you’re back to zero hiring.

So founders do one of two things:

Option A: DIY recruiting and slowly bleed calendar time.

Option B: panic hire a full-time recruiter too early, then scramble to keep them busy later (or worse, lay them off).

There’s a third option that fits how startups actually operate.

A fractional recruiter.

Think: recruiting capacity you can turn up during a sprint, and turn down (or pause) when the sprint is over.

Here’s the playbook I use with founders:

Week 1 alignment sprint: role scorecard, must haves, target list, outreach angles

Week 2 pipeline build: outbound sourcing, screens, scheduling, funnel tracking

Weeks 3 to 6 close mode: weekly shortlist, tight feedback loops, offer plan, reference checks

Pro Tip: The fastest way to speed up hiring is not more interviews.

It’s fewer steps, clearer “yes/no” criteria, and one person owning the entire process end to end.

That’s what a fractional recruiter does at Venture Scaler.

We plug in, run the machine, and keep momentum while you stay focused on product, revenue, and fundraising.

If you could snap your fingers and get 10 hours back each week, where would you put it?

DM me if you want to discuss a “burst recruiting” plan.

If your hiring “takes forever,” it’s probably because nobody owns the calendar.

Here’s what I see at Seed and Series A companies:

- You finally get a few great candidates into process.
- Then the interview loop becomes a group project.
- One person is traveling.
- Another person is “swamped this week.”
- Debriefs happen... eventually.
- And scheduling turns into 37 Slack messages and a prayer.

Meanwhile the candidate is watching the clock.

Because they have other processes moving.

And they assume your slowness means one of two things:

1. You’re not that excited about them.
2. Your company is chaotic.

Both are deal killers.

The fix is not “everyone try harder.”

The fix is one clear owner driving cadence.

Here’s the simple operating system:

1. Every candidate gets a close plan with dates before the first interview.

2. Every interviewer has a 24 hour feedback deadline.

3. Debriefs get scheduled at the same time as the interviews.

4. One person chases calendars, follows up, and removes blockers daily.

Pro Tip: Cycle time is a recruiting superpower.

A fast, decisive process will beat a better brand with a slower process more often than founders want to admit.

This is one of the highest leverage uses of a fractional recruiter.

At Venture Scaler, we plug in and run the interview machine end to end so founders stop playing scheduler and start building the business.

Where does your process break most often: scheduling, feedback, or decision making?

DM me if you want to develop your own “tight loop” interview cadence.

8 new hires in 6 months! I love getting these reactions from our clients.

Maybe you're in a similar situation as Geoff?

Geoff was launching his first markets and needed to build out his team, and fast.

He needed help hiring his sales and operations team from the ground up.

They didn't have a recruiter on their team and couldn't justify bringing someone on full time.

So the heavy lift of sourcing and interviewing landed on Geoff, but he had a business to run.

And that's where Venture Scaler came in...

We built their sales and operations teams from scratch and added 8 new hires in 6 months.

___

👉 Need help with hiring? Let's chat! DM me or check out 𝗩𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗨𝗥𝗘 𝗦𝗖𝗔𝗟𝗘𝗥 in my bio to learn more.

If you have to “figure out comp later,” you’re not ready to hire.

Here’s the pattern I see at Seed and Series A:

You run a solid process.

You find a finalist you love.

Then the offer turns into a late night group chat with your cofounder and an open tab of random salary sites.

You guess.
You send something.
The candidate asks for more.

Now you’re negotiating with zero confidence and no clear boundaries.

Worst case: you lose them.

Second worst: you overpay, create internal comp chaos, and lock in a precedent you hate.

This is what the comp problem really is:

Uncertainty.

And candidates can smell it.

Here’s a simple fix founders can implement fast:

1. Pick a level and define the scope: What job are they actually doing in the first 6 months?

2. Set a range with a walk away number: Write it down before you meet the finalist.

3. Build a close plan: What do they care about: cash, equity, title, team, flexibility, mission?

4. Run the offer like a process, not a moment: Timeline, touchpoints, decision deadline, reference checks, signing plan.

This is where a fractional recruiter is clutch.

At Venture Scaler, we plug in, help you set ranges, coach the close plan, and run the offer process so you stop winging it and start closing.

What’s harder for you right now: setting the range, negotiating, or defending comp internally?

DM me if you're hiring and want to talk through your negotiation/closing plan.

