Categories: General Information
What is a Venture Builder? The Venture Builder Model of Unicorn Ultra
As the startup ecosystem has continued to evolve and mature, a new business model has emerged: Venture Builder. What is a Venture Builder and how does it differ from traditional venture capital firms or incubators? Explore the definition as well as the meaning in this U2U article.
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What is a Venture Builder?
A venture builder is consists of a dedicated team of multidisciplinary professionals with the aim of generating and nurturing new business ideas, bringing forth new companies or products, and facilitating their journey to success.
The definition of a Venture Builder is a unique type of enterprise that specializes in creating and launching new businesses. Sometimes referred to as Startup Factories, Startup Studios, Tech Studios, or Venture Production Studios, these organizations utilize their resources and networks to develop high-growth businesses from scratch. They take an idea, transform it into a product, and then establish a successful business around it.
The Venture Builder Model has proven to be incredibly successful, and it is credited with producing some of the most successful startups in the world, including Twitter and Medium. This model has also been adopted in the corporate world to drive innovation and establish spin-out companies. With its focus on identifying and nurturing new business ideas, the Venture Builder Model is poised to continue to drive innovation and create successful startups for years to come.
Why was the Venture Bulder model born?
The startup story has always been compared to the distance between the numbers 0 and 1, meaning from nothing to something. The success of tech unicorn companies valued at over 1 billion USD has become the dream of many businesses.
However, different statistics show that it is a far-fetched dream as over two-thirds of startup projects fail in the journey from 0 to 1. Today's economy still has a lot of potential for development, especially as humanity enters the era of Industry 4.0 with many breakthroughs. However, in a highly competitive world, startups have a hard time finding their place and achieving success.
Therefore, the Venture Builder model was created with the meaning to nurture, construct, develop, and expedite the growth of startups.
How does Venture Builder differ?
Venture capital firms and Venture Builders differ significantly in their approach to investment. While venture capital firms invest in teams and business ideas that meet their criteria without getting involved in daily operations, Venture Builders take a more hands-on approach to management. If a Venture Builder owns equity in its ventures, it's because it played a significant role in developing the idea and invested substantial effort in growing the company, rather than merely providing capital.
Nevertheless, some Venture Builders are creating funds to facilitate fundraising efforts. However, unlike incubators and accelerators that accept applications for a limited period and run a competitive program culminating in a Demo Day, Venture Builders don't accept applications. Instead, they leverage their network of resources to source business ideas and create internal teams from scratch to develop them, including engineers, advisors, business developers, and sales managers. The relationship between a Venture Builder and its ventures is long-term, with deep involvement in the startups they produce until exit.
The rise of venture builders
According to The Mind the Bridge’s report “Evolve or Be Extinct: Current and Future Models of Open Innovation from the 2021 World’s Corporate Startup Stars”, the trend of venture building is expected to be one of the most popular methods of corporate innovation in 2023. This innovative approach provides several benefits for companies to embark on innovative initiatives without compromising their existing strategies or resources.
One of the major advantages of the venture-building model is the ability to save significant amounts of time and resources. Compared to the traditional process of launching an independent startup, venture studios offer a much more agile and cost-effective way of identifying new business opportunities and transforming them into reality.
Building a startup typically involves securing several rounds of seed funding, as well as recruiting and assembling a team, which can take up to a year or more. In contrast, partnering with a venture studio allows companies to create a startup with considerably fewer financial resources, without the need to hire a dedicated team, and in a significantly shorter timeframe. This makes it a more efficient and faster way to foster innovation and bring new products or services to market.
Successful companies may be experts in many areas, but innovation is not typically one of them. While they recognize the importance of corporate innovation, there is often a disconnect between their expertise and actually implementing innovative ideas. This is where venture studios, like Corporate Lab, can be invaluable. Made up of a team of entrepreneurs who specialize in startup creation, these studios allow companies to delegate innovation to experts and focus on their own areas of expertise.
It can be tempting for companies to focus solely on their successful product-market fit and avoid disrupting their current business model. However, diversifying business options can often lead to greater success. The challenge is finding new ideas that complement the existing strategy without conflicting with it. Disrupting a company's business model can be a daunting prospect, requiring major readjustments and taking significant risks.
