WHAT IS A VENTURE STUDIO AND HOW IT CAN HELP LAUNCHING YOUR STARTUP

Among the first big obstacles in launching a startup, the choice related to the support of value creation for an idea is one of the most important steps.

The world of startups is teeming with different realities of acceleration, management to emerging innovative projects, but between incubators, accelerators, Venture Builder (also called Venture Studio or Startup Studio) it is necessary to do some clarity.

This article will help you to deepen the acceleration and incubation realities available, with a particular reference to the role of the Venture Studio, a revolutionary model in use in recent years.

In his book Startup Studio, Attila Szigeti defines the Studios as organizations that produce other companies, not purely financial investors or mentors, but real founders and builders of entrepreneurial realities.

A nascent startup needs different support, first of all the economic one but also of a strategic, technological and market nature. To unravel among all the different categories of approach to growth, it is necessary to have in mind what are the objectives for each model.

An incubator helps the startup to take shape in all its parts. Its role is substantial in providing the nascent idea (even without an initial realization) a series of services and resources essential for the economic development of the company, for the integration of talents, technologies, capital, and the creation of an extensive network of knowledge capable of expanding the company’s network.

An accelerator represents the natural evolution of the incubator, as it favors the meeting with investors. The model is designed for existing startups that need help to get their project off the ground. An acceleration program has a much shorter duration than incubation as it aims to conquer the targeted market.

So what are we trying to do in TechBricks if we’re neither an incubator nor an accelerator?

We put together a team of experienced and motivated minds with the aim of growing winning and innovative ideas internally to their network, with the ambition of ensuring a solid entrepreneurial future.

A Venture Studio represents a less common approach, considered more pragmatic and hands-on. It operates on early-stage realities, created directly by the team with in-depth knowledge of a market. Sometimes it also operates on the support of external ideas, which need real product development, market validation, to get to successive investment rounds until complete implementation and market access.

This model allows entrepreneurs and innovators not to waste time on operational and management issues, but to focus entirely on value creation. The Studio provides a platform of strategic, technological and financial human resources; a place where creation can take place by accelerating the process and thus creating value faster than conventional acceleration methodologies.

There are many advantages for a startup that takes its first steps in a Venture Studio such as TechBricks, for instance: the possibility of creating a dedicated work team with specific resources or executive ad interim and optimizing development and validation investments in the first delicate phases of product life.

These aspects allow facing the fundamental steps of product creation and validation of the product-market-fit, quickly and wisely. Quickly assessing the effectiveness of the startup or the possible pivot in similar applications in different markets or sectors.

By providing an assembly line for the startups’ creation, Venture Studios reduce the risk and initial investment to go to the market. Consequently, it is easier to respond to failures and leverage the collective intelligence of the firm, which grows as ideas succeed. Startups are created in parallel and not in series, in this way the so-called parallel entrepreneurship develops, allowing immediate response to the needs of the different realities in the portfolio through an integrated approach and the efficient rotation of internal resources.

In general, a model of this type favors the auto-entrepreneurship, creating an environment of simplification in which with good procedures even a novice entrepreneur has a reasonable chance to build a successful startup.

However, they are very selective, as they offer resources and infrastructure of fundamental importance for the start of a project, also taking the consequent risks.

Among the various issues that may arise, the authenticity of the idea could raise alarm bells in investors. In that case, the team and the founders themselves must represent the true source of authenticity and differentiation from the rest of the classic accelerators.

In addition, the leaders of the organization must immediately establish clear guidelines on the priorities and the preparation of the team. Regular discussions, awareness of the work, and the right cooperative environment allow an effective distribution of the deadlines and objectives of the individual projects implemented.

The approach is already growing strongly and is contaminating not only the innovation environment but also the Corporate Innovation one. We believe that there will be many entrepreneurial realities that, in order to reduce the initial costs and risks, will increase the control of the process from the start, aligning with the Studios process.