---
title: "How Venture Firms Reinvent Their Strategy Without Losing Their Identity: Brian Garrett and the Crosscut Ventures Frontier-Tech Evolution"
url: "https://www.collective-genius.com/insights/how-venture-firms-reinvent-their-strategy-without-losing-their-identity-brian-ga"
author: "Jeff James Martin"
organization: "Collective Genius"
date_published: "2026-07-31T07:00:06.398Z"
date_modified: "2026-08-27T21:32:13.041Z"
reading_time_minutes: 13
cluster: "Organizational Execution"
tags: ["Organizational Execution", "Strategic Planning", "Leadership", "Organizational Clarity", "Decision Making", "Execution Discipline", "Tech Scenes"]
description: "Brian Garrett explains how Crosscut Ventures evolved from a Southern California generalist fund into a focused frontier-tech investor without abandoning its mission or identity."
---

# How Venture Firms Reinvent Their Strategy Without Losing Their Identity: Brian Garrett and the Crosscut Ventures Frontier-Tech Evolution

Venture firms can reinvent their strategy without losing their identity by separating their enduring mission from their current investment model. Crosscut Ventures preserved its commitment to Southern California founders and innovation while evolving its focus toward advanced manufacturing, materials, energy, power, space, and defense.

Organizations often assume that strategic consistency means continuing to do what has worked in the past.

That is rarely true.

Markets change. Talent moves. Technologies mature. New competitors enter. Customers develop different needs. An organization that refuses to evolve may preserve its original strategy while gradually losing its relevance.

The challenge is not deciding whether to change. The challenge is determining what should change without abandoning the identity that made the organization valuable in the first place.

Crosscut Ventures offers a useful example.

In a Tech Scenes conversation with Collective Genius founder Jeff Martin, Brian Garrett described Crosscut’s journey from a small Southern California venture fund launched before the global financial crisis to a firm increasingly focused on advanced manufacturing, advanced materials, energy, power, space, and defense.

The investment categories changed significantly. The underlying purpose did not.

Crosscut continued to follow exceptional Southern California talent, support ambitious founders, and help build an innovation ecosystem that the firm believed was being underestimated.

That distinction is central to successful strategic reinvention:

**An organization can change what it does without losing clarity about why it exists.**

## Crosscut Was Built Through Reinvention From the Beginning

Crosscut’s origins date to 2008, when Garrett, Rick Smith, and Brett Brewer saw what Garrett described as a growing flywheel of innovation in Southern California.

At the time, Los Angeles had not yet attracted the depth of institutional venture capital it would later develop. Crosscut’s founders believed the region contained significant entrepreneurial talent and that a locally committed investment firm could help catalyze the ecosystem.

They raised approximately $5 million before the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the resulting financial crisis. After the market changed, they were unable to raise additional capital for that first fund.

That forced adaptation almost immediately.

Garrett continued consulting and operating companies while Crosscut built its early investment portfolio. He described taking on a public-company turnaround and building a startup while the firm progressed through its first two funds.

By the middle of the following decade, Crosscut had completed dozens of investments and produced several exits. Institutional investors began paying greater attention to Southern California, allowing Crosscut to raise a larger institutional fund and transition its partners fully into venture capital.

The story matters because Crosscut was never operating from a stable environment.

Its development required the partners to respond to financial crises, shifts in institutional interest, changes in the Southern California ecosystem, the emergence of new technologies, and increasing competition among venture firms.

Strategic adaptation was not a later initiative. It was part of how the firm survived and grew.

## A Successful Strategy Can Eventually Become an Outdated Identity

Organizations are often defined by the successes that first made them visible.

That can become a strength. It can also become a constraint.

Garrett explained that Crosscut had developed a reputation for early e-commerce investments, including its involvement with ShoeDazzle. Years later, people still referred to Crosscut as an e-commerce investor even though Garrett had not made an e-commerce investment in a long time.

The market continued associating the firm with an earlier version of its strategy.