Venture builders offer a solution to these challenges. Unlike in-house innovation departments, they do not clash with the company's strategy, roadmap, or objective key results. They do not require the creation of new departments or the hiring of new employees, allowing companies to pursue innovative ideas without sacrificing their current successes.
If your company is interested in exploring new ideas for innovation, consider hiring a venture studio. Schedule a call with them to discuss your options and find the right fit for your business.
The Unicorn Ultra (U2U) Venture Builder Model
More than 1,000 guests attended the Unicorn Ultra (U2U )Show event in Hanoi on March 9th to learn about Venture Builder model - a new development model based on community resources and blockchain technology integration for startup projects. In the traditional Venture Capital model, investors typically have to wait until the public funding round (known as angel investors), and not everyone can access this stage.
The vision of Unicorn Ultra (U2U) is to create a Venture Builder community where any individual or group can become an initial investor in startup projects even before funding rounds or IPOs, simply by participating in the ecosystem. The success rate of projects built through the Venture Builder "cradle" is up to 70%, with a 5% chance of becoming a unicorn. Therefore, Unicorn Ultra (U2U) has applied this advanced model integrated with blockchain technology to create a comprehensive ecosystem called U2U Blockchain Venture Builder. Capital raised from the community in the Venture Builder model is used as resources to attract and fund development projects on U2U's blockchain platform.
The benefit for investors is that their shares in each project increase in value depending on the success (number of users, product value) of each project. Unicorn Ultra's direction is not just to nurture and support startups or provide funding like Incubate/Accelerate/Venture capital models. Instead, the U2U team provides other initial resources such as business strategy, management thinking, marketing activities, and brand building to ensure that developers focus on the technical core instead of having to divide personnel. This helps projects reach the market with high completeness to attract users.
By creating potential values, the U2U ecosystem helps startups to be better value, even with the chance to become tech unicorns. It is known that among the over 1,200 guests who attended the Unicorn Ultra (U2U) Show (exceeding the expected number of 1,000 guests), there were not only investors but also many developers, engineers, and programmers interested in the Venture Builder model, as well as representatives from reputable digital asset trading platforms in the industry. According to the plan, Unicorn Ultra's complete blockchain network (main net) will be launched on September 2nd, while the test phase is being vigorously implemented. From now until the mainnet launch, Unicorn Ultra (U2U) plans to organize more similar events in other major cities.
The Sharing Economy Creates Venture Builders
The concept of "verification" has led to the emergence of a new venture-building ecosystem, characterized by on-demand services and a sharing economy that fundamentally changes the way society accesses resources. Venture Builders, in particular, rely heavily on the quality and dynamics of their networks to unify available resources in the most effective way possible. This requires careful consideration of which combination of resources will produce explosive results and capture market share faster than competitors.
The key challenge for Venture Builders lies in their ability to facilitate all of these resources under one governing body, creating a focused and dedicated internal culture of trust, deal flow, attentiveness, and determination. This network-focused model is distinct from the traditional startup business model, and for good reason. As the entrepreneurial world adapts to the ever-changing needs of consumers and corporate clients, startups and organizations must evolve and share resources under a unified business model in order to remain competitive and respond to their client's needs faster.
The Venture Builder model shares similarities with venture capital firms in terms of funding ventures, building a portfolio, and seeking successful exits. However, Venture Builders are more involved in the operational aspects of their ventures than traditional VCs. In some cases, they even go so far as to pull all necessary resources from their vast networks to crush the competition and scale extremely fast.
This "Do it full speed exponentially or die" operational technique is highly reminiscent of Uber's and Rocket Internet's business strategy, demonstrating that Venture Builders are gifted entrepreneurs and savvy business developers who do not simply pour money into ventures and watch them grow. Instead, they implement aggressive business management techniques that benefit all the ventures within their network.
Conclusion
So, what is a Venture Builder? It's a new business model that has become increasingly popular in recent years, offering a more specific approach to building and expanding startups. By providing funding, resources, and expertise, Venture Builders can help transform ideas into successful businesses more efficiently and effectively than traditional venture capital firms or incubators. Follow U2U for more information on blockchain!