Sarah Drinkwater

Productizing venture means taking everything that venture capitalists do — from sourcing companies to evaluating companies to adding value to founders — and using software or networks to do it better.

First, most emerging firms raise small funds. Smaller funds generally outperform, as they can participate meaningfully in early rounds and a single outlier has the potential to generate strong fund-level performance, even if the fund is only able to garner modest ownership.

Since last summer, a start-up in beta mode has been soliciting volunteers to take part in 55-minute sessions called “gathers,” where strangers discuss their deepest hopes and fears. The fledgling company, Peoplehood, is led by the entrepreneurs Elizabeth Cutler and Julie Rice, who combined sweat and spirituality in their last venture, the high-end... See more

A third big issue in the venture industry is that most modern venture firms have broken incentive structures that misalign outcomes between GPs and LPs.