Jake Huber

Venture Scaler

Rent hourly recruiters from Uber, Lime, Dropbox, Instacart, Spotify, etc.

Our expert recruiters run the full recruiting process for you and give you time back to grow your business. Instead of charging 25% commissions on salary, you only pay hourly for the recruiter’s time. 

We’re on-demand and can flex up & down as your needs change. There are no big contracts, commissions or hidden fees.

📈🧠 Scale Smarter. Rent a Recruiter: https://venturescaler.com

=====

Highlighted Client Results:

→ 𝟰𝘅 𝗦𝗽𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗛𝗶𝗿𝗲: UpSmith was searching for their first sales hire for 5 months, and we closed the stalled search in 5 weeks.

→ 𝟲𝘅 𝗠𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗔𝗽𝗽𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗻𝘁𝘀: Veho saw a +495% increase in inbound applicants in 6 months after they started working with us.

→ 𝟵𝟬% 𝗖𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗦𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀: Honey Homes’ cost per hire was 1/10th of what a traditional agency would have charged them in commissions (see case study ↓).

=====

🏆 CASE STUDY: How We Saved Honey Homes $230k in 2 Months

In 2 months, our expert recruiters sourced, screened, interviewed & hired 13 new employees:

→ 2 Sr Managers at $110k salaries
→ 9 Managers at $75k salaries
→ 2 CSRs at $50k salaries

If Honey Homes worked with a traditional recruiting agency instead, they would have paid an industry average 25% commissions on first-year salaries, totaling $250,000 😱

But by working with Venture Scaler on our flexible hourly plans, we saved them over 90%, helping them reduce monthly burn while scaling their team 🙌 

“We were up and running with an incredible recruiter within a week and they completely exceeded our expectations. We wrapped up our hiring sprint ahead of schedule and with higher quality candidates than before. 

Additionally, the cost per hire was about 1/10th of what a traditional agency would have charged. I can't recommend Venture Scaler enough for the quality and value they provide."

~Jeff Kreutter, Head of Operations at Honey Homes

Founder

Scale OS

OS + newsletter for founders designed to help you scale your teams and yourself.

Startup Advisor

"Jake is by far one of the best advisors and mentors that I have worked with." 
~Tyler Morgan, Founder & CEO of UpKid

“Jake has been an absolute game-changer for our startup.”
~Sophie Smith, Founder & CEO of College Contact

"Jake is the mentor and advisor every startup entrepreneur needs in their life." 
~Eli Chmouni, Founder & CEO of Neon

“Jake played a pivotal role in the success of my company." 
~Anitra Davenport, Founder & CEO of Inkzup

"Jake sees how to make a process better and playbooks every step of the way." 
~Blaine Light, Co-Founder & COO at Qwick

📈🧠 Scale Smarter. Work with Jake: 
https://founderscaler.com
____

What I’ve done:
→ Grew a marketplace $0→$50k/mo in <1yr
→ Built 10 marketplaces worth over $300M
→ Scaled 3 unicorn marketplaces: Uber, Uber Eats & Veho

Now I work with early-stage founders on scaling their marketplaces and finding their own “founder scale.”

I've worked with 15+ marketplace startups on Talent Acquisition, Product-Market Fit and Go-To-Market:

📦 Veho - last-mile delivery marketplace

👶 Upkid - staffing marketplace for daycares

👨🏻‍🎤 Inkzup - B2C marketplace for tattoo artists

💇‍♀️ Upgrade - B2C marketplace for hair stylists

🎓 College Contact - marketplace for college student advisors

🏠 Hubster - real estate investor marketplace

👚 Haulsale - B2C marketplace for resellers

🏥 Nurseio - staffing marketplace for nurses 

🩺 Medplace - medical expertise marketplace

🐤 Yellowbird - EHS staffing marketplace

🦘 Notaroo - on-demand notary marketplace

🍟 Qwick - staffing marketplace for restaurants

👷 Hardhats - construction staffing marketplace

☎️ Priizm - marketplace for therapy coaching

🛠 Steady Install - commercial furniture installation marketplace

🚚 Relocity - relocation concierge marketplace

🚜 Tillable - farmer & farm landowner marketplace 

🖥 Neon - digital OOH advertising marketplace

Talent & GTM Consultant for Marketplace Startups

Coplex - Venture Studio

Worked with founders to build a portfolio of 40+ startups worth $500M.

Led product, growth and business design teams to build new tech startups.

I also worked with executives to design and launch 3 new corporate venture studios: 

🧬 Healthworx Studio (HealthTech studio by Blue Cross Blue Shield)

🔬Roadrunner Studios (DeepTech studio by America’s Frontier Fund)

🏥 Phoenix Children’s Venture Studio (MedTech studio by PCH)

Coplex was named a Top 7 Startup Accelerator by Entrepreneur Magazine and one of Inc Magazine’s Best Workplaces in 2019. Coplex has been featured in USA Today, The Washington Post, VentureBeat, Inc, Forbes, NPR and Entrepreneur.

