Guide to Being Human
New Look, Same Values
You may have noticed that we recently launched a new and improved website for Human Ventures. We don’t take having “Human” in our name lightly and as we continue to grow and evolve we proudly prioritize staying true to the name and our core values.
For us, more than a new look and feel (which we’re pretty excited about), our new website brings to life the Human Ventures’ philosophy of what cutting-edge company building looks like. Our site tells you the story of how it takes “guts” for a founder to build and an investor to back, industry-changing businesses at the earliest stages.
Everyone wants to invest in the next big idea, but at Human, we believe finding the “next big idea” depends on uncovering the next incredible founder. Our new site highlights the founders and founding teams of our portfolio companies. To date, we have invested in some of the finest Humans leading companies such as Reserve, Clark, Token, Girlboss, Current, and more.
Some ideas for Human companies come from within our Human Workshop. Others come from the entrepreneurs we partner with. Either way, we identify huge opportunities together, prove viability, and build strong teams using a hands-on approach that’s uniquely Human.
These days, the smartest founders are recognizing the power of building their companies with startup studios like ours. Here’s why: Capital alone doesn’t ensure success; it’s the community and ecosystem you create around the company that determines its future. In the studio model, collaboration is the foundation of all we do. Access to our network, our domain experts, our other founders, and our platform is what makes the difference. It’s the Human touch, after all.
When designing our new thumbprint-inspired logo, we set out to capture just that. Founders know they get the Human touch when they partner with us.
In addition to showcasing our portfolio, we’re proud to share what we call ‘Our Guide To Being Human.” These are the six core company values that guide everything we do: Growth, Guts, Resilience, Openness, Collaboration, and Gratitude. Here’s how we approach them:
Growth: Growth is an essential part of being Human. If you’re not out of your comfort zone, you’re not growing. If you’re not growing, you’re not progressing. In this line of work, get used to being out of your comfort zone!
Guts: This business takes courage — the courage to be confident even when you don’t quite feel it, the courage to listen to your intuition, to bet on people, to take big swings, and most importantly to keep at it, even when it seems impossible.
Resilience: The strongest leader isn’t the one who makes the best plans. It’s the one who can watch their plans fall apart, rally the team, and start putting a new plan in place. The best leaders shake-it-off and move onward. “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.”
Openness: Open minds open doors; intellectual diversity leads to better ideas. We go out of our way to welcome people into our space. We strive for intellectual diversity, and we yearn for different opinions and perspectives. We believe good tension is the catalyst for discovery and creating big, important things.
Collaboration: Building on each other’s ideas and learning from others is a key benefit to the studio model. We emphasize being intentional about reaching out to others. Collaboration doesn’t just happen by accident.
Gratitude: We believe in gratitude — showing it, feeling it, living it. We try not to forget how fortunate we are to be doing meaningful work alongside bright, dedicated teammates. Building companies is tough, but with optimism and gratitude, we really can tackle the world’s biggest challenges.
The last one really strikes a chord with me and is one you rarely see on a list of company values. We like to work with teams that have an “attitude of gratitude.” If you are a truly grateful person, chances are you have an outlook on life that we want to build alongside. Building companies takes an unreasonable amount of work and there is not one single thing easy about it, but at the end of the day, we want to build with others who are truly grateful to be doing the rewarding work that they do.
Join Us:
If the values above resonate with you and you’re ready to head into 2018 with guts, ‘yes, and…’ and more, we’re eager to meet you. We invite anyone thinking to start their next company or join an early stage team to complete the form on our Join Us page. Tell us about what drives you and what challenge you’re looking for next.
