The magic between entrepreneurs and startup studios, here’s a glimpse
Starting a company has never been easier, but building a sustainable and scaleable business has never been more challenging. The truth is, building companies that consistently deliver value to customers is a testing endeavour. It requires exceptional talent, domain knowledge, great execution, momentum, grit, and so much more.
I believe there’s a better way of building strong and impactful businesses; A way where exceptional entrepreneurs become industry leaders is by leveraging their full potential through collaboration and creativity.
That’s why Builders exists. To empower those exceptional entrepreneurs to build impactful software companies at scale.
Passionate Builders
As you might know, we love to tackle big problems that, when solved the right way, change the way we work and live. We’ve also published our ideas on areas we believe should be tackled today. That doesn’t mean we start building these ideas into companies. No, we believe that the underlying problems can only be solved by an entrepreneur who is truly passionate about the subject and that we’re just pointing out the obvious.
Here’s where the journey starts for us, the studio, and the entrepreneur in residence. By the way, we love to work with entrepreneurs who have some experience building projects or have previous entrepreneurial experience. We’re not looking for the best resume out there but a personality that aligns with our DNA; in short, you’re a builder, and you know it. I’ll delve into this in a long-format article later down the line.
Validation Journey on Steroids
Let’s assume it’s day 0 of our partnership with an Entrepreneur in Residence. This is where we all start at 0, and to make sure we don’t operate on assumptions, we go back to 0. The journey starts by ideating on all the different ways the problem could be solved. Even if we’re dead set on a solution, we’re going to churn out around 40 one-pagers of different value propositions to get everything out of our system. Yup, we use a GPT-powered platform for that; it feels more like you’re instructing a pro to write one-pagers than anything else, and it works like a charm.
After that’s in the system, we’ll invite some stakeholders to blind vote on the 40 ideas we’ve just created. This should yield 1–3 winners which the entrepreneur takes as his/her starting point. Just like with any startup journey, the challenge is now to make sure there’s a real problem to solve.
To be honest, this is where we and most entrepreneurs get stuck. Is this a problem worth solving? Can I describe the problem in a way that’s compelling and everyone understands? And to top it off, does it fit within the studio’s scope with the potential of being venture-scale?
Hard Things About Hard Things
Answering all of these questions can only be done in one way, if you ask us. The entrepreneur leverages his/her and our network to arrange for a large set of video interviews where we’d conduct proper Steve Blank problem-customer discovery interviews. We’ll ask the hard questions and dig deep until it actually hurts.
No matter what the outcome, these 1 or 2 weeks will reveal a lot about the potential success to come. These few dozen interviews should yield a clear cloud of similarities in the real problem, the customer segment with the most pain, and most of all, a list of people who really want to talk to you again about their profession.
Second Dates
After a maximum of 4 weeks of digging deep into the problem, we’ll move forward into crafting solutions for our new friends. While we’re going full Steve Blank on them, we’re also looking into the market size and potential. Who’s in this market? Are they thriving? Failing? Why? Are we identifying piecemeal solutions to the problems during the interviews or is this problem not painful enough? The question of painkillers versus vitamins is going 100 mph in our heads.
After a few rounds of prototyping and digging deeper, a solution should arrive. If it doesn’t at any point, we make micro or macro pivots. And when partnering with a studio, we continually ask ourselves if this collaboration is going to work out. When it does, we touch on topics as diverse as beachhead customers, desire maps, product design, scope, technical feasibility, packaging, experiments, pricing, CTO recruitment, and market size. All should indicate that we’re on the right track.
Hell Yes or Hard No
Within 10 weeks, we’re either all very happy with the partnership, or it’s not working out. While we all aim for a good outcome, it’s not a certainty; the success ratio here is around 50%. To ensure fair decisions, we’ve introduced what studios call a “hard gate.” At Builders, we’ve created a scorecard that shows us if it’s a “hell yes” or a “hard no.” The biggest criteria to look at are founder-opportunity fit, vision, and a 4-page pitch. At times, we ask studio friends and stakeholders to provide their objective opinions on a business case. Not only because we value their opinions, but also because for us, after this gate comes the “shape phase,” and that’s a phase where the entire studio team gets involved, and we’re fast-tracking toward incorporation.
Shaping the Case — with the Hive
Unique to our way of working is the “shape phase.” We introduced this phase because we’d like to complete the founding team before incorporation. Our previous attempts at doing this after incorporation didn’t lead to the success we’d expected. Now, because we have the opportunity to shape the company before it gets incorporated, there’s more we’d like to check.
In these intense 10 weeks, the studio and entrepreneur will touch on every aspect of the business case to create, in all senses of the word, a mini-brand or mini-company. Go-to-market strategies, naming, demand tests — everything should align and make sense before we kick things off. This is where the studio’s core team shines; everyone brings their expertise to the table and double-checks and sharpens their skills.
At the end of shaping, we’d like to have a prototype with 10 launching customers and a pitch that will convince a great technical co-founder to jump on board. And yes, at the end of this phase, there’s a harder “hard gate,” but it yields the incorporation of a company and an investment from the studio — what’s not to love? ;)
Testimonial from Jeroen Spitaels (EIR at Builders)
“Builders is all about the future of work and living. Starting a company within a studio environment provided me with access to a range of expertise and resources right at my fingertips. It’s a hive of collective intelligence, unlike my previous journey as a founder. No doubt there’s a problem/solution-fit here.”
Join Us: Shape the Future of Work
Being part of Builders’ Studio is an extraordinary journey, one that starts with a spark and transforms into an impactful and sustainable business. The road is filled with learning, collaboration and growth. We’re here to shape the future of work and living and we’re looking for people sharing that vision. Someone who is ready to dive into challenges, is eager to collaborate and driven to make a lasting impact. Are you the missing puzzle piece we are seeking?
Feel free to reach out to me personally, and check the Builders website for more about what we do. ✨
