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!

An invitation-only accelerator that develops industry-leading community engagement and growth via personalized training, coaching, and accountability...all tailored to your company's needs.

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