My Roles at Coplex:
→ Managing Partner (July 2021 - Present)
→ Advisor & mentor while I was building a new IoT Innovation Studio at ASU (Sept 2020 - July 2021)
→ Startup Studio Director (Oct 2018 - Sept 2020)

Highlighted Portfolio Companies:

😁 Smile Virtual (Acquired in Dec 2021): SaaS platform connecting patients to dentists for personal consults. "Coplex helped us reach $35k in MRR and prepare for a seed round within 9 months." ~Jenn Rhoades, CEO of Smile Virtual

🍟 Qwick (Raised $60M): On-demand staffing marketplace for restaurants and hotels. "Coplex successfully helped us take our concept to over $50k in monthly revenue and to seed round in 9 months." ~Jamie Baxter, CEO of Qwick

🖥 Patient Signs
🐤 Yellowbird
🦘 Notaroo
⛑ Happy Hired
🏥 Nurseio
🏢 Particle IQ
👨‍💻 BPR 360
🌿 Thalo
🦷 MiniDentist
📈 Sigma401k
🚍 Lynk Bus
🛠 Steady Install
🍞 RaisinBread
💬 Insurmi 
🏦 Clever Finance
💾 Rubix
🍽 Servd
👯‍♀️ Kikstylist
🥚 Exitnest
🚘 Falcon Line
☎️ Priizm
📝 Punctual
🏠 Dealty
🐧 Peck
🤼‍♂️ Rivals Media
💳 950 Credit
💵 Stabl Pay
🛒 Savvie
🐦 Kanary
🚰 Three Good
👷‍♀️ HardHats
🚧 Contracker
🃏 CardSeer
🩺 Medplace
⌚️ Heads up Health
💸 Cala Lending
🧘 Spiritual People
🏗 Innovative Construction Technology

Managing Partner & Startup Studio Director

Veho

Grew team 4X from 70 to 285 employees & increased applicants by +495%.

Advised and worked with CEO on hiring, people ops strategy and employer brand:

→ Helped hire the VP of People Ops and build People team
→ Provided recruiting/interview support from 2 of our recruiters
→ Hired across multiple depts, including Ops, GTM, Eng & Product
→ Refreshed employer pages: LinkedIn, Glassdoor, Crunchbase, etc.
→ Published 10 employer brand blog posts to increase inbound volume
→ Audited 30+ job descriptions for gender bias to improve DEI
→ Applied for and won Top 50 Seed Co’s Award for Veho

👏 Highlighted Testimonials: 

👉 Itamar Zur, Co-founder and CEO:

"Jake and the Venture Scaler team have been HUGE for us. As we were starting to grow like a rocket ship we needed smart professionals who can help us ramp up employer branding, hiring, and interviewing. 

Venture Scaler created a 'machine' for us in those areas. They got us amazing recruiters to help with hiring across all positions in the company, and they became our de-facto head of recruiting for executive roles, especially in HR. 

They've systemized our company blog to tell the Veho human story week in and week out, which helped both attract talent and also lift the team's morale. Shortly after we were named a 'top 50 seed stage company to work for'. I can't recommend Venture Scaler enough!"

👉 Joe Walsh, Veho’s 1st Recruiter (started March 2021):

"Jake and his Venture Scaler team took Veho from a company where there were very little systems and processes to a company that was set up to scale from 70 employees to nearly 300 in a short time frame. They were essential in setting up a number of the people ops, human resources, and recruiting processes Veho needed to scale in a compliant way. 

Veho trusted Jake and his team to build the foundation of our people team and employer brand. I highly recommend them. Veho would not be where we are today without the fantastic work of his team.”

Fractional Head of Talent

Industrious

Launched 10 markets, doubled revenue and grew team to 30 people in < 1yr. 

Managed ~1/3 of locations at Industrious (valued at over $1B). Grew the Western U.S. region (7 states) over 3X to 13 locations in 2018. Owned the region’s P&L and increased revenue +115% to an annual run rate of $12M. 

Scaled the customer experience and improved the Western U.S. region’s NPS scores +20% from 70 in Q1 2018 to 84 in Q3 2018 (for reference, Apple’s industry-leading NPS score is 72).

Additionally assisted with city launches and expansions in Phoenix, Los Angeles, Seattle, Dallas-Fort Worth, Orlando, Boulder, Portland, Orange County and Salt Lake City.

Regional General Manager - Western U.S. | City Launcher

Uber

Grew team from 0 to 50+ people to scale driver and restaurant onboarding. 

We generated an +18% improvement in 14-day conversion rates for the top 20 U.S. and Canada markets, leading to $8M of implied sign up cost savings.

Additionally, I built teams that helped grow and scale Uber Eats restaurant operations by:

→ Optimizing the enterprise restaurant onboarding process to reduce average time in funnel 6x from 45 to 7 days for national partners like Arby's, Denny's, Five Guys, Hooters and TGIFriday's.

→ Piloting the innovative “Virtual Restaurants” program to test its scalability, which later became the biggest growth driver for Eats in 2018.

👏  Highlighted Recommendation:

"I worked with Jake at Uber while he was leading our Supply Ops team... I’d recommend working with Jake to anyone: he was a great partner, and he and his team had a significant impact on the business... He took the time to get to know our needs, worked with my team and I on what markets to target, and how we’d like to report on progress. And he reported regularly on progress and roadblocks his team was seeing.

His team dramatically impacted Courier conversion in markets we worked with him. By applying his trained concierge to acquisition funnels, we saw conversion increases of 15%+, saving a significant amount of money in top-of-funnel referral and paid media spend on new partners.

Additionally, I was continually impressed with Jake’s ability to convey complex topics clearly, and with effectiveness to functions throughout the organization. The work done on budgeting and ROI for his team was some of the best I saw across the organization and made it easy for our team to get buy-in to expand the program."

~Christopher Ager, Head of Uber Eats Restaurant Operations

Head of Supply Operations, Uber Eats (U.S. & Canada)

Led driver referrals for U.S. & Canada and supply growth for the West Coast.

Designed a new driver 'referral guarantee' reward structure that increased conversion 15% and was adopted as the global product standard for U.S./Canada, EMEA and Uber Eats. 

