The Venture Studio MBA Internship Search Guide
Figure out if a venture studio is the right summer experience for you.
What is a venture studio?
Venture studios set out to identify opportunities in the market to create businesses, and they create those businesses. Note they are sometimes also referred to as startup studios.
What’s the different between a venture studio, accelerator, venture capital firm, and everything else?
- Unlike VC firms, venture studios have an operating component where they incubate businesses.
- Unlike incubators, venture studios also typically have an investment component.
- Accelerators like Y Combinator have programming that accelerate the progress of an already formed business.
- Finally, unlike DIY, venture studios provide a network of advisors, potential co-founders, financing, and resources.
What’s the benefit of a venture studio for an entrepreneur?
People have built businesses without venture studios for a long time — so it’s not a requisite by any means. Think about your own network, background, financial situation, and expertise area now. Depending on all of that, a venture studio could dramatically increase the chances of your success. It also might not because you already have these things!
- Resources: Accounting, finance, human resources, etc. This stuff matters and not having to worry about it helps.
- Investment: Having someone lined up to fund your seed stage is nice, isn’t it?
- Advising: A network of advisors dedicated to your success.
- Network: Other entrepreneurs in and outside of your program that you’ll be able to connect with.
Borrowing from Eric Schneider’s post, the Global Startup Studio Network analyzed over 250 startups that came out of studios. The data implies that startups created by studios have higher IRR and produce better outcomes.
What is the downside of venture studios?
This is both a pro and con, but you typically need to get your idea approved by the larger partnership. Overall, this probably leads you to building a better company than you would’ve otherwise. However, if the studio has a specific theme or business model they index towards, you might feel limited.
Additionally, all of these benefits don’t come for free. Venture studios often take a lot of equity, which limits the upside for the CEO and executive team. Because the studio takes equity due to their upfront investment, it can mean a decay in ownership for the management team which provides weaker incentives.
Who is it good for?
Future founders and people who want to build businesses from their most vulnerable moments.
You must have enthusiastic interest in:
- Venture capital
- Starting companies
- Startups
What do venture studio interns do?
Depends on the company, of course. However, the big benefit of a venture studio is getting the unique blend of investment and operating. You’ll hone skills in spotting opportunities and building companies. Pretty cool, right?
Typically what interns do is support companies that the studio is currently incubating. You’ll be on the cutting room floor helping with anything from landing page testing to pitch deck formation, go to market strategy and customer discovery. Just like the experience of starting a business, this is unpredictable, dynamic, and unstructured. I think Eric Schneider’s post with 25madison gives a great view into a day in the life.
- Discuss incubation ideas
- Work directly with founders
- Go to market strategy
- Sales forecasting
- Customer discovery
- Investment calls
- You name it…
Something to consider is the duration of your internship. Building a company is hard work and while you can make significant progress over a summer, you might not intimately see each stage of company building. Be sure to understand what the companies under incubation are. If you have specific stages you want to focus on (ideation, validation, product-market fit, scaling), make sure you can get that exposure!
I’m sold — do you have a list of venture studios?
Sure do. This is not an exhaustive list, but gives you a place to start.
- Map of venture studios around the world — highly recommend clicking into this!
- 25madison
- Atomic
- AlleyCorp
- Pioneer Square Labs
- Inovia
- Science
- FJ Labs
- Create
- Interplay
- Juxtapose NYC
- Betaworks
- XRC labs
- Expa
- Oxoeon
- Pre Hype
- Newlab
- Material
The venture studio recruiting must-knows
Timeline
These follow a similar timeline to VC recruiting, but perhaps a touch earlier. Here’s what you should know:
- Fall: Create your target list and do networking. Some studios recruit on campuses, but don’t rely on this.
- December: Clean up resume and your story. Some roles might be posted this month.
- January: Roles start to get posted in earnest. Start applying ASAP. Many of these are rolling. Network your way in to get your name noticed (LinkedIn cold messages and reference emails are effective here)
- February: Interviews, applications, interviews, applications
- March: Offers
Where they post roles
Also similar to VC recruiting, it’s a patchwork. Starting in the fall, you need to be on top of your target firms to become aware when a role is posted. Subscribe to their newsletters, constantly check their website every week, follow their Mediums, and follow them on Twitter. It’s unlikely these roles will be posted through any MBA career account, so don’t wait for it!
The interview process
It’s pretty straightforward.
- Application and cover letter
- First round screener call
- Take home project: Typically a market opportunity analysis or investment opportunity that they give you some direction for and you have about a week to complete
- Final round presentation
How to prepare for questions
They are going to be evaluating you as if you were a founder. This means that there is no predictable set of questions for these interviews. This is why it is so essential to be genuinely passionate about this path. Be prepared to answer questions in the following categories:
- Operating experiences
- Team building ethos
- Leadership principles
- Evaluating early stage investments
- Past work experiences
- Your motivations for being a founder
- What you like to do for fun
- Startup metrics
- Unit economics
- …and more
What could be a substitute for venture studios?
Obviously this depends on your past experiences and what skills you’re looking to acquire. If you’re focused on being a founder, think about the spectrum of skills that will increase the chances of your success. Some other amazing options that aren’t venture studios could be:
Venture capital: Become an expert in how investors spot and evaluate opportunities. Plus, you hopefully get to work with exceptional founders.
Accelerator programs from your school: If you have a startup idea that you want to work on full time, this is an excellent option. If you’re at NYU, we have many of these! Check out Summer Launchpad and Stern Venture Fellows.
Early stage operating: If you want to get experience in a specific industry or role, this is obviously a great option. Say you want to start a company in Health Tech but have no background in the industry, joining an early stage startup will be a great way to learn about that space. If you’re a Stern MBA, talk to Stern’s Office of Career Development to see how SternWorks can help sponsor your startup summer!
