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I am the Founder of VentureOut, which I launched in 2012 while working at Gotham…
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The State of the Built World: Lessons from Montauk
The State of the Built World: Lessons from Montauk
Montauk, New York — October 2025 Morning light spilled through the white curtains at Solé East, and the room filled…
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Brian Frumberg reposted thisMy hands-down favorite thing about NYC is that no-one gets to be a big deal.Brian Frumberg reposted thisI love San Francisco. I really do. It’s a beautiful place. But if you’re building a company that needs to survive a market that doesn't care about your feelings, you might want to try a city that grinds you down a little bit. That’s why I love New York.
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Brian Frumberg reposted thisBrian Frumberg reposted thisI will admit that I have signed many petitions that I believed in with very little conviction that anything would happen. That being said, I was excited to get the following email just a few moments ago! #NYTechStrong.
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Brian Frumberg reposted thisBrian Frumberg reposted thisHe had me at "behavioral DNA." He lost me at "send your date of birth." And again at the report he sent back. Last week I posted about a sales pitch that asked for my date of birth before showing me a demo. It got 98,274 impressions, a lot of funny takes, and reached 63,145 LinkedIn members. But the most interesting thing that came out of it wasn’t the jokes. My partner at VentureOut, Brian Frumberg volunteered so I gave his DOB and info to the original pitcher. They pulled a demo — unremarkable, confident labels, zero predictive specificity: AI slop with a diamond diagram. Then a real psychometrics expert showed up. Hon-Ming Gianotti (Chairman of Blaunte Strategies, founder of Tiresias AI, and former Global Strategy Lead at Monks) volunteered to review it. Hon-Ming rebuilt the report properly using the proprietary psychometric models he uses for commercial intelligence at scale. The difference wasn’t subtle. I asked him a few questions. Q: What does DOB actually get you scientifically? "Very little, aside from general age. Because there is some #psychometric accuracy in their report, my guess is that they do some kind of social media scraping exercise and use a Cambridge Analytica-style pipeline, then cover it with #AI jargon." Q: Why use the OCEAN / Big Five framework instead of the proprietary label system? "The Big Five / OCEAN framework is the most predictive for human behaviour. It has the strongest construct validity and highest predictive power. Proprietary systems are usually just rebranded versions with the validation stripped out." Q: Why include explicit accuracy ranges — 25% to 70% depending on the domain — when the original had none? "It’s not magic. It’s just statistics. Many companies pretend it’s magic so they can hide a weak product." Q: Where does behavioral intelligence actually work, and where is it being oversold? "Most useful in media, marketing, CRM and customer behaviour at scale. It’s heavily oversold in individual sales intelligence and HR tech." KEY TAKEAWAYS: What Hon-Ming built is what the original report was trying to be. The science exists. The methods are available. The problem is how it gets sold: stripped of error bounds, dressed in proprietary labels, and used as a trust-before-demo ask. Real behavioral #intelligence is honest about what it can and can't predict. It tells you the accuracy range upfront. It's built for cohorts, not cold pitches. And it never needs your date of birth to prove it works. The gap between what they claim to know about you and what the data actually shows is where the theater lives. Confidence in the output is the product. Not the output itself. What’s the most overhyped “behavioral intelligence” or psychometric sales pitch you’ve seen lately?
