Professionally, I focus on creating social benefit startups. In my Saturday morning emails I share what I’m learning and thinking. Topics range from better living and parenting to business and philosophy.
Venture Studio Summary: Since I run a venture studio, I get a lot of questions about how they work and how to start one. I’m now pointing people to a new publication that offers a good summary and some recommendations. You’ll have to decide for yourself if you like the recommendations. There are a number of different models that can be successful. The list of references is comprehensive. I was excited to see that the writeup includes our work at Purpose Built about how founders can make more money with a venture studio. The fact that there is a shout out to me has nothing, nothing at all, to do with my recommendation. If you want to go deeper on studios, consider doing Morrow’s bootcamp.
Marketplace Write-ups: One of the things we do at our venture studio is collect playbooks and develop playbooks. That’s the spirit in which I wrote Venture Patterns. I’m doing a deep dive in online marketplaces and network effects. What are the best pieces on them in addition to Bill Gurley’s class blog post, NFX’s network effects bible, the Cold Start Problem, and Version One’s Guide to Marketplaces?
Making New Orgs. I’m also gathering examples of using a venture studio model to create and launch new activist or lobbying organizations, NGOs, philanthropies. Effective Government CA incubated Megafire Action and other orgs. Stand Together has a history of this. Charity Entrepreneurship is another example. What have you seen?
Until next time,
Miles