If a role has been open for 90+ days, you’re not “still searching.” You're stuck.

You’re stuck in a broken hiring loop.

Here’s what usually happens at Seed and Series A:

- You post the job.
- You wait for inbound.
- You ask your network.
- You run a few interviews.
- You get busy.
- The candidates wait.
- The momentum dies.

Then you tell yourself: “The market is tough right now.”

Maybe.

But most “stalled searches” stall because nobody owns the engine.

So the process runs... whenever the founder has oxygen.

A quick reset that works shockingly well:

1. Recut the profile

Stop debating hypotheticals. Define the must haves, the dealbreakers, and what success in 90 days looks like.

2. Rebuild the target list

List 25 companies and 50 titles you actually want. Stop hoping the right person randomly applies.

3. Relaunch outbound

Send tight, specific outreach. Not “excited to connect,” but “here’s the problem you’d own.”

4. Tighten the cycle time

Screen to first interview in 72 hours.

No exceptions.

Run weekly pipeline reviews

15 minutes. Same day. Same time. Decisions get made or the search dies.

Pro Tip: If you can’t produce 10 qualified conversations in 10 business days, the problem isn’t volume. It’s targeting, messaging, or speed.

This is exactly where a fractional recruiter from Venture Scaler is a cheat code.

We step in, rebuild the machine, and run cadence so founders can get back to product, sales, and fundraising.

Be honest: what’s causing your longest open role right now: weak pipeline, slow response time, or unclear profile?

DM me and I’ll send a simple “stalled search reset” checklist we use with founders.

Your best candidates keep disappearing after round one. Why?

One pattern I've seen: Your hiring manager is bad at "selling."

Early stage hiring has a weird rule:

Every interviewer is a closer.

Most founders miss this, then blame the market when candidates go cold.

Here’s what candidates are actually hearing on your first call:

A vague role.
A list of tasks.
A meandering company story.
No clear reason this job is career defining.

So the candidate thinks: “Cool people. Unclear opportunity.”

And they move on.

Fix it with a simple pitch system:

1. Start with the mission in one sentence: Not the product, the problem you exist to solve.

2. Paint the 6 month win: What does “crushing it” look like, with specifics?

3. Define what you are not: Who will hate this job, and why?

4. Connect the dots to their story: Why them, why now, why this role is a step up.

Pro Tip: Flip the script: Spend the first 5 minutes selling the opportunity with confidence, get them excited, then run your interview.

This is one of the sneakiest places a fractional recruiter helps.

At Venture Scaler, we help build the pitch, coach hiring managers, and keep the process tight so every interviewer tells the same compelling story.

Be honest: do your interviewers sound like recruiters, or like they’re reading a job description out loud?

DM me if you want my hiring manager playbook.

Venture Studio Architect - I help you design, launch, and grow your company creation studio.

Most innovation programs fail not because of lack of ideas, but because they lack a system for venture creation.

I help innovation leaders in corporations, universities, and economic development organizations build venture studios that scale and deliver. Backed by data, frameworks, and insights from studying over 500 venture studios globally.

As Senior Director of Research & Data at the Venture Studio Forum, I'm building the empirical backbone of the venture studio asset class. VSF is a 501(c)(6) trade association representing 1,500+ members who have built 650+ companies, 11 unicorns, and $48 billion in enterprise value.

My work establishes venture studios as a formal asset class through:

-Asset Class Analysis in partnership with MIT and Harvard, delivering the first institutionally credible research for LPs and institutional investors
-The Venture Studio Index (VSI) — the first open standard and formal definition for venture studios
-Studio Data Platform (2026) providing structured datasets and benchmarks for researchers and operators
-State of the Studio Report (2026) tracking trends, performance, and sector segmentation
-Policy recommendations for state and federal innovation agencies

Concurrently, as Partner and Head of Insights at 9point8 Collective, I translate this research into practice. We've designed and launched 25+ venture studios. Our approach builds clarity, alignment, and momentum at the intersection of innovation, capital, and impact.

I've spent 20+ years at the intersection of innovation, strategy, and venture building. I launched NCR's first internal accelerator (generating $90M from its first cohort), secured 27+ patents across AI and fintech, and developed investment frameworks that institutional investors now use to allocate capital into the studio model.

Speaking & Workshops: I deliver keynotes and workshops on designing high-performing venture studios, the future of venture creation ecosystems, and turning knowledge engines into commercial engines.

