Venture building has a bit of a bad reputation. Many think that venture building is the corporate form of building up startups. But that definition has very little to do with venture building as such. Let me clear up a few common misperceptions regarding venture building.
1. Venture building is only done by VCs
VCs have made a bit of a name for themselves when it comes to venture building. Those who have the funds behind them and want to manage a project hands-on, refer to this practise as venture building.
In essence, there is nothing wrong with that. VCs have done a great job at using this phrase to describe the building up of something new with a dedicated team, to 99.7% referring to a technological development of some sorts.
But venturing has been done by corporates and SMBs alike as well. Mostly these internal startups were just referred to as projects or special business units (SBUs). The thing was, that these internal projects were seen as tests – ready to fail. Whereas VCs have taken this concept to the next level with external funding. This funding support is for many ventures the difference between life and death. It allows them to test more hypothesis than regular corporate tests.
2. Venture building means building a website
Most newly founded companies have some sort of digital footprint. Most were founded with a clear goal of creating something digital.
I personally believe that building a venture does not necessarily need to involve a website, app or any other form of tech – per se. In most cases it does help to use digital tools to get things done, though.
Whatever the venture is that you would like to explore, be pragmatic about the tools that you want to use and really need. If your business idea does not necessarily involve tech from day one, don’t force it upon yourself to use it. There is nothing more inefficient and worse than spending time and effort on tools that you might never really use or help your reach your long term goal.
3. When one business fails, the venture building project was unsuccessful
The word “venture” refers to a journey – not a product or business. It is important to separate the tool (business) that you are building to reach your longterm goal from the word venture. The business is not your venture, but the road to reach your goal is your venture.
It could very well be that you will need to start a good variety of projects and businesses to reach your long term goals. But you need to be aware of the fact that the one business (or tool) that you start with is not going to be the full solution to your problems. You need to stay open to new ideas, new ways of using and adapting your technology and embrace the venture as it comes.
You can make mistakes on your venture. There is nothing more natural than that. But what is important is that you learn to create the infrastructure around your venture building practise that allows you to make these mistakes.
The GANDT-approach
With GANDT Ventures we have developed a framework and work ethic that allows us to make those mistakes. We work with our partners and clients on their ventures. By guiding our clients on their journey we allow ourselves to build new tools, businesses, websites and apps with the goal of supporting our longterm goal.
This journey is what we refer to as venture building.
I hope that this cleared things up for you a little. If you are interested in finding out more about how we work and our thoughts on ventures building, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us.