Developed national referral campaigns for the U.S. & Canada and acquisition forecasts & growth strategies for 40+ West Coast markets.

👏 Highlighted Recommendation:

"I had the great pleasure of working with Jake at Uber in Los Angeles. From the moment I joined the team, Jake did an amazing job of helping me feel welcome, while expertly passing on helpful pieces of advice along the way.

During my time working with Jake for a full year, three things stood out to me in particular:

1) Jake is an AMAZING manager. He is able to motivate and inspire his team while earning their respect. Furthermore, Jake received amazing results from his team as he empowered his direct reports with step-up opportunities.

2) Giving feedback is a difficult skill to learn, and Jake is excellent at doing so. His ability to deliver constructive feedback while making his coworkers feel appreciated and respected is an asset that any team would be lucky to have.

3) Jake brings a calm presence to everything he does, and as a result that makes him incredibly easy to work with. We fought many fires together at Uber, and Jake maintained an even-keeled calmness that disseminated out to the rest of the team. I will miss working with Jake and his ability to bring a sense of calm on a hyper-growth team.

I highly recommend Jake as a manager, coworker, and an all-around incredible asset to any team."

~Oliver Davies, Senior Central Operations Manager at Uber

Regional Operations Manager

Led supply growth operations and launched 5 new markets in AZ, NM and NV. 

Built & managed a growth team in Phoenix from 0 to 30 people to increase supply +300% YoY. 

Additionally, I trained & managed the first dedicated team of 15 support representatives in Phoenix.

Additional growth initiatives:
• Built & grew a new driver acquisition program +250% MoM from 1 to 45 cities nationally.
• Executed A/B tests to optimize incentive ROI; scaled to region & saved Uber over $15MM/yr.

Promoted from Operations Coordinator in 2015.

👏 Highlighted Recommendations:

"Every company needs a Jake. In my two years working with Jake at Uber while he was an Operations Manager, I always felt like our Uber team had won the lottery when he came onboard. The way Jake assesses an issue, turns it into an opportunity, and tells the story of the impact that was made by his actions is second to none. 

Jake’s attitude and constant great energy in and outside the office make him an irreplaceable part of the Uber team. His mind always thinks of how to get around an issue and make the best possible outcome and then quickly switches to “how do I teach this to others and scale this.” These attributes and more are what made Jake so valuable his first two years at Uber and are what will make him successful his whole career."

~John Hamby, Operations & Logistics Manager at Uber

"Jake has done a fantastic job being a thought partner and leader on the on the US West New Supply team. I regularly leaned on Jake to help lead and motivate the team and quite frankly asked him to take on the most difficult projects related to New Supply for one of Uber's highest priority regions. Jake is clearly a team player and leader who is constantly motivated and executes flawlessly regularly. I hope I get to work with Jake again."

~Amr Alshihabi, Senior Operations & Logistics Manager at Uber

Operations & Logistics Manager

Helped launch Uber and the uberX product in 5 new expansion markets, including Las Vegas, the largest launch in U.S. history and the fastest city in the U.S. to reach profitability.

→ Conducted city research to understand regulations and market opportunity for Uber.
→ Developed supply projections based on demand forecasts & creating acquisition plans.
→ Designed the pre-launch comms strategy and drafted copy for comms (email & SMS).
→ Sourced mechanics and negotiated terms for state-required vehicle inspections.
→ Hosted on-site interviews & in-person onboarding sessions to build initial supply for launch. 
→ Executed local marketing strategies to encourage user adoption and market penetration.

Launch List:
• Las Vegas, NV 
• Reno, NV
• Las Cruces, NM
• Flagstaff, AZ
• Yuma, AZ

City Launcher | Las Vegas + 4 More Cities

Boost VC - Startup Accelerator

Boost VC is a startup accelerator and early stage venture capital firm with $200M AUM.

Entrepreneur In Residence

Stealth Tech Startup

Founded a tech startup that was accepted into Boost VC, a Silicon Valley startup accelerator that only had a 4% acceptance rate (for reference, Harvard’s is 5.6%). 

Designed and launched first product MVP, acquired first customers, achieved revenue. Raised early equity investments and non-dilutive grants. 

Did everything except code: product management, marketing, sales, business development, customer support, etc. Had lots of fun, and learned a ton.

Founder & Chief Operating Officer (COO)

U.S. Small Business Administration

Business Analyst

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 ↓

There are a lot of systems that go into hiring and scaling an A-player team at that speed. 

I also learned how valuable it is to work with an in-house recruiter.

I saw the same thing at Industrious where I helped launch 10 locations, hired the teams at each new office, and grew my team to 30 people. 

I couldn't have done it without the same systems or our recruiter.

And again at Veho, I helped their team grow 4X from 70 to 285 employees and increased their candidate pipeline +500% in 6 months. 

We built the systems to scale from the ground up. That's also where I created my "rent-a-recruiter" model that we use at Venture Scaler today.

But before I did all that—10 years ago—my first startup failed...

I made so many mistakes as a first-time founder.

I didn’t know how to build and scale my team. I never hired, trained or managed anyone before. 

I wish I had someone like ‘Present Jake’ to go back and show ‘Past Jake’ how to avoid all those mistakes.

That’s why I started Venture Scaler and my free Scale Smarter Newsletter:

📈 𝗩𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗨𝗥𝗘 𝗦𝗖𝗔𝗟𝗘𝗥 📈

I developed a new model to help founders with hiring by letting them “rent a recruiter” hourly (no commissions).

We provide access to world-class recruiters that have worked at high-growth companies like Uber, Spotify, Lime, Amazon and Dropbox. 

