Jan Rezab

The Neighborhood Studios team spent the last few days thinking about our new idea pipeline and its output. Tons of thoughts on this after being in a venture studio for 2 years. Here are some summary stats... - 1,750 new (raw) ideas considered per year. - 110 of those are given a second glance. - 66 of those are seriously considered. - 10 of those become experiments...real products in the hands of customers. - 2 of those are spun-out into studio companies. What the studio team has been discussing over the past few days is that 66 number. That's the number of ideas that 3 people on the team can dig into every year. Venture studios can be perceived as a "startup factory"...an engine to launch startups. The reality is that venture studios are a machine to invalidate ideas. We invalidate many more ideas than we validate. We touch 1,750 ideas per year, seriously dive into 66 of them, build experiments for 10 of them and only launch 2 of them. All that work turns into 2 studio companies per year that have a way higher success rate than the average startup in the wild. Said another way...startups are hard. Talk with Tapan Patel Gabe Hart Whit Anderson IV Jonathan Brinson if you wanna talk about this. They are world class.

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Entering the Post-ZIRP, venture-capital-winter years. Thanks TechCrunch for this great summary of the macro economic context of #VC emerging managers.

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Pretty excited about this one - a team with a remarkable track record across top DeFi protocols, propelled by a clear & effective go to market strategy. The result? Over $300 million in TVL and $2 billion in trading volume within just a few short months. ___________________________ As Blast was gearing up for its launch, the market was flooded with over a dozen different spot and perpetual DEXes seeking funding. At the time, Blast had already achieved over $2 billion in TVL and we anticipated they would launch various mainnet incentives to maintain liquidity within the protocol. Our aim was to identify the team most capable of capturing the majority of mindshare and swap volume from the $2 billion+ of captive liquidity in the ~3 months leading up to the Blast token generation event (TGE). Consequently, we engaged in several discussions and reviewed numerous pitches to better understand how the DEX competition might unfold. We were particularly impressed by the Thruster team and their strategy to attract early attention and liquidity through focused partnerships and integrations. ___________________________ At Futureproof, we invest our own capital, which can sometimes be seen as a limitation in the venture capital space. We do not write overly large checks and cannot invest in all the deals that come our way. However, this constraint sharpens our investment focus. Ultimately, it leads us to invest in those we believe are best positioned to dominate their respective niches, rather than just securing a competitive position. High conviction, high hit rate... betting on the fastest horse. Thruster is exactly that - winning, growing and showing zero signs of slowing down. We can't wait to support them as they staff up and double down on their winning formula to integrate Thruster products and liquidity into other top protocols across DeFi, NFTFi and beyond.

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Is there a future for generative #AI in the #music industry? According to this article by MIT Technology Review, it might be too expensive to be worth pursuing. Last week, two major AI music startups, Suno and Udio were both sued by numerous major record labels under the claim that the companies’ #copyrighted music is used in the learning data “at an almost unimaginable scale,” giving the AI tools ability to imitate many copyrighted artists, and songs. YouTube is finding their own niche in the AI music market by offering incentive for users to add to their pool of music. The stakes are higher for AI music — music in the public domain is sparse and not exactly trendy to current listeners. I highly recommend the full article to get the most perspective, but in my opinion aside from the well discussed concerns about generative AI’s place in #artistic mediums, I don’t think Suno nor Udio have a case in their favor. These apps are much more “imitative” than generative, and don’t really have an ability yet to make music that is “new” or at least doesn’t heavily borrow from existing works. But what do you all take away from this case? Is this an honest mistake from two startups, or is all AI music bound to repeat the same mistakes? I’d be open to rear what the broad consensus is.

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The #VentureStudio community is thriving and when two leaders from different studios get together it is always going to be a great conversation. This podcast is huge as two brilliant Venture Studio leaders Barry O'Reilly from Nobody Studios and Ben Yoskovitz from Highline Beta join to unpack the innovative world of venture studios and uncover the strategies that make startups thrive. In this episode, you will learn: 📈 The fundamentals of creating and scaling a venture studio 🛠️ Strategies for innovating with accelerators, incubators, and venture capital 💡 How to apply Lean Startup principles to build products people actually want 🤝 The importance of collaboration between founders, corporate partners, and investors 🔄 Insights into the specialization and future trends of venture studios Take a listen and learn from two masters.

