04 · Engagement

Venture Portfolio

Our own bets, and co-builds with operators who hold the domain. The proposition for people who would have started the company anyway.

Who it is for

Operators with a domain, missing a build.

People who know a market from the inside and would have started the company regardless — what they lack is the studio around it: thesis, brand, product and engineering under one roof.

It is not for founders looking to outsource conviction. We supply the build; the domain has to be yours.

Structure

Co-build, not a purchase.

Taking equity means taking a position on the venture, which is a different decision from taking on the work. If we do not believe the thesis, we say so and quote a fee instead.

What moves the split is how much of the venture we are carrying — a brand and interface build against a working product sits at one end; a ground-up build where we own strategy, brand and engineering sits at the other.

The four structures

How the commercials are set.

01Fixed + performanceCash available, outcome measurable.
02Revenue sharePost-revenue, cash-constrained.
03Equity-for-buildCash-poor, equity-rich, pre-seed.
04IP licensingWhere Graylemon-built systems are reused across buyers.
How it runs

Same method, our own runway.

01
Thesis test
The venture goes through the same Stuck-to-Scale read we sell. Most stop here.
Weeks 1–2
02
Terms
Structure, split and exit written before anything is built.
Weeks 3–4
03
Co-build
Strategy, brand and product built together, with the operator inside the work.
Ongoing
04
Independence
The venture runs without us. That is the success condition, not the exit.
On milestone
Proof

We apply it to our own bets first.

apprn, otlo, conscious and estateos are ours, built with our own runway and published with their real stage — including the ones still pre-revenue.

If a method does not hold up on our own ventures, we do not sell it on yours.

No. We invest build capacity — strategy, brand and engineering — against equity or revenue.

It depends entirely on how much of the venture we carry. The range is set in the term conversation, before work starts.

Most bets do. The terms say who owns what on the way out, agreed at the start rather than argued at the end.

Co-build

We take risk alongside you.

Only possible because we build rather than advise.

Talk to the studio