🎤 Book me to speak: VentureStudioForum.org/speaking
 📊 Learn from our research: newsletter.venturestudioforum.org
 🌍 Join the community: venturestudioforum.org
 💼 Work with us: 9point8collective.com

Matthew Burris

30,000 entrepreneurs in India. A curated circle of corporate leaders in Vienna. Two different worlds. One shared realization. 👇 

The global innovation ecosystem is done with "innovation theater." It’s time to stop betting and start building.

In October, I stood before thousands at the Tamil Nadu Global Startup Summit. The energy was visceral. Entrepreneurs and leaders were asking the same question: How do we move beyond incubators and actually industrialize success?

Fast forward to last week. I just returned from Vienna, where I had the honor of keynoting the venture studio track at The Venture Mindset conference hosted by the The Alpha Omega Foundation

The setting couldn't have been more different. Intimate, focused, and "bolder, not bigger," but the urgency was identical.

Whether I’m speaking to a government minister in India or a corporate executive in Austria, the conclusion is the same: The Venture Studio is the missing link.

Here is what I learned bridging these two worlds:

1. Engineer certainty rather than betting on luck. In Tamil Nadu the excitement was about volume and in Vienna it was about strategy. Venture studios shift from a power law of outcomes quantity of bets model to a power law of ideas where the quality of the idea becomes paramount as the studio engineers a more certain path to successful company creation.

2. It is not about innovation but governance. In our workshop in India we got hands on designing the actual pit crews needed to support founders. In Vienna speaking to corporate leaders the conversation focused on the Corporate Immune System. The Venture Studio is a Governance Firewall. More innovation theater is not the answer. You need a distinct architectural separation that allows for discovery speed that delivers execution consistency.

3. Build at wholesale instead of retail. The global hunger for this model comes down to economics. In India founders realized that studios can drive improved outcomes and engineer wins. In Vienna corporates realized that the venture studio model adds the build option to corporate development at a 10-20x economic advantage over CVC investments to partner or M&A’s buying options.

This trip marked a shift for me and for the Venture Studio Forum.

We are no longer just defining this asset class; we are activating it globally.
 From defining the "pendulum" between corporate and entrepreneur with Jonas Krensler to discussing the new era of company creation with Matthias Hille, the dialogue has elevated. Mic drop for Michael van Lier showing the contextual capture for modern venture studio insight generation.

The future of company creation isn't just about more startups. It's about building better companies.

📣 I am expanding my speaking in 2026.
Where should we go next? Let me know in the comments or DM me.

Thanks to Matthias Hille and whataventure — New business. Powered by entrepreneurs. for the support and Michael Chaffe for organizing a great event.

I help innovation leaders build venture studios | Senior Director, Research & Data @ Venture Studio Forum | Partner, Head of Insights @ 9point8 Collective | Keynote Speaker | Trusted by 500+ Studios

Venture studios are quietly changing the math on liquidity. 

Traditional VC funds typically take a 10% stake in a company and wait +12 years for a binary IPO or acquisition.

Venture studios can play a different game.

They start with meaningful equity (often 25–50%) in companies they help build from day one.

Even after dilution, that can translate to owning 20% post-seed, 15% post-Series A, and 10% post-Series B.

That ownership matters.

It gives studios real options when it comes to liquidity; far earlier and with more control than traditional VC models allow.

Instead of waiting a decade to return capital, studios can sell down small stakes along the way.

Now they don’t need full exits. And they don’t need to force them, either.

Because they own more, they can sell less and still return capital meaningfully.

They’re not just betting on outcomes. They’re designing for them.

What does this look like?

Take that 30% stake before the Seed round and assume it took $1M to secure it. 

Carts data shows a 19% dilution at seed and a 19% dilution at A. With the options pool already in place when the company is formed, the studio is left with a 19.7% position.

At Series A, with a premoney valuation of $45 and a round of $11M, the post money is $56M.

If the studio sells:

100% -> $11M
75% -> $8.25M
50% -> $5.5M
25% -> $2.75M

Assume $10M fund size for the studio, 60% of their companies reach series A, and a 50% early exit strategy can deliver $33M by around year 5 for a 3.3 MOIC, and an IRR of 11.7% while holding typical pre-seed VC level ownership in 6 companies. 

Early exits recapitalize venture studios, provide liquidity to LPs, and position studios to raise their next fund from a position of strength with vocal supporters..

