They call themselves "Nobodies," but the talented team at Nobody Studios, (https://nobodystudios.com/) is seeking to transform the startup world with its Crowd InfusedTM approach to venture building, wealth creation, and global impact.
Nobody Studios' mission is an audacious one: to create 100 compelling companies over the next five years-and it's working.
A venture studio headquartered in Los Angeles, with global teams stretching from New York to London, Tel Aviv, and Manila, Nobody Studios is proving to be a high-velocity company creation machine ready to shake up the startup world and venture investing.
The company has recently partnered with Republic, (https://republic.com/nobody-studios), a leading private investment platform, to implement its Crowd InfusedTM approach to venture investing by being one of the first venture studios to offer equity crowdfunding and make early-stage company ownership accessible to all.
"Nobody Studios is pioneering the future for venture building, investing, and ownership. We've built a business to create startups at a velocity and scale never seen before-and believe everyone should have the opportunity to ideate, contribute and own a part of it with us," said Nobody Studios Chief Nobody (or CEO), Mark S. McNally.
Nobody Studios is building companies faster and leaner by leveraging the power of their crowd to reduce time and cost to market by 40% and achieve a company success rate to twice that of traditional startups.
"Being Crowd InfusedTM means embracing our crowd of Nobodies at every stage of the company creation process. Be that helping us identify innovative ideas, as early adopters of our products, even funding the studio through equity crowdfunding via Republic.
We know our unfair advantage is the talent we've attracted to this journey, and thousands more about to join us. We're already having a massive cultural and social impact on how startups are built forever," said Barry O'Reilly, chief incubation officer at Nobody Studios.
The numbers are also starting to support how venture studios are drastically outperforming traditional venture capitalists. Startup studios on average have a 53% investment return rate compared to 21% for traditional VCs. Interestingly, studios' time from zero to Series A funding is half that of our traditional startups too, 25 months as compared to 56.
"Being a venture studio offers us a unique set of superpowers that traditional venture vehicles are unable to provide, plus others we have created by leveraging our Crowd InfusedTM Nobodies for better results," said McNally.
Examples of the key benefits of Nobody Studios' venture studio model include:
- Ability to pause, merge, even split companies in their portfolio to migrate risk and unlock value.
- Engage their global network of Nobodies to ideate, test, and launch businesses all over the world leveraging their existing networks, relationships, and localized business knowledge.
- Attract world-class talent by giving contributors greater ownership of the early-stage businesses they help get off the ground.
- Instantly diversify investors' risks by not just owning a piece of Nobody Studios, but as shareholders, each investor financially benefits from every company the Studio creates forever!
- More frequent returns, due to more frequent exits of its portfolio companies, and greater wealth creation for every Nobody involved in the Studio.
Yet it's the company's inclusive culture and values that set it apart. Sejal Thakker, chief culture officer at Nobody Studios, highlighted how, "Everybody is welcome to be a Nobody and contribute to the next great company we are building. We thrive on the passion of entrepreneurs and guide our daily decisions by our core pillars."
These include:
Capital and time efficiency - Focusing on being frugal and aggressive -- FrugressiveTM -- to quickly validate repeatable, scalable business models before significant venture investment.
People-first paradigm - It's at the core of everything they do and works by
everyone holding themselves accountable to act with integrity.
Transparency - The key to their insights and growth. They share all their development and product decisions, mistakes, and lessons learned in the open. This helps the company save time and energy by learning through the team approach.
Harnessing the power of the crowd - This is accomplished through leveraging crowdfunding, crowd co-creation, and crowd guidance to build businesses for the future.
The speed of trust - They have developed credible systems to guide quick decisions and empower ingenuity with minimal discussion, review, and bureaucracy.
Global perspective - This includes introducing their companies into markets that others shy away from, recruiting talent and building high-performing teams anywhere in the world, and looking for opportunities and partnerships in regions that are underserved, and ripe for innovation.
"Nobody Studios' vision is far bigger than any one person, which is why we refer to ourselves as Nobodies, and why we're motivated to share our mission with the world," McNally said.
"The key to our creativity and power is that ideas are welcome from anyone, anywhere, at any time. So, our studio must be dedicated to fostering a safe environment for all to thrive and be heard. As counterintuitive as it may sound, by checking our egos at the door, we are ensuring our legacies and the mark that we will leave on the world," said Min Bhogaita, managing director of the IdeaLab at Nobody Studios.
With a bold vision and brave leadership, it's no wonder the caliber of people being attracted to Nobody Studios.
Nobodies already included top executives from prestigious companies such as Amazon, American Airlines, Facebook, Google, Skype, Stripe, Coca-Cola, and Volkswagen. Their Hospitality Board alone is chaired by the former chairman and CEO of Mohegan Sun Hotel and Casino, and other leading entertainment entrepreneurs. There's even five international best-selling authors and Nobodies ready to share the Nobody Studios story with the world.
This added to a team of 100 employees and consultants with 40-plus startups that have amassed more than $5 billion in company exits and $9 billion in IPO makes Nobody Studios a formidable force to be reckoned with.
So with this mix of talent, what are some of the 14 companies they're working on in various stages of development? A preview of their intriguing companies includes:
ThoughtForma - An intelligent no-code platform that empowers entrepreneurs to bring their ideas to market in minutes, and which was used to create another studio startup, Ovationz.
Ovationz - A virtual event and talent marketplace led by Ray Leonard, Jr., which helps speakers and other talents to book and participate in virtual engagements for as little as 15 minutes, as early as tomorrow, with a few clicks of a button.
Webdelics - Described as the "WebMD of Psychedelics," the leading content site provides education about the future of alternative plant-based medicines for mental health, addiction, anxiety, depression, and PTSD.
Parentipity - A parent creator community with contributors being rewarded for the content they share-including tips and tricks to care for their children- and getting paid while doing it.
"To accomplish our goal of 100 companies in five years (and many more in the following years), we'll need a tremendous amount of talent, influence, and capital," said Tiffany Hansen, vice president of operations at Nobody Studios. "And we want to give everyone the opportunity to be part of it."
"We truly believe we're doing something right, that has never been done before," said McNally. "If we stay humble, ideate radically, and execute intensely, we're positive this will be the kind of adVenture you'll tell your grandkids about."