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Brian Frumberg reposted thisBrian Frumberg reposted thisBalancing the corporate grind with motherhood. Our Vice President, Emily Greifeld, reflected on how a non-linear path, from Capitol Hill to Wall Street, ultimately led her to agency life, where curiosity and continuous learning drive the work. Her experiences across various industries and as a mother highlighted the power of communication to shape credibility, growth, and leadership. Download the Worldcom Public Relations Group International Women’s Day eBook today: https://lnkd.in/gyTWMJUX #WomensHistoryMonth #WomenInPR #Worldcom #PollackProud #PollackGroup
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Brian Frumberg reposted thisBrian Frumberg reposted thisHe had me at "behavioral DNA." He lost me at "send your date of birth." He slid into my DMs after spotting me in the comments of a founder psychometrics post. The pitch: Revenue Identity Intelligence. "Know any lead like your best friend in 60 seconds." I was a bit intrigued and said so. Then the ask landed: full name (got it), location (NYC?), date of birth. DOB?? It's the audacity for me! No demo. No sample. No public preview. Just DOB to unlock the wow version. I pushed back. His reply: "I can show a public example, but it won't have the wow effect." That told me everything. I get the allure of pitch theater — smoke machines, sequins, a demo that knocks a lead's socks off. But if the setup requires crossing a boundary before trust is built, the demo was probably never going to land anyway. Even if your demo hits 20-40 percent less hard without that data, don't introduce risk just to make it land harder. Affinity has to come first. Trust carries more weight than any one kapow moment. The second something feels off, people pull back. They don't lean in. If your first step feels like a foreign phishing expedition, the deal is already dead. Where do you draw the line on what you'll share in a first interaction? What's non-negotiable before you hand over sensitive info?
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Brian Frumberg reposted thisJana from IMPARI is not just an incredible designer, she’s also a friend and one of our earliest partners. I’ve loved watching her build a sustainable fashion brand with such a strong point of view, especially through prints, color, and craft. That’s way we’re especially excited to host our next LinkedIn Live with her and our very own Melisa from Loophole. Tomorrow, Jana will share how she uses yoona.ai to turn one manually created print into multiple variations fast, so she can test directions without weeks of back and forth. After we’ll use #AI to instantly pressure test one of her concepts against real market and trend signals, then see how we can make immediate adjustments to raise the score. Feel free to drop your category + season in the comments so we can keep the Q&A relevant. Event details here: https://lnkd.in/d4pj8uNK Can’t make it at 3 PM? RSVP to catch the replay ;). And if you want to explore before the event, you can try out yoona here: https://lnkd.in/dJH398tx #FashionTech #ArtificialIntelligence #ProductDevelopment #FashionBusiness #RetailInnovation #Sustainability #DemoBrian Frumberg reposted thisWhat makes the cut? 👀 Tomorrow we’re doing a special LinkedIn Live with Jana Ms.Impari, founder of IMPARI, a Berlin sustainable fashion label known for bold, self-developed prints and a circular, low-waste mindset. Joining us too are hosts Anna, our CEO & Co-founder, and Melisa Cilli from Loophole (and yoona.ai product expert), so you can expect a super practical walkthrough. Jana will show how she actually uses yoona today to turn manually created prints into multiple variations fast, so she can instantly test new directions without weeks of back and forth. Then we’ll take it further and run one concept through our new Trend Confidence AI Agent workflow to see what the market signals say, what to tweak, and how to improve it with our AI design tools. Event details and link in the comments. If you can't make it at 3 PM, then RSVP to catch the replay and send your questions 💜 #FashionTech #ArtificialIntelligence #ProductDevelopment #FashionBusiness #RetailInnovation #Sustainability #Demo
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Brian Frumberg reposted thisBrian Frumberg reposted thisSix months after throwing a $60 million company birthday party in Oakland — DJ sets, Jay-Z on stage, 8,000 employees flown in — Jack Dorsey announced he was cutting 40% of Block's workforce. The reason given: "AI has made the company so productive it needs fewer people." Maybe. Or maybe what it needed was fewer people on the payroll this quarter. Either way — boutique consultancies were the canary. AOK Group—now the growth studio of VentureOut— was one of them. I built and ran it for nearly a decade around one idea: helping startups look and sound as fundable as they actually were. One firm, three entry points — brand, pitch, and growth — but the pitch door was the one that dangled the golden carrot. AOKG's pitch studio alone was doing 5-8 decks a month at $6,500 a deck. We had a 6-month waiting list. VCs were sending us founders. Founders were extending into $10-15k/mo sprints and staying 18 months as they grew from seed to Series A. Fall 2023, our waiting list evaporated. Not because the work got worse. Not because the startups didn't need the money. Because most decided they'd do it themselves — with AI, with Canva, with vibes. The VCs who used to push founders our way started saying "just wing it and see how far you get." So here's what actually happened to those founders. Some raised slower. Some failed. Many failed to raise at all (more of a market signal vs their failure). A handful came back to us and paid full price anyway — tails between their legs, admitting defeat. A significant number burnt 4 to 6 months producing wacky, cluttered, fugly, convoluted slides. A few came back with some version of "Sheesh, I seriously misunderstood what you AOK girls do. Pffff...It isn't easy." The pitch deck scope didn't go away. It moved off the invoice and onto the founder's calendar, the investor's patience, the raise timeline. Obscuring runway. Keeping the founder up at night. That's what "AI is making everything cheaper" looks like up close. Not savings. It's saving money on meat and finding wood chips in your rice. Bon appetit, Block.