For more content like this, follow at (Matthew Burris)

The Power of Liquidity Control

1960 REITs were "accounting scams." 
1980 PE was "barbarians at the gate." 
2026 Venture Studios are "unallocatable."

History teaches us that every major asset class looked "impossible" at inception. Yale didn't allocate to Venture Capital in the 70s because it was nice. They did it because the industry built the standards (ERISA) to make it safe.

Venture Studios are crossing that exact chasm right now. We have the returns (60% IRR). We lack the rails.

We are building the standards to move this asset class from "Emerging" to "Established."

Here are the 3 barriers we must break this year.

View newsletter: Venture Studio Perspective

I recently spoke with a studio that has built three unicorns to date. By any standard metric, they are an immense success. Yet, they told me it took t

Open article: The 3 barriers stopping institutional allocation into Venture Studios by Matthew Burris • 4 min read

The 3 barriers stopping institutional allocation into Venture Studios

LPs often misread venture studios as early-stage VC funds.

But the investor role here is different:

Not just capital + selection.

It’s capital + creation + control.

Studios don’t source companies, they design them.

That means:

→ Cap tables are pre-structured  
→ Exit paths are mapped pre-incorporation  
→ Capital is deployed with precision, not spray-and-pray

Fewer bets. Larger ownership. Earlier exits.

One allocator said it best:

“In VC, we analyze deal flow. In studios, we analyze design.”

P.S. Follow (Matthew Burris) for more venture studio insights

How Studios Manage Capital to Outperform Traditional VC

Most KPIs focus on fund returns.

But a venture studio’s real job is creation.

That means different benchmarks.

Think: how effectively you validate, build, and spin out companies.

Speed. Cost. Ownership efficiency.

More on the post below: 

P.S. Follow (Matthew Burris) for more venture studio insights

The KPI's of a Venture Studio

Venture studios are outperforming traditional venture funds on paper.

But what’s rarely discussed is how hard it is to operate one at scale.

Why? Because studios don’t just serve 1 type of customer.

They serve 4.

And if even one falls out of sync, the whole model starts to break.

Customer 1: Studio investors

They want venture like returns with less risk. But not all investors play the same game.

A corporate CVC backing a studio for strategic access will tolerate lower returns.

A pension fund expects performance benchmarks within strict timeframes and institutional compliance.

These differences impact everything, from studio roadmap to legal structure.

Customer 2: Studio teams and founders

This is the operating muscle.

They’re not taking on single company risk, but they expect compensation, ownership, and impact.

Overpay and the model loses capital efficiency.

Underpay and you lose the talent edge that justifies the whole thing.

Customer 3: Entrepreneurs

Their expectations vary wildly.

To an exec exiting corporate life, 10% equity can feel exciting.

To a 25-year-old founder, it can feel like a non-starter.

Studios need different offers for different archetypes, salary versus equity preference, derisking versus control, support versus independence.

Customer 4: Follow-on capital

Many studios fail here.

“Build for venture,” they say, without defining what kind, what stage, or what investor expectations they’re designing for.

Seed funds care about team, velocity and early product-market fit and a captable aligned for Series A.

Series A VCs care about traction, ownership structure, and team strength.

PE firms care about cash flows and ops efficiency and rarely concern themselves with the captable since they buy the whole company.

Receivables financing cares about the quality of your contracts and customers, not your captable.

These aren’t interchangeable needs.

Studios that don’t reverse-engineer this part build companies that can't raise. Full stop.

Every one of these four customers matters.

Miss one, and the alignment cascade starts.

Get them right, and the model works in the outcome.

The Hidden Complexity Behind Venture Studio Success

Venture studios are one of the most compelling ideas in early-stage innovation.

They’ve quietly delivered higher net IRRs than traditional funds, and now manage tens of billions globally.

But behind those numbers is a level of operational complexity that’s rarely discussed.

Unlike most asset managers or company builders, studios have to serve four entirely different stakeholder types at once and do it through a single operating model.

→ Investors (who want top-tier returns with clear governance)
→ Operators (who drive execution and operations)
→ External founders (who need speed, capital, and trust)
→ Follow-on capital (who expect venture-scale outcomes)

Each one has different incentives, expectations, and timelines.

A traditional fund aligns investors and GPs.

A startup aligns founders and early hires.

A studio has to do both, and then some.

The result is a structurally harder business, even if the outcomes look better on paper.