This is a common organizational problem.

A company becomes known for one product, customer segment, geography, or capability. That reputation helps it grow. Over time, however, the market may continue seeing the organization through the lens of its past even as its internal strategy evolves.

The organization then faces a choice.

It can continue benefiting from the old identity while gradually becoming less differentiated. Or it can explicitly reposition itself around the opportunity it believes is emerging.

Crosscut chose the second path.

The firm did not reject its history. It clarified that its future would be centered on a more focused frontier-technology thesis.

## Reinvention Is Not the Same as Rebranding

Changing a website, logo, or market description is relatively easy.

Changing an organization’s strategy is much harder.

Garrett acknowledged that Crosscut had historically relied on its reputation among founders to spread organically. The firm focused on doing the work and earning positions on company capitalization tables rather than heavily marketing itself.

That approach had been effective when Crosscut was one of relatively few firms committed to Southern California technology.

The environment eventually became more crowded.

More capital entered Los Angeles. National firms opened local offices. Sector-specific funds developed. Founders had more investment options. Remaining a broad regional venture fund would make Crosscut one of many firms competing for the same opportunities.

A new marketing message alone would not create meaningful differentiation.

Crosscut needed to decide what it specifically believed, where it had an advantage, which categories deserved its attention, and how its team and resources should support that focus.

That is the difference between rebranding and strategic reinvention.

Rebranding changes how the organization describes itself.

Strategic reinvention changes the choices the organization makes.

## Garrett Began Thinking Like a Product Manager

One of the most useful ideas from Garrett’s Tech Scenes conversation was his description of a venture fund as a product.

He compared his role to that of a product manager.

A venture firm must offer something founders want while also building a model that limited partners will support. It must understand its users, its differentiated value, the market alternatives, and the changing environment in which it operates.

Garrett argued that it would be arrogant to release “version 1.0” of an investment firm in 2008 and assume that the same model should remain unchanged indefinitely.

The product needed to evolve.

This way of thinking applies far beyond venture capital.

Every organization has an operating model that was designed—explicitly or implicitly—for a particular moment. The model reflects assumptions about customers, competitors, talent, technology, capital, and growth.

Those assumptions eventually change.

Leaders should periodically ask:

- Who is the organization designed to serve now?
- What do those stakeholders value?
- Where has the market become crowded?
- Where does the organization possess an advantage?
- Which capabilities are becoming more important?
- Which parts of the current model reflect historical success rather than future opportunity?

Treating the organization like a product creates permission to evolve.

It also imposes discipline. Product development requires choices. The organization cannot be everything to everyone.

## Crosscut Followed the Talent

Crosscut’s frontier-tech evolution did not begin with a branding exercise. It began with a pattern Garrett saw in the market.

He had started investing in space and defense companies around 2018. One early investment was Umbra, a Santa Barbara company working in synthetic aperture radar and satellite technology.

As Garrett spent more time in the category, he observed talent emerging from companies including SpaceX, Anduril, Tesla, Hyperloop-related organizations, and the broader aerospace and defense ecosystem of Southern California.

These operators had worked inside companies that challenged entrenched assumptions and built difficult physical products at unprecedented speed.

When they left to start new companies, they often carried that ambition into industries such as manufacturing, energy, power, space, and defense.

Garrett described his responsibility simply: **chase the talent.**

This is an important strategic lesson.

Organizations frequently begin strategic planning by analyzing market categories. Market analysis matters, but talent movement can provide an earlier signal of where innovation is forming.

Exceptional people tend to gather around important problems.

When experienced builders repeatedly leave successful companies to enter the same group of markets, they are communicating something about opportunity. They may see technical feasibility improving, customer demand strengthening, capital becoming available, or legacy industries becoming vulnerable to a different operating model.

Crosscut’s frontier thesis was therefore not built only on a prediction about technology.

It was built on an observation about where ambitious builders were choosing to spend their careers.

## Strategic Focus Requires Saying No

Crosscut had operated as a generalist investor across multiple funds.

