Lessons from Our First Cohort

Building a venture studio is a lot like building a startup. You have a thesis, you execute against it, and the market tells you what you got right and wrong.

The first founders we brought in to run our companies taught us several things we did not expect.

Speed of validation matters more than depth. We used to think founders needed thorough market research before reaching out to prospects. We were wrong. The founders who started selling in week one consistently outperformed those who spent weeks on research.

Cultural fit is not optional. In the early days, we focused almost entirely on skills and drive. We learned the hard way that a founder who does not align with the values of the studio creates friction that slows down everyone. Now cultural fit is a core part of our selection process.

SOPs need to be living documents. Our first set of standard operating procedures were too rigid. They assumed the business would work exactly as planned. The founders who treated SOPs as starting points and iterated on them weekly built better operations than those who followed them to the letter.

Peer accountability is powerful. We designed the program around mentorship from our team. What surprised us was how much founders pushed each other. When one founder closed a deal, it lit a fire under everyone else. The competitive energy across the portfolio was one of the biggest drivers of performance.

Kill decisions are hard but necessary. Ending a venture that is not working is one of the hardest things we do. But the founders who pivoted early or started fresh with a new idea ended up in a much better position than those who clung to something that was not gaining traction.

Every cohort teaches us something new. That is the nature of this work. We build the plane while flying it, and we get better at both with every flight.