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Join us August 1 for our 3rd Annual Web3 Investor Day. We once again bring over 200+ asset allocators, venture capitalists, and web3 innovators to assess the transitions today driving the changes tomorrow. Thank you for our partners in joining us this year - a curated group of industry leaders building adoption of blockchain innovations. Brian Walls and Keith Johnson of Bridge Alternatives have the energy and passion to bring together capital providers and technologists to accelerate innovation. Dean Marks and Keating Crown of Sterling Bay design and build the physical spaces such that innovation ideas flourish, across teams and borders. Bob Harazin of Grayscale Investments is leading the forefront of publicly traded products that enable investors access to digital assets. Jan-Dirk Lueders and Sam Hallene of CMT Digital are top investors in blockchain technologies and digital assets ventures, drawing on their decades of experience in ventures, trading and regulatory to advance our industry. Michael Frisch and Paige Bolinger of Croke Fairchild Duarte & Beres are legal thought leaders in the evolving landscape of regulatory, financing and governance in digital assets. Jay Kolbe and Philip Robertson Impact Partners form the narratives for family offices, venture investors and web3 companies at the frontiers of innovation, crafting their stories that are relatable to the mainstream audiences. Stephen Vlasak of Richey May provides the world class technology risk and audit management for our industry across the patchwork of evolving special situations innovation entails. Gary Newlin and Patrick Clancy of MG Stover LLC streamline the fund administration processes across liquid and illiquid digital assets for investment managers to focus on their investment alpha in web3. Srinivas Dhulipala of New Form Capital deploys his decades of financing trading markets to today's crypto markets with liquid strategies that fuel this innovation cycle. Join us and many others to understand and build the future of our Internet.

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New World of DaaS drop! 🎙️ Attention economy, freedom of the press, and the future of media with Chris Best, Substack CEO We dive into content monetization, AI creative tools, and why subscriptions are underrated.

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Something big is brewing in the venture studio world... 🎙️🎥 Imagine a media network dedicated solely to venture studios. We're talking: Deep dives with top-performing studios and LPs 360° looks at studio ecosystems Insider strategies from industry experts Spotlights on emerging players We're crafting something special that will bring you closer to the action than ever before. Two unique podcast formats are in the works, and we're exploring partnerships that could take this to a whole new level. Can't say too much yet, but trust me – this is going to be a game-changer for anyone in the venture studio space. What kind of content would you most want to see from a venture studio media network? Your input could shape what we're building! #VentureStudio #ComingSoon #StartupInsights

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This weeks episode was excellent. NIA. https://lnkd.in/dCXpNZxe

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It is the best and worst of times, it is the age of wisdom and foolishness... Transformation is accelerating in Gaming, by many of the disruptive technologies of today: #AI, #web3 tokens, blockchain and on-chain gaming. The latest from Colleen Sullivan at Brevan Howard Digital -

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🚀 AlleyCorp Closes $250M Fund to Fuel Tech Innovation in NYC and Beyond🗽 🌟 Founded by NYC internet entrepreneur Kevin Ryan, AlleyCorp incubates and invests in transformative companies across diverse verticals including Diversified Technology, Healthcare, Robotics, and Impact. 💡💰 🤝 The fund, backed by a select group of LPs, supports AlleyCorp's mission to originate ideas, hire teams, provide initial funding, and maintain integral leadership throughout the company’s lifecycle. 🌱🔍 💼 With about 20–30 new investments and 5–8 incubations per year, AlleyCorp has a track record of nurturing early-stage tech pioneers. 📈🌐 🦄 Notable investments include MongoDB (NASDAQ: MDB), Business Insider, Gilt Groupe, Zola, and Nomad Health, shaping the landscape of tech innovation in NYC. 🌆🌟 🔬 AlleyCorp also announces the incubation of Radical AI, pioneering AI-driven materials design, and Conduce Health, revolutionizing access to personalized healthcare specialists. 💻🏥 ✅ Looking to raise capital for your #fund and increase the international pool of your LP #investors?   🤝 Need warm #LP introductions?   📝 Selling #secondaries to increase liquidity?   🧐 Looking for co-investments?   ▶ G+QUANT's link for inquiries and fund decks: https://lnkd.in/gjC_EuTE #VentureCapital #TechInnovation #NYCTech #StartupInvestment #Incubation #AlleyCorp #ImpactInvesting #HealthTech #AI #Robotics #DiversifiedTechnology #InvestmentStrategy

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As an "in the prime of life" startup founder, I often get asked how I handle the pressure and stress related to running a startup - especially considering I've ran at least one startup through every adult decade of my life! Given I'm leading a video-first startup, I felt the best way to do that was start recording some candid thoughts and tips about my day-to-days. #madebyaugie

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This week I had the privilege to interview Noosheen Hashemi, the founder of January AI , and learn how she acquired her First 100. Listen to the Full Episode on: https://lnkd.in/dCuZv77F If you like the podcast, please subscribe and support us on your favorite podcast players. We would also appreciate your feedback and rating so that we can reach more people. We recently launched our new newsletter, Principles Friday, where I share one principle that can help you in your life or business, one thought-provoking question, and one call to action toward that principle. If you like our content, please subscribe Here. hadiradwan.substack.com

