189. The Venture Studio (Scott Dorsey)

Scott Dorsey of High Alpha joins Nick to discuss The Venture Studio. In this episode, we cover: Backstory/ path to tech. The story behind ExactTarget leading up to selling the company for $2.7B to Salesforce. Why'd you launch HighAlpha? Briefly touch on the thesis at High Alpha.  I want to deep dive into the venture studio model as it's a bit misunderstood... Can you start us off with an overview of the venture studio model? What are the key differences between a studio model and a traditional venture fund? Why are you doing both at High Alpha? Different studios have different specialities and focus areas - what is your studio speciality at High Alpha? What types of founders and/or businesses are a strong fit for partnership with a venture studio? What do you say to critics of the studio model that say that studios take too much equity? Do you think that a studio-based approach can drive higher alpha ; ) than the traditional fund model? In what ways do your portfolio companies get more value out of a partnership with you than non-studio-based partners? I was browsing the High Alpha website and came across a passage about one of the core components of your process called “Sprint Week” which states "During Sprint Week, we focus on building the Minimally Viable Business (MVB) including branding, prototyping, and go-to-market strategy” Can you dive into the details of Sprint Week and how it helps your portfolio companies? How do you define product-market-fit? In regards to your partnership program at the firm, I see that not only do you partner with top tech corporations but also leading universities and academic programs. Talk about the benefits of these partnerships for your founders in terms of talent, networks, and technology?   To listen more, please visit http://fullratchet.net/podcast-episodes/ for all of our other episodes. Also, follow us on twitter @TheFullRatchet for updates and more information.