The Venture Builder Guide

An open guide for people who want to launch a startup studio.

About twice a week, someone asks OSS Ventures some version of the same question: how do I launch my own studio? Founders, academics studying the model and investors weighing a bet on one all ask it. After explaining the same things on call after call, I wrote the answers down in a public Notion guide. It is a living document that grows as new questions come in. It is one honest opinion among the many ways to succeed, and it is not financial advice.

It starts with a definition: a studio is an organization that builds companies with some lasting edge that dramatically improves their odds of success, and it profits from the value created in those companies. Every word does work. It is an organization, not a project. It builds, rather than advising or picking stocks. Its edge belongs to the organization and grows over time: a network of co-builders, user research that can be reused, a shared tech stack. A great team or a strong brand is not an edge. The improvement should be about 10x better than the alternative. And it earns from the assets, not by charging its startups for services, which would make it a consulting firm with very different incentives.

The other chapters are practical. They look at the studios I most admire: Sutter Hill Ventures, Cyberstarts, Flagship Pioneering and Betaworks, each built on assets that turn its bets into self-fulfilling prophecies. They compare financial models: an agency that mixes consulting with building, a dual model with a fund next to the studio, or a pure player. If I could change one thing at OSS, it would be starting with the dual structure. Other chapters cover how to value a studio, how to find founders (second-time founders after a modest exit fit best, a 12-week trial period ends in a go or no-go decision, and founders are not paid a salary), and how to fund one. The short answer to funding is “with great difficulty”: build a track record first, and expect family offices and wealthy individuals to be the natural investors, not traditional funds. The guide also links to the OSS methodology, which we open-sourced.

Milestones

• 2025 — Wrote down the answers to recurring “how do I launch a studio?” calls.
• 2026 — New questions keep getting answered in the living document.

Sources

• Notion — So you want to build a Venture builder :)