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writing · 2026-08-17 · 5 min read

How to choose a venture studio: 12 questions to ask

The twelve questions

  1. Who, by name, will work on my company? A studio should commit a dedicated, named team — not a bench you share with twenty clients.
  2. What did you ship in the last 24 months? Ask to see live products with real users, not case-study PDFs. (Ours are public: ten ventures, from a $900M+/yr payments network to hospital-deployed healthcare software.)
  3. How is your investment actually composed? Get the split between build credit, direct capital, and working capital in writing.
  4. What do you charge upfront? The honest answer is zero. Retainers and “implementation fees” are agency economics.
  5. Equity or revenue share — and how is it sized? Beware fixed one-size-all percentages; the right studio sizes to cap table and cashflow.
  6. What are the unwinds? If the partnership ends at month 14, who owns the code, the IP, the accounts? This must be in the JV agreement.
  7. How long do you stay? Building compounds after launch. Maven's horizon is up to 48 months for a reason.
  8. Have you operated in my regulatory environment? HIPAA, financial regulation, government — production experience is not transferable from a blog post.
  9. What does your network actually produce? Ask for concrete examples: distribution intros made, technical hires closed, rounds supported.
  10. What do you need to see from me? A serious studio has a thesis about what it underwrites. Ours is a credible path to $200K+ revenue in year two — explained here.
  11. Do you ever do pure consulting? “Only with ownership” is the aligned answer.
  12. Can I talk to a founder you've built with — including one where it didn't work? The second half of that question tells you the most.

Red flags

Upfront fees dressed as “program costs.” No named team before signing. Equity plus full-rate invoicing (double-dipping). Vague unwinds. A portfolio page of logos with nothing live behind them. Pressure to sign before a written scoping document exists.

What good looks like

A written scope before any agreement, three clean documents (LOI, consulting agreement, JV), zero upfront fees, a named team, a public track record, and a studio that walks away from bad fits — including telling you an accelerator or plain VC round serves you better. That's the bar we hold ourselves to; test us against it via the intake or the FAQ.

Tech Maven is a Chicago venture studio, est. 2017. We invest up to $3M per partnership — for equity, not invoices — and build alongside founders for up to 48 months. Start the intake · Read the FAQ

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