ARTICLE

John Vrionis on a New Approach to Venture Capital and Building Businesses

by | Sun 20 Sep 2020

We are all familiar with the venture capital model: invest money into a company, provide advice and guidance to help them succeed, and work towards a positive exit. Unusual Ventures are taking a very different approach.

Unusual focus on embedding members of their team into their portfolio companies to help deliver results, build in internal skills, and better support their companies. They also provide practical field guides, a complete training academy, and other supporting services.

It is an interesting and…well, unusual…model, and I am thrilled to bring John Vrionis, co-founder of Unusual Ventures onto Conversations With Bacon to dig into this new approach.

We explore:

  • What is broken in the current venture model, and how Unusual are hoping to fix it.
  • The role and development of content, their field guides, and how they are developed and evolved.
  • How the many different components of a vision are balanced and prioritized.
  • The importance of hiring good people.
  • How the venture capital community has reacted to this new model.
  • The impact of COVID-19 on startups.
  • The evolution of remote work and how sustainable it is in businesses.
  • The balance of empowering your employees while also being able to make decisions.
  • The changing power dynamics in venture capital and business, especially as it relates to diversity.
  • …and much more…

This was a really interesting and deep conversation, and we covered a lot of ground. Be sure to check it out!

Communities are changing the way we do business. Discover a concrete framework for building powerful, productive communities and integrating them into your business. My new book, ‘People Powered: How communities can supercharge your business, brand, and teams’, is out now, available in Audible, Hardcover, and Kindle formats.

Thank you to always rocking Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for mixing the show!

Discover a private community development accelerator that delivers community results faster with coaching, training, and 1-on-1 support...

Want to read some more?

5 Things I Would Do To Fix Twitter

5 Things I Would Do To Fix Twitter

So, Elon Musk has purchased Twitter. I don't really want to get into the politics of whether this is a good or bad thing (other people are already debating this), but it got me thinking about what needs fixing in Twitter. There is little doubt that Twitter has a...

Should you use Facebook Groups for Your Community?

Should you use Facebook Groups for Your Community?

Yeah...yeah...I get it...Facebook... ...even people who use Facebook don't seem to be huge fans of Facebook as a company...but let's put that to one side for a moment. Thousands of companies, interest groups, support groups and more use Facebook Groups every single...

How Developers Stay up to Date in 2022

How Developers Stay up to Date in 2022

Developers are a really important demographic for a lot of companies. Front-end, back-end, QA, cloud architects, mobile devs...every tech company needs clarity on how to engage with developers. But...how do you know how developers like to stay up to date? How can you...

How Developers Consume Content in 2022

How Developers Consume Content in 2022

Developers are in high-demand for technical companies and communities, but getting developer attention is harder than ever before... ...so, a lot of companies and communities create enormous amounts of content to attract developers...but a lot of it doesn't get any...

How to Deal with Internet Trolls

How to Deal with Internet Trolls

Did you know that 5.6% of people self-identify as Internet trolls? This isn't particularly surprising...but there is a broader challenge... ...I believe that a much larger group of people are not Internet trolls...but they are generally anti-social when online. This...

Dean Baratta On Intelligence and Security

Dean Baratta On Intelligence and Security

Dean Baratta comes on to talk about his fascinating career in working in intelligence, security, and protection. Communities are changing the way we do business. Discover a concrete framework for building powerful, productive communities and integrating them into your...