Moving toward frontier technology required more than adding several new categories to an existing list. It required narrowing the firm’s attention.

Garrett described advanced manufacturing, advanced materials, energy, power, space, and defense as interconnected parts of the thesis. Developments in one category strengthened opportunities in others.

Advanced manufacturing could reduce the cost of producing complex systems. New materials could enable different performance characteristics. Growing energy needs could create demand for modular power systems. Defense and space programs could provide early markets for technologies that later developed broader commercial uses.

This created a coherent strategic landscape rather than a collection of unrelated sectors.

The firm also developed a point of view within those sectors.

Garrett explained that Crosscut was less interested in following every heavily funded defense category and more interested in identifying what might come next. In energy and power, the firm emphasized small, modular, mass-manufacturable systems rather than only supporting massive centralized infrastructure projects.

Those distinctions matter.

A strategy is not a list of markets an organization likes. It is a set of decisions about where the organization will concentrate and how it expects to win.

Without those decisions, strategic language becomes too broad to guide action.

A useful strategy should help the organization say no to opportunities that are attractive but do not fit the thesis.

That discipline protects time, capital, talent, and attention.

## Identity Should Be Defined at the Mission Level

Organizations often resist reinvention because leaders fear losing their identity.

That fear usually emerges when identity has been defined too narrowly.

If Crosscut had defined itself primarily as an e-commerce investor, moving into nuclear energy, advanced manufacturing, or space technology would have represented a dramatic departure.

If it defined itself as a Southern California venture firm supporting ambitious founders and helping develop the regional innovation ecosystem, the shift became more coherent.

The categories evolved. The deeper identity remained intact.

This is one reason mission clarity matters.

A strong mission provides enough stability for the strategy to change.

The organization can adjust its product, market, structure, or operating model without creating an identity crisis because the team understands the enduring purpose underneath those decisions.

Leaders should separate four layers that are often confused:

**Mission** explains why the organization exists.

**Vision** describes where the organization intends to go.

**Strategy** defines the choices it will make to get there.

**Execution** converts those choices into coordinated action.

The mission should be relatively durable. The vision and strategy should evolve as the environment changes. Execution must adapt continuously as the organization learns.

Confusing these layers causes strategic rigidity.

Leaders begin defending an old strategy as though changing it would violate the mission.

In reality, refusing to change may be what places the mission at risk.

## Reinvention Must Change the Operating Model

Once an organization chooses a new direction, it must determine whether its current operating model can support it.

Crosscut’s frontier strategy required different expertise, networks, diligence capabilities, and market relationships than its earlier generalist model.

Garrett described hiring a principal with experience at organizations including Arthur D. Little, Relativity Space, and Raytheon to help develop the firm’s work in space and defense.

That is strategic alignment in practice.

The firm did not merely announce a focus on frontier technology. It added talent that could evaluate the technical and commercial realities of those markets.

Every organization pursuing reinvention should examine the same question:

**What must become true inside the organization for the new strategy to be credible?**

The answer may involve:

- recruiting leaders with different experience;
- changing how capital is allocated;
- building new partnerships;
- redefining decision rights;
- changing performance metrics;
- ending initiatives that no longer fit;
- developing new customer or market knowledge;
- creating a different operating cadence;
- clarifying the role of each team in the strategy.

A strategy unsupported by the operating model is only an aspiration.

The organization may communicate a new future while continuing to allocate its resources according to the past.

## Strategic Reinvention Requires Organizational Alignment

A leader can decide that the organization needs to change. That does not mean the organization is aligned around the change.

Different people may interpret the new strategy differently. Some may continue investing in legacy priorities. Others may move too aggressively into the new direction before the necessary capabilities are established.

Alignment requires the team to understand more than the headline.

They need clarity about what the strategy means for their work.

What are the organization’s most important objectives over the next three years? What must be accomplished during the next year? Which capabilities must be developed? Which existing activities should continue? Which should be reduced or stopped? How will success be measured? Who owns each part of the transition?

