Friday, January 20, 2023

So how do ideas get commercialise in the startup world




How do you get to the money and the VC and 

How do you reduce the risk of early-stage startup failure? 


A key ingredient says Steve Blank - is having a mentor - who have been there and done that -  which can often be found in 

Incubators , accelerators, venture studios and Vc firms  .


They have been a key part of the puzzle  helping teams find product/market fit and raise initial capital. 


The typical journey 1) come up with an idea, 2) form a team, 3) start testing minimal viable products, 4) raise seed funding, 5) then obtain venture capital.


So how do accelerators operate?

They offer a cohort of startups a six to 12-week bootcamp culminating in a “demo day” and pitch session to venture capitalists and angel investors. In exchange for attending an accelerator, startups give up 5% to 10% of their company’s equity.


Examples Y-Combinator, Techstars, and 500 Startups are open to all types of startups in any market, while others like SOSV, IndieBio, HAX, Orbit, dLab are more specialized.


What is an incubator

They offer a little money - and support - could be a mentor , infrastructure and connections -  in exchange for equity 


What is a Venture Studio ? 

An idea factory for employees and stakeholders in an organisation searching for product/market fit and a repeatable and scalable business model.


They incubate their own ideas or ideas from their partners. The studio’s internal team builds the minimal viable product, then validates an idea by finding product/market fit and early customers. If the idea passes a series of “Go/No Go” decisions based on milestones for customer discovery and validation, the studio recruits entrepreneurial founders to run and scale those startups. 


Examples of companies that have emerged from venture studios, include Overture, Twilio, bitly, aircalla, and Moderna


For more information of how a Venture studio works - Steve Blanks article is great 


https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/venture-studio-right-you-steve-blank



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