We help kids, teens, and young adults turn their ideas into meaningful projects. Drawing on Radiical Systems' venture studio methodology, we coach builders to design for systemic impact and mutually beneficial economic outcomes. Through small cohorts and one-on-one apprenticeships, we help our participants discover what they are really passionate about, and we coach them along the way, tailored specifically to their project.
Our program is based on our case study methodology at our parent company Radiical Systems, the same process we use to incubate and launch real ventures.
We offer both a small cohort program as well as one-on-one apprenticeships and advisory, meeting each builder where they are.
We help our participants discover what they are really passionate about, and we coach them along the way, tailored specifically to their project.
Each builder leaves with a project that's real, a sustainable foundation for a path forward, and the experience of having made something happen.
We teach the mechanics of building ventures that solve real systemic problems and make the world better. Ventures built to last, designed to give back, and structured to strengthen the systems they're part of.
This comes from Radiical Systems' own thesis: the next generation of meaningful ventures will be regenerative, holistic, and designed for win-win outcomes.
We bring that orientation to every builder we work with. The methodology isn't just how to build, it's a way of thinking about what's worth building in the first place.
That's what makes First Ventures different. Our builders aren't just learning to make money. They're learning to leave the world better than they found it.
This is an example of a framework that we walk each builder through on their own project, although our process is not always this linear. We adapt our methodology to meet the reality of what each builder and their project needs.
What do you actually see? Who else sees it? Why hasn't it been solved? What's within your power to address?
Who's connected to this? Who could help, who could block it, who needs a seat at the table?
What's the smallest, most tractable thing you could build that would meaningfully change something?
How does this keep going? Each builder produces a real budget, pitches our cohort fund for up to $250, and learns to make the case for what they need. We work through earned revenue, sponsorship, grants, cooperative models, and philanthropy.
Who do you need to work with: local org, business, city office, school? We support in crafting outreach and prepping for meetings.
Bring your idea to fruition in the real world.
What worked, what didn't, what would you do differently. Portfolio piece, Good Standing badge, documented project.
What happens next? Deepen the work, expand reach, build the team, or set it up to sustain itself without you. The shape of growth is different for every project.
Builders enter at the stage they're at. New to building? Start with the Prototype Track. Already have a prototype and want to take it further? Begin with the Builder Track. Ready to launch a real ongoing organization? Venture Build is for you. You don't have to start at the beginning — you start where you are.
For builders new to building. Workshop an idea and launch a prototype in a group setting.
For builders ready to take a prototype into the real world.
For builders ready to launch a real, ongoing organization.
Every project earns a Good Standing badge, a verifiable digital credential documenting what was built, and unlocking access to the Good Standing network, partner opportunities, and pathways forward.
Through Radiical Systems and Good Standing, our builders get access to council offices, civic organizations, brand partners, and community leaders across NYC. We help our builders show up in rooms most adults never get into.
Ashley and Kurt run every track and engagement themselves. No facilitators-of-facilitators. The people who built Radiical are the people in the room.
We teach builders to use Claude and other AI tools to build websites, design materials, research problems, and prototype ideas. The founders of tomorrow are growing up alongside these tools, and we demonstrate how to use them similar to how we use them in our business.
Earned revenue, sponsorship, fiscal sponsorship, cooperative models, grants, philanthropy. Builders learn the actual mechanics of how things in the world keep going, taught by people who do this work for a living.
Older builders who complete the program can move into VAST, our flagship incubation track. First Ventures isn't an end, it's the start of a longer relationship with the Radiical ecosystem.
Builder Track and Venture Build graduates are potentially eligible to become Good Standing Ambassadors, paid civic organizers in our citywide network of young leaders.
Young people are growing up in an environment of overwhelm and disconnection. We offer a different rhythm: real work, real relationships, real purpose. Building something that matters with people who care is what restores meaning.
Ashley is a builder, systems designer, and venture partner whose career has moved between global infrastructure and neighborhood-level community building. She was the first employee at ConsenSys during Ethereum's founding era, where she helped incubate some of the earliest blockchain ventures, and later designed economic frameworks for institutions ranging from cooperatives to UN Security Council compliance.
Closer to home, she has founded and built community spaces in NYC and channeled a lifelong passion for civic engagement infrastructure into the Good Standing platform, which she co-founded with Kurt. At Radiical Systems, she leads venture design and methodology.
Her work lives in the translation layer between complex systems and the people who actually have to live inside them, which is exactly what a young person needs when they're trying to make something real happen, whether they're 12 or 22.
Kurt is a journalist, cultural strategist, and narrative architect whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, Architectural Digest, Interview Magazine, T Magazine, and PAPER Magazine, among others. He's profiled and interviewed some of the most celebrated living artists, musicians, and cultural figures of his generation, from Shepard Fairey and Nina Chanel Abney to Nadya Tolokonnikova.
Before his writing career, Kurt spent over a decade in hospitality and cultural programming, including as front of house manager and curator at CultureFix on the Lower East Side, one of downtown NYC's defining creative hubs of its era. That instinct for knowing who belongs in a room together, what a community needs to feel alive, and how to create the conditions for something real to happen runs through everything he does at Radiical.
He's also the one who'll help builders figure out how to walk into a room of adults and make their case, whether that room is a community board, a brand partnership meeting, or a funder.
The program is hosted at our studio at 131 Varick Street. It's where we record the Good Standing podcast, host civic conversations, and now, where we'll work with our builders. Here's an episode we recorded with Tiffiney Davis of Red Hook Art Project on Enhancing Public Education with Art & Community.
Most education trains kids to take in information and prove they understood it. We train them to do something different: identify a real problem, make a plan, build relationships, pitch their work, and bring it into the world. This is entrepreneurship as a way of being — not a class about starting companies, but a practiced set of skills.
Noticing what's broken, who it affects, and what's actually solvable.
Understanding who's connected to a problem and how to work with them.
Turning a vision into a sequence of next steps that actually move.
Making a clear case for what you want, to people who can help.
Using tools (including AI) to make things real.
Understanding what things cost and how to pay for them.
Knowing what worked, what didn't, and what to do next.
Walking into rooms, making the ask, following up, building trust over time.
Developing the skills of adulthood while protecting what's already there: optimism, curiosity, and the belief that things can be made better.
Start with a short inquiry. We'll be in touch within 3 business days. (If you're 18+ and applying for yourself, fill it out about you.)