When every single customer must say yes for the business model to work, the details are critical.

Execution depends not just on sourcing or building the right idea, but on architecture: How equity, incentives, and accountability flow between parties that don’t report to each other.

Studios that succeed don’t just back companies.

They solve an unusual systems problem: how to coordinate four customer groups that rarely share a playbook.

For more content like this, follow at (Matthew Burris)

The Hidden Complexity Behind Venture Studio Operations

10 questions every studio must answer before green-lighting a venture.  

Not every idea is worth validating.  

Before diving in, venture studios should ask:  

1-Does this align with our thesis?
2-Can we actually execute this?
3-Is it worth pursuing?
4-Is it a fit for our follow-on strategy?
5-Do we have access to the right entrepreneurs?
6-Are we solving real problems for real people?
7-Is it actually studio-worthy?
8-Does this play to our unfair advantages?
9-What will we have to outsource or build from scratch?
10-Are we holding on because it's a good idea?

Studios exist to kill weak ideas early.

P.S. Follow for more venture studio insights

10 questions.pdf

Every venture studio is designing for something.

But not every studio makes that design process explicit.

You can't copy-paste deal structures from other studios and expect them to work. 

They only make sense when built on the right foundations.

→ Who is your target follow-on investor.. and what are their expectations?

→ What kind of entrepreneur are you trying to recruit… and how do they value risk and reward?

→ What return model are your studio's backers expecting… and how does that pressure allocation?

→ What norms dominate in your sector… and are you aligning with, or pushing against, them?

→ How capital-heavy is your business… and how early does real validation emerge?

→ Where are you operating… and how do local dynamics re-shape founder expectations?

→ What role are you playing… as a founder, co-founder, or something else entirely?

→ And most importantly, are you delivering on the role you’ve claimed—or just taking the equity and hoping no one notices?

Each of these is a design lever. When you pull one, the others move.

Ignore one, and the whole system gets distorted.

Case in point, Fractal. Experienced founders and staff. Solid thesis. Missed follow on expectations and a ripple effect of challenges. 

Check it out in detail:

https://lnkd.in/eEwEPEc6

The best studios don’t just balance these drivers. 

They design with intention so their structures can stand under pressure.

8 Drivers Behind a Smart Venture Studio Deal Structure

Biggest structural issue that limits studio scalability.

It’s quality.

When you increase the number of ventures you’re building, you hit a ceiling fast.

You’re no longer able to provide meaningful support across them all.

Impact gets diluted. Results drop off.

And capital per venture shrinks, which limits your ability to de-risk or move fast.

As the studio scales, so does the team, or reliance on AI.

Both introduce process drift or output inconsistencies.

The bigger you get, the harder it becomes to preserve high standards.

That doesn’t mean scaling is impossible.

AI might help increase the ceiling. 

But it still comes down to craft.

Quality control becomes the bottleneck.

Once you lose that, you’re not a venture studio anymore.

You’re acting like an accelerator or a fund.

P.S. Follow for more venture studio insights.

3 structural issues that limit studio scalability.(more data provided).pdf

Venture studios aren’t for everyone

And they certainly don’t work like traditional startups

But most critics treat them as if they do

There’s a growing narrative that venture studios “don’t make sense” as an investment vehicle. 

And the skepticism is fair. 

But many critiques diagnose the wrong problems.

Start with the biggest one: focus.

Studio teams might test 100 ideas in 3 months, but not because they want more companies.

They’re trying to eliminate the bad ones quickly.

If something shows signal, the studio recruits a founder who becomes 100% focused on that company. 

They own the roadmap and the studio handles back office operations and shared resources.

Different jobs. Different priorities.

Another common myth?

That studios are high-volume idea machines.

The best ones aren’t.

They ship fewer companies because they’re more selective. 

Services bottleneck output, often by design.

You can’t scale conviction on command.

Every real studio decision ultimately comes down to a binary filter: 

Does this have an unfair advantage?

If yes, they go all in. If not, they kill it.

Because real studio outcomes aren’t driven by process… they’re driven by leverage.

This means that the successful studios have the right: 

Network. 
Talent bench. 
Access into a market that wouldn’t be possible outside the studio environment.

Those are the drivers that matter.

But many critics try to evaluate studios like regular startups.

And that’s the wrong lens.

A studio might look like one company on paper.