This is where organizational execution becomes essential.

Peak OS connects long-term direction to annual plans, quarterly objectives, metrics, roles, and weekly operating rhythm. The system is designed to help teams move from a strategic idea to a shared execution model.

Collective Genius has facilitated Peak with Crosscut and some of its portfolio companies. That relationship reflects a shared belief that strategy becomes meaningful only when teams can align around it and execute it.

The goal is not to add process for its own sake.

The goal is to ensure that the organization does not announce one strategy while operating another.

## Reinvention Needs a Learning Rhythm

Strategic repositioning should not be treated as a one-time decision.

The initial thesis will contain assumptions. Some will prove correct. Others will need to be adjusted.

Crosscut’s frontier strategy developed over years of investing, observing talent, building relationships, and learning from the market. The focus became sharper as the firm gained evidence.

Organizations need a rhythm for this type of learning.

They should periodically examine whether the strategy is producing the expected signals:

- Is the organization attracting the intended customers or founders?
- Is it recruiting the required talent?
- Are the new capabilities becoming real?
- Is the market responding to the differentiated position?
- Are resources still being consumed by legacy priorities?
- What has the organization learned that should change its assumptions?
- Which opportunities fit the mission but were not visible when the strategy was created?

Without a learning rhythm, leaders face two risks.

The first is abandoning the strategy too quickly because results are not immediate.

The second is remaining attached to the strategy after evidence shows that it needs to evolve.

A disciplined cadence helps the team distinguish between normal implementation challenges and evidence that the strategic model itself requires adjustment.

## Common Reinvention Failures

Strategic reinvention often fails in predictable ways.

One failure is **changing the message without changing the work**. The organization announces a new position, but its hiring, capital allocation, incentives, and priorities remain tied to the old strategy.

Another is **adding the new strategy without removing anything**. The organization treats reinvention as an expansion rather than a choice. New priorities are layered on top of old ones until the team is spread across too many directions.

A third is **allowing legacy success to control future decisions**. Leaders continue investing in familiar areas because those areas produced the organization’s reputation, even when the opportunity has shifted.

A fourth is **failing to align the team**. Senior leaders interpret the new direction differently, creating fragmented execution across functions.

A fifth is **treating the first strategic version as final**. The organization becomes so invested in proving the reinvention correct that it stops learning from the market.

Crosscut’s experience suggests a better approach.

Preserve the enduring mission. Follow the strongest signals. Make explicit choices. Build the capabilities required by those choices. Communicate the new identity clearly. Then continue learning.

## What Other Leaders Can Learn From Crosscut’s Evolution

Crosscut’s move toward frontier technology is specific to venture capital, but the underlying lessons apply across industries.

First, leaders should distinguish organizational identity from historical activity. What the organization has done is not always the same as why it exists.

Second, strategy should evolve as talent, technology, markets, and competition change. Continuing the original model indefinitely is not consistency. It may be complacency.

Third, differentiation requires focus. A crowded market makes broad positioning less valuable.

Fourth, strategic change must alter resource allocation, talent, capabilities, and operating rhythms. Otherwise, the new direction remains superficial.

Fifth, the team must understand how the strategy changes its work. Alignment is created through explicit conversations, not through announcements.

Finally, reinvention should be treated as an ongoing learning process. The organization is building the next version of itself, not attempting to predict the future perfectly.

## The Strongest Organizations Evolve Around a Stable Core

Brian Garrett’s story of Crosscut Ventures is not primarily a story about changing investment sectors.

It is a story about evolving around a stable core.

Crosscut began with a commitment to Southern California innovation, entrepreneurial talent, and ecosystem development. As the market matured, the firm’s expression of that commitment changed.

The frontier-tech thesis allowed Crosscut to become more focused at a time when the regional venture market had become more competitive. It connected the firm to the talent and technologies Garrett believed would define the next era of company building.

The firm did not preserve its identity by remaining unchanged.

