The Venture Studio Flywheel

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• A Playbook 🧰: You get a tool from a top entrepreneur or investor. Use it to start a business, grow yours faster, or get promoted.

• The Money Guide 💰: Guests share 1 business opportunity you can pounce on, how they make money, and their investment strategy to build wealth.

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Hey, hey!! 👋

Today I will show you how Jesse Pujji built a start-up studio flywheel that launches 3 companies a year.

One of the best ways to build material wealth is by owning equity in companies. Each company is like a lottery ticket - the more you have, the better your odds of winning.

The challenge is most people aren’t flexible enough to delegate responsibility and share the upside of their business ideas. But if you are…this could be the plan for you.

"Holy Shit! They want it" - Jesse

In 3 minutes, you’re going to learn:

• A framework to spot mega-trends and inflection points

• How to test business ideas cheaply

• The 5-Part Venture Studio Playbook

• When you know you’ve got a winning idea

• How Jesse invests his money

Jesse Pujji - Printing Lottery Tickets With A Venture Studio Flywheel:

In 2010, Jesse founded Ampush, which was one of the first companies to crack the code for direct response marketing on Facebook.

The result?

The company grew to over 100 employees, managed over $1 Billion of digital media spend, and partnered with Dollar Shave Club, Uber, Birchbox, and Hulu.

Jesse used the wins from Ampush to launch his Venture Studio and holding company Gateway X, which builds both B2C and B2B companies.

In 2021, Gateway X launched Growth Assistant, Kahani, and Unbloat.

The key to Jesse’s success?

A systematic process to identify the right problem in the right market and finding top talent to partner with.

Let’s unpack Jesse’s process.

The 5-Step Venture Studio Playbook

Here’s the step-by-step process to get started:

1. Look for megatrends & inflection points.

2. Identify problems and solutions

3. Filter ideas based on opportunity, capability, and passion

4. Minimal viable testing

5. Find amazing talent, then incentivize & empower them.

Let’s dig in!

Step 1: Look For Mega Trends & Inflection Points

A megatrend or inflection point happens when a transformation occurs - a few things often drive this:

• New Technology (e.g., mobile, IoT, crypto, autonomous driving)

• Consumer behavior (e.g., short-form video, intermittent fasting)

• Regulation & Policy (e.g., marijuana legalization)

Here are a few examples:

• Example 1: Future of work - the nature of work is going to be very different in 2025 than it was in 2015. Remote work will increase. There will be more contract workers.

This is what Jesse did for Kahani, his most recent startup.

• Example 2: Short Form Video - Consumers spend more time on social media. Short-form video is the new way people like to consume their favorite content.

Step 2: Identify Problems & Solutions

You have a megatrend. Now you want to get curious and ask questions. “What problems or challenges occur from these trends, and what are all the ways you could solve them?”

List out the challenges and problems from these trends and begin theorizing solutions.

Example 1: Future of Work (now ask questions & get curious): There will be thousands of contract workers.

• How do they get healthcare? Could there be some third-party health insurance platform?

• How will they get feedback from their clients? Could there be a new software tool that helps high-performing contractors better manage feedback from their clients?

Example 2: Short Form Video (now ask questions & get curious): Consumers Prefer Short-Form Video

• Websites have been the same for decades. Why does the short-form video concept stop once they leave the platform? Could we integrate short-form videos into eCommerce websites?

Step 3: Filter By Opportunity, Capability, & Passion

Ok, now you have some problems and solutions. It’s time to prioritize an idea.

Here are some questions you need to answer:

• What unique advantage do I have in starting this business?

• Are well-funded competitors already doing this well?

• Do customers even want this?

• Am I even excited about this?

Example 1: Future of Work -> Contractor Feedback Software

Jesse asked himself, “Why me? What unfair advantage do I have in starting this business?”

He concluded that he didn’t have one.

But it was very different with Kahani.

Example 2: Kahani -> Jesse knows eCommerce players. Understand conversion optimization. He can make 10 phone calls and have 10 customers test the product.

Step 4: Minimal Viable Test

Your goal is to validate the idea as cheaply as possible.

The first thing Jesse built took him less than a month. He just put circles in the header of a website that linked to different sections of an eCommerce store.

His first test asked one question - “Will people engage with this?”

The answer was, “Holy shit. Yes, they do.”

They kept iterating and improving the product - each time validating something new. They saw some exciting information::

• time on site was double

• The average revenue procession was over 50%

• The average order value went up.

At that point, they decided to raise money from venture capitalists. Up until that point, they'd spent $200,000 on the business.

Step 5: Find Amazing Talent

If you want to build multiple companies, you have to become amazing at hiring a CEO. You cannot run them all.

If you do this right, you can have a few touchpoints with a company each month but leave the heavy lifting and day-to-day operations to trusted partners.

For Kahani, Jesse decided he was the right person to lead the business.

But for Growth Assistant, an offshore staffing company Jesse co-founded, he partnered with Adriane Schwager (a recent guest on the pod).

Adriane had 10+ years building people systems at a high-performing hedge fund. She was the perfect person to lead this business. She took the business from $0 to $5M in 17 months.

This Weeks Money Guide 💰: Ideas to grow your wealth and income

Investment Strategy 📈

Jesse is a big believer in compounding. Just because a concept is simple does not mean people understand its application. Jesse uses compounding as a lens for every money move he makes as a wealth growth strategy.

As they say “99% of Warren Buffett's net worth was earned after his 50th birthday.” Meaning that a large number, when compounded, grows incredibly quickly.

Income Vehicles: 

Capital light cash-flow business generated by his venture studio Gateway X. Rather than always looking for an exit, cash flow business can be a powerful way to stack distributions.

The Markets:

• Index Funds - Classic dollar cost averaging depending on compounding over long periods relying on historical returns of the market.

• Individual Stock Picks - Jesse looks for companies with the potential for compounding growth over time. He’ll pick a small handful and double down. Right now, he is long-term bullish on Shopify. He believes it has massive growth potential as the dominant player in eCommerce.

I hope this got you thinking. See you next week!