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Brian Frumberg shared thisMy friend Philipp Schreiber successfully launched KRUU into the US. A VentureOut alum from 2023, Philipp is the real deal. Check it out his story! #VenturedOut Alexandra FrumbergBrian Frumberg shared thisViele Gründer träumen davon, mal ein Jahr in den USA zu verbringen. Nicht als Urlaub. Sondern um dort ein Geschäft aufzubauen. Mein Gast Philipp hat genau das gemacht. Mit seiner Familie. Und die Hürde ist überraschend niedrig. Philipp Schreiber von KRUU erzählt in der neuen Folge von This is not Berlin, wie er das USA-Geschäft in Michigan aufbaute, so dass es im ersten vollen Jahr schon über 25% zum Gesamtumsatz beitrug. Für alle Gründer, die mit dem Gedanken spielen, ist diese Folge der perfekte Einstieg in das Projekt. Philipp berichtet von seinen Erfahrungen mit dem STEP USA Programm der German American Chamber von ersten Erkundungsreisen, der Standortsuche und wie es dann war, anderthalb Jahre mit der Familie in der Nähe von Detroit zu leben. Sehr inspirierend. Außerdem sprechen wir über Bad Friedrichshall, das Heilbronner Ökosystem und wie wir uns bei der Heilbronn Slush'D getroffen haben. 🎧 Hör rein. Links zur Folge in den Kommentaren. PS: Die Auslandshandelskammer in den USA ist in verschiedene Einheiten gegliedert, je nach Region: - German American Chamber of Commerce, Inc. – GACC New York - AHK USA-Chicago - AHK USA – San Francisco - GACC South - German American Chamber of Commerce of the Southern U.S., Inc.
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Brian Frumberg reposted thisBrian Frumberg reposted thisJust wrapped the Built Environment Summit 2026 — a thoughtful, energizing few days of conversation about where the built world is headed. The Built Environment Forum (BEF) convenes small, trusted groups of decision-makers, those shaping how we build, finance, and govern the physical world. What stood out most was the mix in the room: contractors and owners, developers and designers, investors and founders building the next generation of AEC technology. These are the people making consequential decisions every day — decisions that ultimately shape our cities and infrastructure. Grateful to have contributed as a speaker and to be part of a forum that prioritizes substance over spectacle. #BuiltEnvironment #AEC #ConstructionTech #UrbanInnovation #Leadership
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Brian Frumberg reacted on thisBrian Frumberg reacted on thisI love San Francisco. I really do. It’s a beautiful place. But if you’re building a company that needs to survive a market that doesn't care about your feelings, you might want to try a city that grinds you down a little bit. That’s why I love New York.
Experience & Education
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VentureOut
View Brian’s full experience
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Licenses & Certifications
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Series 7
FINRA
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Fundamentals of Product Management
Sequent Learning Networks
Volunteer Experience
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Board Of Directors
Chaminade High School
- 6 years 7 months
Education
Member of the Board of Directors for the Chaminade Alumni Association. Founder & Chair of the Chaminade Alumni Entrepreneurs Association.
Honors & Awards
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Outstanding Partner Award
FWD.us
Outstanding Partner Award in honor of continuing commitment to FWD.us and commonsense immigration reform.
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Polish American Economic Partnership Award of Appreciation
Polska, Consulate General of the Republic of Poland
Award of Appreciation presented to Brian Frumberg in recognition and gratitude for your dedication, commitment and significant contribution to the Polish American economic partnership.
Organizations
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FWD.us
Leadership Council
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NY Tech Meetup
Member
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