It preserved its identity by understanding which part of Crosscut should remain constant and which parts needed to evolve.

That is the work of strategic leadership.

The organization must remember why it exists while remaining willing to redesign how it creates value.

The strongest organizations do not choose between continuity and reinvention.

They use continuity of purpose to make reinvention possible.


## Related Insights

[What Is Peak OS?](https://www.collective-genius.com/insights/what-is-peak-os-mq7jqhdx)

[What Is Organizational Execution?](https://www.collective-genius.com/insights/what-is-organizational-execution-mq4rcx9p)

[What Is Organizational Intelligence?](https://www.collective-genius.com/insights/what-is-organizational-intelligence-mq7jys1i)

[What Is a Business Operating System?](https://www.collective-genius.com/insights/what-is-a-business-operating-system-mq4qmt39)

[What Is Operating Rhythm?](https://www.collective-genius.com/insights/what-is-operating-rhythm-mq4qywur)

## Key Takeaways
- Strategic consistency does not mean continuing the same activities indefinitely; it means remaining committed to the organization’s purpose while adapting its strategy.
- Crosscut Ventures evolved from a regional generalist fund into a focused frontier-tech investor as Southern California’s talent, technology, and capital ecosystem changed.
- Organizations can become trapped by the identity created through their earliest successes, even after those activities no longer represent the future strategy.
- Strategic reinvention changes choices, resource allocation, capabilities, and operating behavior; rebranding changes only the message.
- Brian Garrett’s product-manager perspective encourages leaders to treat the organization as something that must evolve with its stakeholders and market.
- Talent movement can reveal emerging strategic opportunities before conventional market categories fully reflect them.
- A focused strategy requires clear decisions about which opportunities to pursue, which capabilities to build, and which legacy activities to stop.
- Peak OS helps organizations connect a strategic shift to long-term direction, annual planning, quarterly priorities, ownership, metrics, and weekly execution.

## Frequently Asked Questions

### How can a venture firm reinvent its strategy?

A venture firm can reinvent its strategy by clarifying its enduring mission, identifying where talent and market opportunities are moving, selecting a differentiated investment thesis, aligning its team and capabilities to that thesis, and regularly reviewing what it is learning.

### Why did Crosscut Ventures move toward frontier technology?

Brian Garrett observed significant talent emerging from Southern California companies such as SpaceX, Anduril, Tesla, and the broader aerospace and defense ecosystem. He believed advanced manufacturing, materials, energy, power, space, and defense represented an interconnected opportunity for long-term value creation.

### What is the difference between strategic reinvention and rebranding?

Rebranding changes how an organization presents itself. Strategic reinvention changes where the organization focuses, how it allocates resources, which capabilities it builds, which opportunities it pursues, and how its team operates.

### How can an organization change strategy without losing its identity?

The organization should define its identity at the mission level rather than around a specific product or market. Its strategy can then evolve while the deeper purpose, values, and commitment to stakeholders remain consistent.

### Why should leaders think of their organization as a product?

Thinking like a product manager encourages leaders to examine whom the organization serves, what those stakeholders value, how the market is changing, where the organization is differentiated, and how its model should evolve over time.

### Why is following talent useful in strategic planning?

Exceptional people often move toward important emerging problems before those markets are fully obvious. Patterns in where experienced builders choose to work can reveal new technical possibilities, customer demand, and areas of future value creation.

### What operating changes are required after a strategic shift?

The organization may need different talent, partnerships, metrics, decision rights, capital allocation, processes, and meeting rhythms. The new strategy must change how resources are used and how teams coordinate.

### How does Peak OS support strategic reinvention?

Peak OS helps teams connect mission and long-term direction to annual plans, quarterly priorities, metrics, ownership, and weekly execution. It creates visibility into whether the organization is actually operating according to the new strategy.

Source: https://www.collective-genius.com/insights/how-venture-firms-reinvent-their-strategy-without-losing-their-identity-brian-ga