9point8 Collective

Very excited to be teaming up with Matthew!!!

Go Matthew Burris and JT Benton! ??

? Most venture studios fail within 24 months. ? But that's not the real problem. The real problem? Most investors don't see the fatal flaws until it's too late. After reviewing 500+ studios globally, I've found patterns: ? Misaligned incentives with follow-on capital ? Fundamentally broken cap tables ? Lopsided customer prioritization ? Unsustainable strategies ? Critical team gaps The harsh reality: A studio can look perfect on paper and still be built to fail. That's why I'm launching something new: Venture Studio Perspective - a newsletter turning awareness into conviction. What you'll get: ? Investment frameworks to diligence studios ? Go/no-go signals for studio investments ? Deep dives into studio failure patterns ? Red flag analysis of real cases ? For: ? Studio investors ? Follow-on VCs ? Exited founders exploring the model I've told hundreds of aspiring studio founders their models wouldn't work. Now I'm showing you why. ?? What hidden red flags have you spotted in venture studios?

All venture studios aim to bring high returns But some of them do this in problematic ways We call this second group, “Vulture Studios” And they are the type of company that claims to be?a Venture Studio... But does not actually provide the?full range of support and services?that a true venture studio offers. Understanding what constitutes a vulture studio requires examining how it compares to legitimate venture studios. In the poster below,? we share the difference between them And how to tell if you’re looking at a Venture Studio or if they are actually a Vulture ?? P.S. In case you’re looking to learn more about? venture studios, follow me at (Matthew Burris)? for daily venture studio insights and strategies?

Last week was incredible. For starters, I got to spend the bulk of it with my partners at the 9point8 Collective. While Blair Merlino and I are based in #Bozeman (and thus get to see a lot of one another), Neal Ghosh and Evan Allen are each out east (Neal in #Boston and Evan in #Charlotte). Hosting them in Bozeman and being together as a group is just so much fun! We were all in town for the Scaling Montana Summit, which was just SO good. The event brought great ideas and leaders together from all over the Treasure State (and beyond). There’s so much I love about living and working in #Montana, but the collective energy and network of support that this community provides tops the list. My hat is off to Jenni Graff, Greg Rogers, Philip Brittan and their team. Bravo! We’ve been hard at work building a company that can meaningfully serve stakeholders across the venture ecosystem. We spent time last week with great customers and partners across that continuum - it was so much fun to meet with them and discuss the ways they’re beginning to use our products and request our services. I’ll close with a few photos - some we took ourselves and others borrowed from other posts. Because, you know, pics or it didn’t happen!

I had an amazing time in #BZN last week at the Scaling Montana Summit! We were priviliged to deliver a special session on #diligence and did a light demo of our diligence copilot #launchIQ I also got to build new relationships and rekindle old ones with my partners Evan Allen JT Benton Blair Merlino at 9point8 Collective along with Todd Daniels Patrick Miller, CBAP Mark Sharpe Zia Maumenee Philip Brittan Liz Marchi and many others. The Bozeman community is welcoming and thriving. Far from my last trip out there -- here's to many more!

Very excited for this Scaling Montana!

?? I've been getting this question quite a bit lately: did 9point8 Collective pivot to become a software business? And it's a fair question, so let me explain myself... Short answer: nope! We're still the same studio-building, venture-scaling team you've known. But here's the deal: just like Amazon built #AWS for themselves and then let the world in on it, we created a few #AI tools to give ourselves (and our clients) a serious competitive edge. And guess what? People noticed. So yes, we are offering software subscriptions now -- but only because #VentureIQ is that good. Still us! Still here to build. Just with even more firepower. ??? #VentureIQ #AI #VentureStudios #VentureCapital

In 2022 when private equity deals dried up -- IPOs were non existent, later-stage deals stalled, while early-stage more or less tread water -- the focus was on net-new deals for new start-ups and the size and term of those rounds. Companies who raised in 2020 and 2021 still had runway, so the open question at the time was whether they would pull through, and what adjustments they would need to make to do it. Fast forward to 2024, and the data are showing a noticeable uptick in <1 MOIC exits, meaning the investment generated a negative return: https://lnkd.in/exNWxuyZ ?? % of exits with <1 MOIC increasing from 58% to 70%. A simple rule of thumb is that 1/3 of investments return zero, 1/3 return something, 1/3 return the fund. An increase from 58% to 70% essentially means that that middle third of decent exits has disappeared. But early-stage investments fail all the time, right? True. But the report shows that later-stage exits are also lagging. ?? Among companies that raised a Series D and beyond, a majority of exits since 2022 were at a loss. That's not a good sign, as later-stage is supposed to be heavily de-risked and steamrolling towards IPO. The message? Startups needs to build resilience against market fluctuations. Even the best teams and businesses can fail if the capital market turns and there is no Plan B. Many studios tackle this issue head-on by building their ventures with an eye toward resilience: 1?? Efficient capital deployment: studios typically build companies with leaner initial investments, focusing on rapid validation and iteration. 2?? Strategic partnerships: studios often leverage their networks to secure early customers and partnerships, reducing go-to-market risks. 3?? Revenue-first mindset: many studios prioritize early revenue generation, creating more sustainable business models from the start. They also enact quick pivots or shutdowns if initial ideas don't gain traction, minimizing sunk costs. It's all about anti-fragility. You succeed by identifying and eliminating existential risks until none remain. #venturestudios #startupstudios #venturebuilding

?? ?? ?? Being innovative and being busy rarely if ever coincide. Back in 2020, I faced this tension at Amazon when I was managing a data science and ML team, while also trying to innovate new product and strategies. The result was mostly failure, because I didn't know how to do both at once. Turns out it's not particularly natural for anyone. Since then, I've worked on methods to do this better, and my current process mostly boils down to two elements: time and space. Time: ?? You have to book time for the raw inputs to innovation: research, ideating, experimenting, prototyping, etc. just as if they were meetings. If you don't, your busy work will crowd out all your time. ?? The innovation process is not linear. You can't report on daily progress in standup, so don't bother. Give time for ideas and concepts to wander (and sometimes regress) so you can get to the right place. ?? Recalibrate time-to-value. The broader the innovative idea, the longer it takes to full realizes its value. Set expectations that the benefits of innovation work today won't come for a while, and that's OK. Space: ?? You can't context switch between busy work and ideating multiple times a day. Creating space between the two yields better efficiency in both. My preference is 3-4 hours of "chunk" time for either one. ?? Innovation has its own mandate, as does ops. Juggling both is hard, and impossible if you try to blend them. Keeping innovation workflows separate from daily operations -- splitting teams, processes, physical or digital locations -- mitigates cross-over and dilution. ?? Give yourself the emotional space to fail. It's cliche now to "celebrate failure" but the reality is that it is uncomfortable and stressful no matter how hard you shield against it. Without guardrails on the aversion to failure, innovation regresses back to ops pretty fast. What are your approaches balancing the two? #innovation #innovationmindset https://lnkd.in/eqSsJ4Jk