In an independent study released on August 14, 2015, CB Insights recognized "Machine Shop" as the seventh most invested company by any celebrity.
[3] Mike and Brad went to visit "Y Combinator", the influential startup incubator, where they met with Michael Seibel, cofounder of Justin.tv and a partner at YC.
Rather than invest their considerable resources in a mishmash of businesses, they focused on startups that reflected their personal interests — areas like stock picking, which Shinoda has done since buying Apple.
Hence the investment in Robinhood, a stock trading app that waives all fees to compete with E-Trade.Later the band had meeting with Anita Elberse and three of her students at Harvard Business School.
The band learned that they need to build a diverse "brand ecosystem" and "diversify revenue streams" across several businesses to reduce financial risk in case something doesn't stick.
The Harvard study also suggest that the band "partner with a broader community or network of global influencers to remain tapped into bleeding-edge cultural trends."
They collaborated with Warner Bros. Japan to promote Linkin Park's DVD release.As a result, they sold out all three models of custom, co-branded T-shirts.
[11] The company collaborated with Harman International Industries to invigorate the Infinity brand through the design and launch of a new line of audio products.
They announced partnership at CES 2014 and designed Infinity One portable speaker with Harman International's Hong Kong based creative studio.
[12] The company collaborated with Microsoft to utilize the new Xbox gaming engine to create the first-ever custom Project Spark music video for Linkin Park's Guilty All The Same single release.
They featured "Guilty All The Same" on the Xbox home page to release the video.They created an in-game crowdsourcing experience of "remixing" song stems.
[13][14] The company collaborated with Square and developed a nontraditional way to launch The Hunting Party album and expand the merchandise retail operation.
The goal of the company was to create awareness for Linkin Park's clean energy initiative in partnership with the United Nations Foundation.