The venture studio adventure

Generative investment and a shared flair for innovation

Since my December post about Nobody Studios, I have received a ton of questions about what exactly a venture studio is. So I’ll try to explain that here. But also I will say a little more about why, even as a venture studio, I think Nobody is different, with our frugressive, crowd-infused, restlessly innovative approach.

Incubators, Accelerators and Funds

Most people are familiar with three types of venture program: incubators, accelerators and venture capital funds. A venture studio combines different aspects of each.

Technology incubators typically provide a range of services, including mentorship, business infrastructure (often including office space) and introductions to sources of capital and networks. Some incubators are focussed on industries such as software, green tech or life sciences. Many incubators, especially in Europe, are publicly funded by government or universities.

Accelerators are similar, but as the name suggests there is an important difference in focus and timeline. Accelerators are typically designed to help startups refine their business model, develop their products, and gain access to capital in a short period of time: usually 3-6 months. Incubators generally provide longer-term mentorship and resources.

While incubators and accelerators provide introductions to capital, the venture capital fund, as its name suggests, focusses on investing capital. They rarely provide the kind of business infrastructure that incubators and accelerators can offer, but there will often be some mentoring, especially from the fund’s principals and partners; it’s in their interest to give advice! The fund is a pool of money, typically raised from limited partners, such as high net worth individuals, pension funds, and other institutional investors.

Venture studios and generative investment

As you can see, accelerators, incubators and funds are all a little different. But all depend on a common principle: entrepreneurs with ideas come to them for help whether technical, commercial or financial. If you have worked with startups at all, you’ll be very familiar with the agony of producing and presenting to a seemingly endless stream of investors and advisors your pitch deck which explains on one hand, why you are the greatest thing since the steam engine, and on the other, why you need help.

The one thing incubators, accelerators and funds do not do is generate ideas and innovations internally.

This is one very important area where venture studios are different …

Many of the technical innovations, business models and even teams, emerge from the studio itself.

For me, this is very exciting. A studio can bring together people from with a huge range of experience and generate business ideas, pull together teams and support development and go-to-market.

Nobodies waste nothing

Inevitably, some people within the studio will double down on one concept and take it to market. We want people to feel both a sense of shared adventure and directed focus if they want. At Nobody Studios, Ray Leonard Jr is heading our talent-booking agency with a difference, Ovationz. But others, like Barry O’Reilly the Incubation Officer, or myself in Research and Innovation, work across many startups.

Not only people, but technologies can work across the studio model. We have an intelligent no-code platform ThoughtForma which enables Nobodies to efficiently build apps with a consistent platform and even a consistent billing infrastructure. This saves startups from a lot of wasted energy and speeds up their learning and implementation time. For example, what one team learns and implements on Web3 can be repurposed elsewhere.

Both financially and technically we take an approach we call Frugressive - frugal and aggressive at once. This is why we can set ourselves a ridiculous goal, like creating 100 companies in 5 years.

As I said previously, the crowd is at the heart of this. It’s not just a source of extra capital. We’re quite serious when we say every investor is a Nobody and we want the emergent, generative effect of hundreds, if not thousands, of Nobodies to be an engine for insight and innovation. And yes, we expect to make money too. It’s not even giving back - it’s a shared model from the beginning.

Anyway, that’s my brief explanation of studios are different. Interested? Intrigued? Impulsive? Have a look at our crowdfunding site. With a minimum of 100 USD investment, it’s a fun way to be involved. We promise to do our best to make every Nobody feel like somebody.