The Venture Content Playbook

So… Why "Refinery"?

I get this question from time to time.

Usually from a fund partner who's just finished telling me about all the insights trapped in their Slack channels, voice notes, and investment memos that somehow never make it out into the world.

The answer is pretty simple.

An oil refinery - that great monument to industrial modernity - takes raw, messy crude oil – useless in its natural state – and transforms it into something valuable: jet fuel, petrol, plastics, and hundreds of other products we use every day.

The refinery doesn't create anything new.

It just applies heat, pressure, and specialised processes to extract what's valuable and make it usable.

That's exactly what we do with a fund.

Most funds are sitting on an untapped reservoir of raw material:

• Partner insights from IC discussions.

• Market analyses from DD.

• Founder advice shared in portfolio meetings.

• Wisdom captured in call recordings or Slack.

• Frameworks used internally to evaluate opportunities.

This material is immensely valuable but often trapped in formats that aren't accessible or usable for external audiences.

It's the "crude oil" of your firm - full of potential value, but not yet refined for consumption.

The Monthly Flywheel

There isn’t a one size fits all. But from now working with 15+ funds, there is a common thread with how funds operate that means some generic advice is applicable.

Your content approach should be thought of as a flywheel.

Because without 1. Consistency and 2. Momentum there is little point.

Start with the Deep Stuff

Start with one substantial piece of thinking. This is the real expertise that makes your firm ‘special’.

Maybe it's a thesis on why B2B payments are hitting an inflection point. Or a framework for evaluating founding teams, or how you challenge your fellow partners thinking in IC.

This becomes your anchor content – the piece that shows you actually know what you're talking about - and ideally, gets referred back to.

Break It Down into Smaller Bits

Take that substantial piece and break it into smaller chunks. Pieces that can travel.

Something light that fits in a carry in for - LinkedIn posts, Twitter threads, short video clips, or infographics that capture key insights.

These fragments of your actual expertise are repurposed to reach people where they are - and ideally, draw people back into the original piece.

Proactive Fund Updates

Then we blend in timely updates about what your fund is actually doing – portfolio news, recent investments, events you're hosting, partners speaking somewhere.

n.b. The easiest way to stay on top of this is to connect companies’ RSS feeds, and social profiles to a scraper like Apify, and a live feed of updates.

This grounds everything in reality and shows you're active and connects your thinking to your actions.

It’s super important that this is owned by you. I encourage you to read the Rostra manifesto about how to GO DIRECT. You need to own what your fund thinks, not what TechCrunch, Bloomberg etc say your fund thinks.

Keeping these updates in house and direct enable over time to create a clear thread about how you invest, what you celebrate, support and think.

For smaller funds: this is so very important because LPs can often find there is nothing to research about your fund.

For bigger funds: letting outlets define your vision and thinking can muddy your message and narrative.

These direct communications build the foundation for all external perception. When you eventually engage with media, they'll reflect your established narrative rather than creating their own.

Newsletter - Own your Audience

Wrap everything into a newsletter that brings your audience back to you regularly.

If you've got 1,000+ founders/ LPs who've actively signed up or just in your CRM - it’s worth its weight in gold. It takes years to build a list like that (I know – I'm starting from zero with Refinery!).

This builds a direct relationship with your entire ecosystem. Over time, this email list becomes one of your most valuable proprietary assets – yet almost no one treats it that way.

VCs constantly tell founders to "invest in lines, not dots" – but then ignore this advice in their own comms. They send random updates when they remember, or only reach out during fundraising. The irony is that LPs and founders apply the same standard to funds! They don't want you to only show up when you're looking for money or hunting new deals.

An ongoing, asynchronous conversation with your entire network! It compounds in value over years.

Going from 0-1 in “Refining”

Find the good stuff. We listen to partner calls, scan internal docs, or interview your team to extract the insights that actually matter. Most funds have plenty of these – they're just buried or never captured.

Cut the fluff. Nobody has time for 2,000-word think pieces full of jargon. We distill ideas down to their essence – what's actually useful to founders or LPs?

Reshape it for different places. What works on LinkedIn doesn't work in an email. What works in a tweet doesn't work on your website. We adapt the core ideas to fit each channel.

Make it sound like you. Every fund has its own voice and values. We make sure everything aligns with how you actually talk and think, not some generic "VC voice."

We're just applying structure to the thinking that's already happening inside your firm.

Easy in principle. Bit tricker in practice…

Getting Started (Without Us)

1. Take inventory of what you already have What conversations are your partners having every day that could be valuable to others? What frameworks do you use internally?

2. Focus on one big idea first Don't try to boil the ocean. Pick one substantial insight and develop it fully – quality beats quantity every time.

3. Create a simple system for capturing ideas Maybe it's recording investment committee discussions or having a dedicated Slack channel where partners drop interesting thoughts.

4. Build a basic distribution process Even if it's just LinkedIn + an email list to start, consistency matters more than reach.

5. Treat your audience like the asset it is Start tracking who engages with your content. These are your most qualified leads for everything from deals to LP relationships.

So That's Why "Refinery"

Extract, Distill, and Refine.