Our clients have seen some impressive results:

→ 𝟰𝘅 𝗦𝗽𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗛𝗶𝗿𝗲: UpSmith was searching for their first sales hire for 5 months, and we closed the stalled search in 5 weeks.

→ 𝟵𝟬% 𝗖𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗦𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀: Honey Homes’ cost per hire was 1/10th of what a traditional agency would have charged them in commissions.

→ 𝟲𝘅 𝗠𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗔𝗽𝗽𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗻𝘁𝘀: Veho saw a +495% increase in inbound applicants in 6 months after they started working with us.

Need hiring help? DM me!

Learn more: https://venturescaler.com

🧠 𝗦𝗖𝗔𝗟𝗘 𝗦𝗠𝗔𝗥𝗧𝗘𝗥 𝗡𝗘𝗪𝗦𝗟𝗘𝗧𝗧𝗘𝗥 🧠

Your people are the most important part of your startup. But building and scaling teams as you grow is hard work.

Each issue I share ways to scale your teams (and yourself) — all stuff I learned working at high-growth startups like Uber and Veho. 

Try it free: https://jakehuber.com

=====

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.

The Venture Studio Forum

Chief Content Officer

9point8 Collective

9point8 supports early stage investors, accelerators, and venture studios through services and technology. We focus on entity design, strategy, talent development, and diligence.

Partner

Venture Studio Associates

CogBias AI

Bad questions lead to bad answers which lead to bad decisions. 

Break the cycle.

Ask better questions and see truths hidden in the answers.

CogBias AI is a platform for industry specific application development to detect Cognitive Bias in product development, hiring, legal, healthcare, and marketing research.

Co-Founder - CPO

Savvy Tinkers Studios

We partner with experienced professionals to build AI powered B2B SaaS Startups. Building first portfolio companies now. 

We partner with:
✔️ Experienced professionals with at least 10 years of experience
✔️ A problem they want to solve where they have 3 years of relevant experience

NCR Corporation

Formed the New Ventures Group, a startup studio inspired group focused on delivering early innovations to deployed products. Supported by the CEO, COO, CTO, and business unit GMs on the heals of the success of the launch of the first internal accelerator program.

✔️ Proposed and led NCR’s first accelerator program with the full support of the CEO and ELT. Delivered $90M in revenue from the first cohort with multiple teams taking products to market.
✔️ Launched the New Ventures Group operating as a hybrid startup studio responsible for transitioning multiple concepts to product owners, supported M&A evaluations, and market analysis.
✔️ Provided opportunity and framework to establish partnership to deliver strategic inroads to retail opportunities and new revenue streams worth over $2B.

Innovation Principal

Led innovation efforts across retail, financial, and hospitality lines of businesses. Secured executive support for partnerships and responsible for over 20% of patent filings for FY 2019.

✔️ Proposed an M&A to the CEO, GM of Retail, and Head of M&A backed with a business case that resulted in a partnership agreement with a potential revenue of $80M ARR in year 1. 
✔️ Found a $9B cost savings opportunity in the North American banking industry. Secured over 10 patents, built a business case, and secured executive support to pursue opportunity.
✔️ Trained internal teams on Flashpoint customer discovery techniques to leverage behavioral economics techniques to minimize cognitive bias in customer discovery

Innovation Leader

Providing internal product teams innovation and new product development support during NCR’s transition to an ‘as-a Service’ business model. 

✔️ Joined a team of intrapreneurs participating in the Flashpoint accelerator program, interviewing 175 customers and identifying 10 opportunities worth a deeper look.
✔️ Built the business case for three opportunities in finance and the convenience fuel retail industries, each with a potential of generating more than $100MM in SaaS revenue.
✔️ Led cross-functional hardware and software development teams to architect, prototype, and develop solutions leveraging computer vision, data analysis, deep learning, AI, and mobile development.

Innovation Engineer

Savvy Tinker Consulting

We worked with industry organizations and major investor groups to generate investing, company design frameworks, training, and though leadership content.

✔️ Distilled best practices across Private Equity, Venture Capital, Search Funds, Startup Studios, Accelerators, and Startups for new venture creation processes.
✔️ Adapted a quantitative venture investing approach for the strategic design of new company creation,  product development roadmaps, and focused customer discovery.
✔️ Created an evaluation framework for metal additive manufacturing use cased based by examples and data. 
✔️ Published core market and capabilities analysis on metal additive manufacturing achieving recognition from industry experts.
✔️ Presented findings at LiveWorx in 2018.

Independent Consultant

Flashpoint at Georgia Tech

Sole experienced founder on corporate team participating in the Flashpoint startup accelerator program the focused on adapting and applying behavioral economics and cognitive bias insights to improve the quality of customer discovery and user research in startups and new product development efforts.

✔️ Interviewed 175 customers using behavioral and cognitive bias limiting approaches. 
✔️ Mapped internal and external customer ecosystems to understand factors that shaped customer behavior and decisions.

Intrapreneur, Corporate Innovation Team @ Cohort 8

SPIN Collective Partnership

SPIN Collective was a collection of serial founders offering innovation and special projects consulting.

✔️ Delivered a strategy for $50MM annual cost savings for an agricultural client
✔️ Identified innovation special project opportunities with projected revenues of $500M ARR and $150M ARR respectively.
✔️ Identified a strategic gap in private equity operations strategy to deliver an additional 1-2x multiple through a targeted product innovation strategy based on work from McKinsey.
✔️ Developed financial model for growth value creation based on strategies found in private equity, search funds, venture studios, startup factories, and startup studios.

Innovation Consultant

MatterFab

MatterFab focused on designing industrial metal 3d printers targeting production and industry applications in the injection molding, aerospace, medical, and automotive industries.

