High Alpha Studio

Kristian Andersen: We started High Alpha with a belief, as trite as it might sound, that entrepreneurship is just a powerful force for creating change. It can change communities, the lives of individuals, families, even entire industries. It was our belief after spending many, many years starting, scaling, exiting, investing in startups that there was a real opportunity to build a model that surrounds founders with all of the resources they need in order to build breakout businesses. We've partnered with founders to launch companies in cities as diverse as Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Austin, Philadelphia, New York City, even Greenville, South Carolina. We love the people who start startups, and when we were designing this business, that was really a priority for us. We really thought about what's most important to us in the next chapter of our lives, and it was working with entrepreneurs, supporting entrepreneurs and helping them avoid, maybe some of the speed bumps and potholes and blind corners that we had had to contend with when we were building our businesses. A unique aspect to our business model is that we operate what's essentially a startup studio that builds alongside founders to launch new venture scale companies. In addition to that, we operate a venture fund. We invest in our own companies, and it's one of our unique advantages when somebody's considering starting a business with us is yes, we offer the platform services, yes, we offer the expertise, the empathy. We roll up our sleeves and actually do the work. We ride shotgun on those early sales calls. We don't just make the introductions. We help close the deal, we help build product, we help with go-to-market, but in addition, we invest. And that's core to the model because we believe that investing makes us better operators and we believe that operating ultimately makes us better investors. In that synergy, at that intersection, I think that's really what's most special about partnering with High Alpha when you're considering launching a new business.

Mike Langellier: Startups are a team sport and require a lot of committed resources to make them successful and I think that the studio model is a perfect way for us to be able to build successful startups in the world that we live in today.

Mike Langellier: The primary focus here at High Alpha is speed, so it's how do we enable entrepreneurs and new companies to get through the zero-to-one stage as fast as possible?

Mike Langellier: We bring entrepreneurs along on that journey with us. We're experts in being able to, as quickly as possible, take business concepts through these validation stages and put them in their best possible position for success and then pass the baton to our colleagues in product-market fit.

R.J. Talyor: The challenge that every entrepreneur has is that they're trying to literally change the world. They're trying to bring some sort of new software to the world that the world hasn't seen before. It is a lonely place, as an entrepreneur, to do that by yourself, and it's also really challenging because you only have certain amount of runway. So that whole process of product-market fit can take years, and startups don't have years. They've got months or quarters. My job is literally to do whatever it takes to accelerate to product-market fit. Everybody needs a squad to ride along with them from helping brainstorm, to execute, test, innovate, win, fail, learn, and then apply. But overall, the squad's goal is to accelerate that company and that founder to product-market fit, and then ultimately build that into larger go-to-market plans that we can then scale.

Jonathan Hubartt: Our success is predicated on the success of our businesses, and that means that every day our designers are thinking about how do we help this company get into the market faster, achieve the absolute best results. We want their brand to be differentiated so they really stand out in the marketplace. We have a team of brand designers that have more experience building brands in the zero-to-one phase than really probably any other team in the world. We are working with our new companies on naming, visual identity, building out the brand, scaling that brand, designing the marketing website, and then really a huge focus on product and really thinking about not just what does the product look like, but who is it serving? What does it do? And so we really provide an unfair advantage by helping companies think through how they're showing up in the marketplace and every customer experience.

Hope Williams: People are the greatest differentiator at a high growth startup. It's often the team that makes a difference whether you will succeed or whether you will fail. I and my team directly hire and recruit top-tier talent from across the country for our companies. Over the years, we've started 40 plus companies where we're building and growing teams alongside with founders, so we see a lot of patterns and things that many people just never have before. In addition, our team that we've hired is very experienced. They've seen this before, both at large scale and early stage, growing people, teams from the ground up, and they're bringing all of that knowledge directly to our founders. We hire your team, helping you find the best talent, we onboard them, making sure they have a great experience coming onto your team, and finally, we're there as we support you moving into the future. Questions arise, things change, we're there with our expertise and our help.

Eric Tobias: Great founders are gritty. They work through the problem and they won't quit until they're able to bring their vision to life. I think the best founders in the world recognize their strengths and they play to them, and they also recognize the places where they need help, and studios can provide a ton of that help to really round out a founder's journey. The most emotional moment in a business is when you get the LOI from an acquirer. Someone is sending you terms that say, "I'm willing to pay you this much for your heart, sweat and tears that you've put in over the last number of years." Having a partner in that moment to be able to lock arms with you and help make good decisions, help negotiate, help maximize that opportunity, it's almost impossible to put a value on what it's like to have a partner shepherd you through that process. There's so many nuances of that whole experience, and most people only go through that once. The fact that we and our team have been through that multiple times makes our experience set just super unique and super valuable to our entrepreneurs and partners.