But economically, it behaves more like a fund:

    → Returns compound over time
    → Value accrues across a portfolio
    → Terms matter more than valuation

And if you're getting GP-like exposure (co-creator equity in every current and future build) it's a different category entirely.

None of this makes venture studios universally investible.

But when structured correctly, they’ve shown higher hit rates than seed funds; not because they have better ideas, but because they know which ideas deserve their leverage. 

If that leverage doesn’t exist, there’s nothing to back. 

But if it does, the model works in a way most critiques never address.

4 truths mot critiques miss.pdf

Most venture studios don’t fail from idea shortage or founder gaps

They fail from misalignment between customer groups. 

There are 4 customers every studio has to serve:

→ Founders
→ Investors
→ Staff/Operators 
→ Follow-on investors

And when you optimize for one in isolation, it comes at the expense of another.

The solution isn’t balance, it’s dependency mapping.

That starts by identifying how decisions made for one customer affect conditions for the others.

You can’t bring in a technical founder, pair them with a consumer idea, and expect it to work.

You can’t target both growth equity and early-stage VC and expect them to fund the same company.

These aren’t minor frictions, they’re structural constraints.

And the strongest studios work backwards from the capital market realities they want to access.

Instead of asking “what company to build,” they ask:

→ What type of investor do we want to attract in the next round?
→ What benchmarks and metrics does that investor expect?
→ What kind of company can deliver those inputs?
→ What kind of founder can build that company?
→ What kind of studio structure is required to support that founder?

This is the alignment stack.

And most breakdowns happen when studios try to climb it out of order.

Mapping dependencies also reveals where operational debt comes from.

Trying to serve both deeply technical founders and brand-first consumer operators?

You’ll likely miss the mark on operational model, hiring infrastructure, or go-to-market support for both.

No amount of workshops or sprints can patch over a model that isn’t designed to resolve customer constraints.

That doesn’t make the venture studio model flawed, it just makes it sensitive to coherence.

Studios will evolve through multiple iterations of their model, not despite this complexity, but because of it.

Alignment isn’t a one-time insight… It’s an ongoing design discipline.

The Alignment Framework Managing Customer.pdf

When a studio asks, “What’s the right deal structure?...

The answer is almost always: it depends.

But too often, there’s a chase for universal metrics.

A studio reads that someone took 25% at formation and assumes that they can do the same…

Even though:

→ That company might’ve had no pre-formation IP.
→ The studio might’ve handled everything from hiring to product.
→ Or it might’ve just handed off a memo and stepped back.

Equity alone doesn’t tell you that story.

Because there's no standard model, because there’s no standard studio.

Some operate like pre-seed funds.

Others embed deeply for years.

Some back ideas only once there’s founder-market fit.

Others start from domain-conviction and hire in.

And the capital requirements for an AI infra company are wildly different from a consumer social app.

So the structure has to match the stack: strategy, sector, stage, capital plan, team contribution.

You can’t shortcut that by copying numbers from a thread.

Instead, you should narrate your logic.

If a studio takes 15% on a late cofounder model with an additional 10% preferred stake from direct investment with governance rights, showing how that protects long-term alignment.

If it takes 40% on full-stack builds in heavy R&D sectors plus more preferred, explains how risk and operating lift are distributed.

There’s no single “correct” design, only coherence between who you are, what you build, and how your model supports it.

The best structures don’t follow market norms.

They follow the logic of the work and align with market acceptance. 

P.S. For more venture studio breakdowns like this one… 

Follow at Matthew Burris

Why most venture studio deals go wrong

Jonas Krensler it was a pleasure to deep dive studios with you and seeing your four pendulum question framework. Understanding the tradeoffs is critical and key to define at the start. Great way to stay building a strong foundation.

Strategic leadership in venture studios + hands-on startup creation to connect corporate assets with startup speed and deliver rapid results | Venture Building, ProdMgmt, BizDev

Great to meet and present alongside Matthew Burris in Vienna — sharing perspectives on the future of venture studios at the Venture Mindset conference.

From governance and funding logic to founder roles and expectations — it’s clear the studio model is evolving fast. And there’s a lot we can learn from bridging US and European approaches.

Special thanks to Matthias Hille for curating a stellar venture studio track — and to the teams at WhatAVenture and Alpha Omega for creating a space for real exchange. Already looking forward to the next one.

#venturestudios #venturebuilding #corporateinnovation #VentureMindset #alphaomega #companycreation

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