✔️ Designed & built multiple prototypes capable of printing +98.5% dense solid stainless steel parts optimizing over process 200 variables.
✔️ Secured $2.5M in LOIs in under 8 weeks from mid-sized businesses and large enterprises.
✔️ Secured strategic partnerships & funded R&D agreements with Fortune 50 company.

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

I’m an entrepreneurial strategy and innovation leader with 20+ years of experience designing and scaling ventures, partnerships, and corporate initiatives that have generated over $500M in strategic value.

As Chief Content Officer at The Venture Studio Forum, I lead the world’s largest global venture studio association—now 400+ members representing $48B+ in value creation across 675 companies and 8 unicorns. I drive content, standards, and community that define the venture studio asset class and position it for institutional adoption.

Previously, I launched NCR’s first internal accelerator—generating $90M from its first cohort—and secured 27+ patents across AI, fintech, and computer vision. I’ve built and scaled startups from zero to funding and strategic partnerships with Fortune 50s, and developed investment and diligence frameworks that institutional investors now use to allocate capital into the studio model.

I work with investors, founders, and innovation leaders to design, launch, and scale venture studios tailored to their goals, environments, and constraints. I bring unmatched breadth of exposure across 500+ global studios to create models that align incentives, avoid fatal design flaws, and drive long-term success.

Let’s connect if you're designing a studio, evaluating the model, or scouting strategic talent to take innovation, venture, or corporate development goals further.

Matthew Burris

Merge a Venture Studio + a University
Freshmen -> work in startups. 
Senior Capstone -> cofounder.

I had this dream over a decade ago.

Now I know it was a perfect merger of a Venture Studio with a University.

It began with my own University experience.

I went to Kettering University. A school known for its mandatory co-op program where you had to have 2.5 years of work experience and complete a thesis at your employer to graduate.

The program is intense and incredibly valuable.

One of my fraternity brothers saved his employer $10M per year with his thesis project. Do that, and a great job offer is guaranteed.

What if that thesis was not a project at an employer, but cofounding a company within the university's venture studio program. A real company, with funding, and hands on support from the entire student body with advice from the faculty and studio staff? 

Freshmen's co-op work terms would be in startups doing basic work. Sophomores would be taking on projects. Juniors are leading teams. As seniors they start their own company.

The university funds the venture studio, which takes equity in each company, with equity for the seniors who get cofounder shares and the students working could earn a share as well.

Deep experiential learning. 
Students get years of real work experience.
Seniors graduate with equity in companies they built.
Success compounds for the students and the university.

Decent success delivers solid results.
Great success would create one of the larges endowments of any university.
Set tuition to zero, and the equity driven returns can cover operations costs.

Can you imagine such a venture studio and university merger?

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

View newsletter: Venture Studio Perspective

Picture two graduation ceremonies, five years apart. In the first, a business student crosses the stage having completed an entrepreneurship concentra

Open article: The Venture Studio University: What happens when you merge the venture studio model with experiential education? by Matthew Burris • 18 min read

The Venture Studio University: What happens when you merge the venture studio model with experiential education?

Most university innovation hubs run on hope. 
Not operations.

I've walked through dozens of beautiful innovation buildings. Glass walls, coworking spaces, demo labs. Millions invested in the physical space.

But here's what I see behind the scenes: programs that teach and advise, but don't actually build.

The difference shows up in the math.

A typical accelerator provides 1-2 hours per week of support to each portfolio company. For 12 weeks.

A venture studio? 20-80 hours per week. For 12+ months.

That's not mentorship. That's co-creation.

Accelerators and incubators are dependent on entrepreneurs stepping up and delivering. They hope the founders figure it out.

But hope isn't a strategy. It's a prayer.

Studios take an active role in building the products, forming the teams, and de-risking the ventures themselves.

The building is beautiful. But without an operational engine doing the actual work of company creation, you're not placing bets, you are hoping that someone else follows through to give you a win.

If you're working in university innovation: what's the biggest gap you've seen between innovation infrastructure and the operational capacity to actually build companies and deliver innovation outcomes?

Reply or DM me—I'll send you our From Lab to Market report.

Elevating the Venture Studio Ecosystem | $500M+ Strategic Impact | M&A, Innovation & AI | Trusted by 500+ Studios

Building a new studio?
Your thesis is weaker than you think.
Here is why and how to fix it.

I pulled the public theses from top U.S. venture studios. Real names, real websites.

Read these and ask yourself: Would this make YOU write a check?

"We partner with incredible entrepreneurs to create, launch, and scale next generation enterprise software companies."

"We work with world-class entrepreneurs to turn the best ideas into market-defining, venture-funded companies with rapid customer adoption."

"We bring ideas, capital, and talent together, partnering with co-founders to build the best ideas into great companies."

"We believe fiercely that human potential can be realized through technology so long as we place what is human at the core."

"Creates ground-breaking companies whose products and services change the way people think, live and work."

All from top U.S. studios. All generic. Soft. Uninspired. Junk.

Here's what emerging managers need to understand: Public examples of theses are terrible examples to learn from.

Most studio theses read like mission statements. Inspiring, but relatively useless in practice.

A real thesis is not branding. It's a decision system.

It should tell you which ideas you pursue, which founders you recruit, which investors you attract, and which capabilities you build internally. If it can't do that, it's not a thesis. It's a paragraph.

The best theses are brutally clear about:

The domain where you believe disproportionate value can be created
The studio's unique role in company formation
Why you win (the proof, not the hope)
The constraints you willingly accept

Example: "We build vertical SaaS for overlooked service industries leveraging our GP's experience building three category leaders generating $750M in annual sales through our deep industry access, GTM expertise, and first customer relationships."