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New Zealand AI tech going global! JEN AI just released their music generation platform. Take a listen Dr. Alex WANG and the Futureverse team has done a great job here. I see this being the defacto background music for videos and video games. David M. great work putting those GPU clusters to work. By creating an account you get 300 credits, enough to generate 150+ clips. Here are three prompts to get you started: 1. "Vintage jazz lounge, classic standards, smooth trumpet solos, upright bass" 2. "Chillwave electronic, ambient textures, slow-tempo, reverb-heavy vocals, and a dreamy synth backdrop" 3. "Minimal techno, repetitive beats, subtle progression, hypnotic rhythms, and a deep, underground feel" Try it out here: https://app.jenmusic.ai/

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20 hours in and Hoyo's formidable craftsmanship is on full display with ZZZ. ⭐1.0 release pool of 16 characters. Hoyo games have always prioritized quality over quantity, leaning instead on deep systems to enable diverse team comps / fun theorycrafting. Interestingly, Wuthering Waves also launched with the same # of characters in its 1.0 pool. I'm personally a big fan of this approach, and hope to see more games adopt it going forward. ⭐Female to male character ratio of 3:1. HSR currently stands at ~2:1 and Genshin at ~1.7:1. Every faction shown so far has only 1 male char. Surprising given Hoyo's recent titles have focused more on the "mainstream anime" audience instead of catering only to the core otaku audience. Very happy to see Hoyo honoring its roots here. They cooked and core fans are going to be very pleased with all of the fanservice (e.g. cinema artwork, main menu char selection, etc.). ⭐C6 / Cinema artwork is... IYKYK. They clearly tested it with HSR and are fully leaning into it with ZZZ. Congrats to all you Grace C6 havers. They knew exactly what they were doing. ⭐First Hoyo game with dedicated furries / anthropomorphic races. Ellen, Ben, and Von Lycaon are all very compelling characters. Wakayama Shion does such a fantastic job as Ellen's VA. Hoyo absolutely nailed the launch banner here. ⭐Just like other Hoyo games, ZZZ is more "casual" than it is "core." It doesn't demand much of your time as a single player live service title. For me it's the perfect side game that I can see myself spending 1-2 hours per week on. I don't expect everyone to like it (might be too "easy" for core gamers), but it's a winning formula that Hoyo has perfected for its target audience. ⭐One of Hoyo's underrated special talents is making "core" genres widely accessible from a gameplay standpoint across all platforms. ZZZ plays flawlessly on mobile, PC, and console without diluting the experience at all. Everything from the simplified switching system to the flat level design was intentional to make it incredibly accessible even for someone who has never played action games before. This is something really only Hoyo is capable of pulling off with such finesse. ⭐Really digging the comic / manga style storytelling. Glad to see Hoyo continue to innovate on how it delivers its stories and really looking forward to seeing more of this. ⭐Hoyo's investments into its music / animation departments are really paying off. The release trailer for ZZZ is Hoyo's best yet and their character drip marketing is perfected to the point where I'm basically forced to pull on every banner. In many ways, Hoyo is slowly becoming the Apple of the gaming industry, and their IPs are rapidly expanding the audience for gacha and anime on a global scale. I'm honestly humbled. Shut up and take my money... #zenlesszonezero

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RALLY Demo Arena applications are open! Friends don't let friends go it alone! Stoked about the Demo Arena this year. Rally moved 4 stages into the Demo Arena (to create even more density for Creative Convergence), added a Demo Stage for exhibiting companies, coffee bar, 1:1 rapid fire meetings, lounges and more. If you are, or know, a company that is looking for investment, talent or customers you won't want to miss this. Stories keep rolling in from last year of companies that found investors and have now closed rounds, added talent to their teams and met prospects that are now customers. Applications are now open and there are options that fit any company: Poster session https://tally.so/r/meBJX0   Space selection based on early birds. https://lnkd.in/gbs9HjHG Startup Alley https://tally.so/r/npLxGq 10x10 https://tally.so/r/w7dlWR 20x20 https://tally.so/r/w7dlWR   See you there!

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The biggest updates coming to Apple’s iMessage and its Messages app in iOS 18 aren’t its AI emoji, Genmoji, or even the ability to send texts via satellite. It’s the ability to finally, finally schedule messages to send at a later date and time, as well as support for RCS, the next-gen messaging standard and replacement for SMS that will make texting with Android folks much less painful. These updates are now available in iOS 18’s public beta, which just opened up this week.

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