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Abstract: A relatively new phenomenon called Venture Building has formed to address the challenge of creating a company from scratch. This process is based on creating and analysing many ideas at the same time and then choosing the most promising ones to be developed further. Even though this phenomenon has been growing during the past years, there is not much academic research done on this particular organizational form. Some questions such as how effective is this model of strong and long-term guidance compared to more traditional accelerator and incubator models, remain open. Startup terminology is evolving all the time and hence it is hard to define a phenomenon such as Venture Building precisely. This paper aims to address the lack of academic research by offering a definition that aims to capture the nature of the phenomenon.
Keywords: Venture Builder, Startup, Startup Studio, Acceleration Programs, Incubation Programs
1Introduction
Imagine having a brilliant idea and a vision of something great. Then you gather a cofounder and a team, build a concept, acquire capital and finally start selling and growing. What could go wrong? Actually, many things. The hard and bleak truth is that, according to the CB Insights, the mortality rate of startups is of nearly 67%. After failing the whole process must start from the scratch.
A relatively new phenomenon called Venture Building has been formed to address this challenge. Instead of putting all eggs in one basket with one startup, in this approach multiple ideas and concepts are being developed at once. One could compare venture builders (or startup factories) to movie studios. Just like movie studios, a Venture Building process is based on creating and analysing many ideas at the same time and then choosing the most promising ones to be developed further. There is no strict definition of a startup studio, but by comparing some of the largest and most famous ones it is possible to observe some common characteristics.
Even though this phenomenon has been growing largely during the past years, there is not much academic research done on this organizational form. Some questions such as how effective is this model of strong and long-term guidance when compared to more traditional accelerator and incubator models, remain open. Startup terminology is evolving...