That's 32 words. Clear domain. Named wedge. Specific proof. No fluff.

A studio with a crisp thesis moves faster because it moves intentionally. You know exactly what you're building and why you're the team to build it.

A studio without one drifts, slowly, and then all at once. Every decision becomes a debate. Every pitch becomes improv.

Question for emerging managers: Does your thesis pass the 50-word test? Would an LP remember it after one read?

If you want help crafting a thesis that becomes the backbone of your studio, you can sign up for Studio Foundations today. A 4-week program launching in January 2026 for studios that want clarity, coherence, and investor-ready positioning.

Request access to the waitlist and I'll DM you the link.

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

Imagine a world with Venture Studio Data. Today, that world begins.

The Venture Studio Forum is launching the most comprehensive venture studio survey ever undertaken — aiming for 500+ studios to participate. Built on the Venture Studio Index frameworks and conducted in collaboration with MIT, Harvard, and Stanford researchers on both survey design and data analysis, this survey combines operational data with classification standards to enable rigorous performance analysis across diverse studio strategies.

This survey delivers meaningful insights across:

Researchers: A structured foundation to classify and analyze studios by strategy type.

LPs: Performance benchmarks critical for informed capital allocation.

Operators: Peer data to evaluate and sharpen your operational approach.

Covering legal structures, funding models, governance, geography, and performance metrics, participation grants access to the aggregate findings report, inclusion in the VSF database, and contributes to white papers shaping the asset class.

Studios have until the end of Q1 2026 to participate. The survey takes about one hour.

If you're a studio founder or operator, reserve an hour today to make your voice heard. If not, tag a studio founder who should join. The strength of this dataset depends on full spectrum participation.

Survey launches today, December 2nd: https://lnkd.in/e9uf4gtk

Learn more about the frameworks: 
Venture Studio Index Whitepaper: https://lnkd.in/erZjJvgH
Venture Studio Definition: https://lnkd.in/eyJC7mAG
Cost Structure Model: https://lnkd.in/eQwjCZVp


My asks?

Tag a studio founder or studio that needs to participate.

Share this with your network - DM or Repost.

We’d appreciate your help spreading the word to grow this important resource!

#VentureStudios #Innovation #Startups #VentureStudioResearch

Global Venture Studio Survey Launches. Venture Studio Forum, MIT, Harvard, and Stanford Researchers in collaboration.

Standards for Venture Studios are here.
Full whitepaper, open standards, everything.
Yes, this is a repeat. I goofed.
Why? Article & Newsletter look the same except for one button...
But I digress.

The Venture Studio Index whitepaper, an open standard for venture studios is available now. 

Expanded and updated based on investor feedback.
The official whitepaper on the Venture Studio Index and its release as an open standard for venture studios is here.

Since its formation, the Venture Studio Forum has had a mission to elevate and advance the asset class of venture studios.

Part of that mission is creating and managing standards for the asset class.

The Venture Studio Index is the first major release in support of this mission.

The VSI is designed to make it much easier for investors to understand, compare, and invest in venture studios. The VSI leverages frameworks, terminology, and expectations that are already familiar to investors. 

The new frameworks, such as the Venture Studio Cost Structure Model, build upon decades of investor knowledge and finance practice to reduce confusion and focus attention on how studios add value to the companies they build.

And embedding our definition of venture studios as a core aspect of how studios are evaluated, by drawing attention to the three core roles all venture studios must play as entrepreneur, operator, and investor in every company they build. 

This is just the first step. 
Join us in advancing the asset class. 
Join the Venture Studio Forum today.

The venture studio ecosystem has reached a pivotal milestone with the release of the Venture Studio Index (VSI) as a comprehensive open standard for s

Open article: The Venture Studio Index Whitepaper: Establishing the Open Standard Foundation for an Emerging Asset Class by Matthew Burris • 12 min read

The Venture Studio Index Whitepaper: Establishing the Open Standard Foundation for an Emerging Asset Class

Corporate Venture Capital doesn’t go far enough  
but Corporate Venture Studios might be the solution  

Corporate development teams have long had two key levers: 

They can buy (M&A) 
OR 
They can partner (Corporate Venture Capital).

But there’s a third move many overlook: the build function.

That’s where venture studios come in.

When buying isn’t the answer and there’s no clear partner to invest in,
but the opportunity is strategically important… a venture studio fills the gap.

It allows corporate development to take action on what doesn’t yet exist in-market.

With a venture studio, the corporation can build it themselves, driven by strategy, owned internally, and guided by market need.

It fits neatly between M&A and venture investing.

More importantly, it expands the strategic toolkit of corporate development itself.

Why does this work so well?

Because corporate development already has alignment with the internal strategy. 

They have access to budget. And they know what strategic bets need to be made.

That makes them the ideal home for a venture studio.

It’s not about replacing M&A or venture; it’s about completing the playbook.

With a strong buy, partner, and now build function, Corporate Venture Studios unlock new levels of flexibility and scale.

P.S. Follow for more venture studio insights

Why CVC doesn’t go far enough.pdf

What happens when universities start acting like venture studios?

There’s a unique opportunity forming at the intersection of venture studios and universities.

Imagine a university where every student spends their academic career inside a fully integrated venture studio. 

From freshman to senior year, they move through roles, starting as support staff, eventually becoming co-founders of companies being built from within the studio.

For their thesis, each student helps launch a real company. 

The university contributes early-stage capital and takes an equity stake in every venture created by its students.

