The Cincinnati startup scene is heating up, and we have identified a worthwhile business opportunity. The B2C segment is doing well under Brandery's leadership, but B2B doesn't have a corollary champion. Our vision is to drive Cincinnati's B2B startup ecosystem.

There is an opportunity to use the "Venture Studio" model pioneered by companies such as Idealab and Betaworks, where we employ a team of product development veterans working in a continuously-operating product lab.

We will follow Eric Ries' Lean Startup and Ash Maurya's Running Lean methodologies closely, which will give us a competitive edge vs. more traditional startup processes, which usually results building products nobody wants and a lot of waste.

I'm happy to announce a new company called Differential, that Tim Metzner, Gerard Sychay, and I have created.

Two biggest problems startups have

We address the two biggest problems startups have: raising money, and finding a great development team.

Services for equity

We work with high-potential startups, taking equity in exchange for services — things like concept validation, experience design, software development, and customer development services.

The team will validate ideas, build MVPs, and then spin winning products out of the lab once venture capital fundraising is possible. We will work closely with Allos Ventures and other investors that have interest in funding B2B businesses.

By offering services for equity, we become aligned with entrepreneurs like a co-founder.

Consulting services

We expect there will be a strong market to acquire our services through more traditional consulting models, so we're establishing a consulting team as well, that utilizes our methodology and will serve as a proving ground for those individuals seeking to get involved in the startup scene.

Gateway to startup ecosystem

Another big goal we have is to provide a gateway to get top developers and designers involved in the startup community, testing them out in the studio, and eventually recruiting them into our portfolio companies.

Call for ideas

We have a list of people who’ve expressed interest in working with us, but we're interested in talking to anyone right now, as we're still finalizing our investment criteria & themes.

Feel free to reach out to one of us if you have an idea you'd like us to consider.