It would generate real-time feedback on what’s working in-market, giving students hands-on experience with real innovation and growth. 

And because value is being created at the company level, the university benefits from both financial exposure and relevant, applied research output.

This model isn’t just good for student learning. 

It can become the primary engine to fund the university’s operations and research for the long-term, without relying solely on tuition, donations, or government grants.

Over time, it’s possible to layer these venture studio models into existing universities. 

But if you’re starting fresh, this kind of model could be integrated from day one.

The upside is a system where education, innovation, and commercialization are fully aligned. 

Students leave with real experience (and maybe real equity). 

And the model sustains itself.

What Happens When Universities Start Acting Like Studios.pdf

Corporate studios the Intel engine strategy 

A major value-add of a corporate venture studio is its access to real-time market intelligence.

This often gets overlooked.

But when a venture studio is consistently running customer discovery across an ecosystem, the insights generated don’t just inform the companies being built.

They can be distilled and fed directly into corporate innovation.

That means better product roadmaps, clearer corporate strategy, and smarter venture investment decisions.

In some cases, this market intelligence can actually be more valuable than the startups the studio launches.

Which is why it’s so critical to build the studio in a way that unlocks that value.

One of the best places we’ve found to place a studio in is within corporate development.

Think about it:

Corporate development already owns the M&A function (buy).

They typically also run CVC (partner).

What they’re often missing is build.

A venture studio rounds out that strategy by giving the org a third option.

And because that activity generates real-time market intelligence, it becomes a direct line into both the CVC and M&A strategy.

You end up with a full-stack innovation engine, buy, partner, and now build, powered by intelligence that compounds across all three.

Corporate Studios The Intel Engine Strategy.pdf

Thinking about starting a venture studio?

There are a few ways you can structure the capital. And each has its own trade-offs:

1. Raise capital into a holding company.

2. Raise money as a traditional venture fund.

3. Raise in to a dual-entity model.

4. Raise inside portfolio companies

5. No capital raise, just use profitable cash flow

Each model has its place.

Your access to capital, network, and timing will help determine the right one.

If you want to know more about their pros and cons, be sure to check the carousel below.

P.S. Follow for more Venture Studio insights

Capital structure options.pdf

Venture Studios are on the rise

And more and more investors, entrepreneurs,
and top operators are looking into them

One reason being the success
that this model is experiencing

Speaking of which…

Here are 6 Venture Studio success stories
(And the valuation of their companies)

P.S. I’ll be sharing case studies on each of these studios and their startups

In case of interest:
follow me at Matthew Burris

matterfab

savvy-tinkers-studios

li_at

JSESSIONID

Talks about #startups, #venturestudio, #startupstudios, #venturecapital, and #productmanagement

6 Venture Studio Success Stories.pdf

Shuping D.

6 Common venture studio design mistakes

1. Incorporating Fund Too Soon
2. Picking the Wrong Follow-on Capital
3. Picking the Wrong Founder Archetype
4. Raising Capital Too Early
5. Designing Something Too Fancy
6. Pitching the Model Instead of Yourself

For more in depth breakdown, check the carousel below

The more focused you are early, the better your odds.

P.S. Follow for more venture studio insights

6 Common Mistakes Venture Studios Make Too Early.pdf

The Founder Studio vs. Co-Founder Studio

Here’s a simple breakdown:

1. Founder Studio Model:

- The studio ideates, validates, and sometimes builds the product before partnering

- The incoming founder is may be more of an operator or growth-stage exec

- Equity is shaped by how much groundwork the studio has already done

- The studio holds more control having put more work in up front

2. Co-Founder Studio Model:

- The studio and entrepreneur partner early, near idea stage

- Both sides collaborate on ideation, validation, and building from day one

- Equity is usually more balanced from the start

- Decision rights are more evenly shared up front

Matching the stage of the venture to the type of founder you need is where long-term success starts.

P.S. Follow for more venture studio insights

The Founder Studio vs Co-Founder Studio.pdf

Most studios don't fail because of weak ideas. 
They fail because governance doesn't fit the mission.

Mark Simoncelli, former CRO of Mach49, captures the fundamental problem facing corporate venture studios: "You cannot ask a team to act like entrepreneurs and then govern them like a corporate project. The parent company often keeps too much control or pushes for short term results, which removes the flexibility a studio needs to succeed."

The GCV 2025 report confirms internal stakeholder management ranks among the most frequent challenges within corporate studios.

Here's the Corporate Control Paradox in action:
Your procurement process takes 90-120 days for vendor evaluation. 
Your venture needs to deploy tools in 1-7 days to test and pivot.

The opportunity cost of that delay exceeds procurement savings by 10-50x.

This pattern repeats across every operational area:
HR: 60-90 day hiring cycles vs. 14-21 day offer-to-hire needs
Legal: Months waiting for approval while competitors capture market position
Decision authority: Velocity reduced 5-10x with multi-layer approvals

Only 20% of corporate studios offer startup equity. This single constraint significantly limits talent attraction—the most common challenge among corporate studios.

Simoncelli describes the solution as operating at "two speeds":
"One moves quickly for venture building, guided by milestones and market validation. The other checks in periodically for strategic fit. The boundaries should be clear from the start, and then the team needs freedom to execute within them."

The balance Simoncelli emphasizes:
"The strongest ventures work with their parent company, not despite it. When ventures have access to brand, customers, and talent combined with autonomy, they gain real advantages. But it is a balance. Too much integration leads to incremental ideas. Too much distance and the venture loses momentum."

This week's newsletter breaks down the complete governance framework—from structural separation to board composition to delegation frameworks that enable speed while maintaining strategic alignment.

Read the full article below.

How Corporate Venture Studios Navigate the Tension Between Speed and Control Corporate venture studios face a fundamental challenge that determines su

Open article: The Governance Framework for Corporate Venture Studios: Balancing Autonomy with Strategic Alignment by Matthew Burris • 18 min read

The Governance Framework for Corporate Venture Studios: Balancing Autonomy with Strategic Alignment

The four customers framework conflict for University led Venture studios

There are four core customers in any studio:

1. Investors
2. Studio staff and GPs
3. Entrepreneurs
4. Follow-on capital

But when a university launches a studio, they often end up playing the role of:

✅ Investor → by funding the initial studio build  
✅ Operator → by staffing and running the studio themselves  
✅ Entrepreneur → by pushing university-owned IP into the pipeline

That’s three out of four roles, each with different needs, incentives, and success metrics.

And if all those roles are optimized for the university?

You risk misaligned comp for GPs, unattractive deal terms for founders, and a cap table that puts off follow-on investors.

In short, unintentionally sabotaging the studio’s success.

Anyone designing a Venture Studio inside a university needs to be mindful of the conflicts that arise when one party fills multiple customer roles.

It’s not about avoiding involvement, it’s about designing responsibly.

P.S. Follow for more venture studio insights

The 4 customers framework(universities).pdf

The 4 Customer Framework Conflict For Corporate Led Venture Studios

Corporate Studios Self Sabotage.
They are their own customer.
And don’t see what kills them.

Corporate venture studios are complex by design.

The Four Customer Framework becomes critical when one of those customers plays multiple roles, especially the corporate parent.

In a typical corporate venture studio, the company might:

✅ Be the sole funder  
✅ Provide or hire the staff and GPs  
✅ Choose the entrepreneurs or pull them from internal teams  
✅ Reabsorb portfolio companies instead of spinning them out

That means the corporation is acting as the studio investor, operator, entrepreneur, and follow on capital source, all at once.

This destroys the essential tension between customer roles.

For example:

- Staff compensation is aligned with parent company metrics, not venture success.  
- Entrepreneurs may not receive equity in what they're building.  
- Portfolio companies aren't structured to survive outside the parent if they need to.

Even worse, if follow-on capital isn’t part of the design, the portfolio isn’t built for market reality. 

So if a company needs to spin out, not in, you’re scrambling to redesign it.

That’s when a venture studio is set up to fail, even before launch.

P.S. Follow for more venture studio insights

The 4 CF Conflict For Corporate Venture Studios.pdf

What is an acceptable ownership stake that a studio takes?

That depends entirely on context.

Venture studios don't operate under one model.

Equity structures can’t be one-size-fits-all, too many variables shape what’s fair, sustainable, and aligned.

Trying to anchor to a single percentage without knowing the studio structure or sector dynamics leads to broken outcomes.

You need to look at all four “customers” of a deal:

1. Studio investors want venture-scale returns for earlier, riskier capital.
2. The studio team needs comp that reflects deep, hands-on work building from scratch.
3. Entrepreneurs should receive a mix (salary, equity, benefits) that beats their alternative paths.
4. Follow-on capital requires cap tables and governance that fit their mandates.

If you underserve one, the deal structure breaks down.

There are also 8 pressure points that shift the right outcome:

1-Target Follow-On Capital Source
2-Entrepreneur Profile
3-Studio Investor Expectations
4-Industry Norms
5-Capital Intensity
6-Regional Ecosystem
7-Studio’s Founder Role
8-Studio Role Execution

Is the studio just an accelerator?
Are they hiring the team and validating the idea?
Buying a distressed asset?

Each case justifies a different equity model.

Want the full worksheet and article? Drop a comment on your challenge with venture studio deal structures, and I'll send it to you.

What is an acceptable ownership stake that a studio takes.pdf

University IP doesn't die in the valley of death. 
It dies from lack of a champion.

Here's the uncomfortable truth about why most university innovation stalls:
The academic researcher—brilliant, world-class—often doesn't care about commercial impact.

Publications? Yes. Citations? Absolutely. Tenure track? Critical.
Building a company? Career risk.

And when they do care, they're often championing innovations with no market potential. Because they're subject matter experts, not market experts.

But here's the structural problem underneath it all:
No single entity at the university has the mandate—and the capability—to go end-to-end. To identify the right IP, build the company, recruit the team, secure the capital, and set it up for success outside the university walls.

Tech transfer gets close. But they stop at licensing. Someone else has to build it.

That's the gap a university venture studio fills. 
End-to-end accountability. 
End-to-end execution.
Not handoffs. Ownership.

What's the biggest handoff gap you've seen in university commercialization—either at your institution or others you've observed?

Drop a comment or DM me—I'll share our report on how universities are building single-accountability systems.

Corporate Venture Studio vs. Corporate Venture Capital 

A surprising stat:

Around a third of corporations with Corporate Venture Capital also have a Venture Studio.

Both serve different purposes, and they're distinct operationally, strategically, and financially.

Corporate VC is about gaining strategic access to an external startup, one that the corporation might one day acquire, partner with, or monitor closely.

A Venture Studio works differently, Instead of buying in, you’re building from the ground up. 

Usually in a category where the corporation already has deep industry knowledge.

Two powerful tools, but useful for very different parts of the corporate growth strategy.

For more in depth comparison, check the carousel below

P.S. Follow for more venture studio insights

taplio

The Battle

Jake Huber

Matthew Burris

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreMatthew Burris's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Jake Huber

Matthew Burris

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Matthew Burris's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreMatthew Burris's LinkedIn Performance