Kill zombies & build your own treasure map

Corporate Venture Frameworks

Speed and scale are the aim of the game in corporate ventures, the most common choke point for companies starting ventures is that the idea/problem hasn’t been designed to scale. Research has been performed, markets tested and business case validation gilded, the concept sails through these stages- maybe an early adopter customer is part of a paid POC. Then, gradually the momentum declines and the venture sits, stuck in a governance structure it wasn’t designed for, a business unit that doesn’t have time for it and too immature for sale to further customers without more investment, but the sponsors are nowhere to be found.

Here ventures become zombie projects, “the shuffling undead that consume resources with no path to scale”. In large organisations these can be R&D projects that shuffling along at POC stage, brought out for one-page examples of innovation but that have failed to progress. They lurch around the organisation distracting leaders’ priorities and hold resources and reputations to ransom, with business cases that lay stagnant.

Enter the treasure map, the adaptive framework that ensures any venture is started with a clear purpose. In this case, scale outcomes. From Idea to POC, to Regional Expansion and Scale- there is a clear path that the venture is travelling along. Each component will need it’s own funding, support, KPIs and governance, which is why ventures need to be grown within Corporate Venture units. These are equipped to deploy the boosters required to progress.

Growth Boosters: existing internal or external ecosystems that can help the venture progress. Think Mario Kart Mushrooms, these are power-up items that will significantly enhance the venture. The ability to use them and deploy them needs to be a mature process. Time wasted working out how to partner with a start-up mid-venture risks turning the project into a Zombie, caught in governance inertia. This is a key area where partnering with consultancies on Corporate Venture Units can in-source expertise quickly.

Growth Investments: leap-frog investments that can get the venture running immediately. Acquisitions, buying a start-up company that has achieved POC or Regional Expansion stage with part of the desired venture then folding your existing unit into the acquisition and running scale at speed. Or Corporate venture capital, making strategic investments into partners that can aid the development of a venture and form a string-of-pearls acquisitions path over time to becoming a scale unit.

Venture frameworks give projects a clear path and arms them with the boosters required to succeed. This assumes that there is an existing corporate venture unit or sponsored consulting project that has created the safe space and political shielding required to let the venture run at speed and grow.

For every company these frameworks will be different, some may be existing processes, R&D centres, or innovation teams. But try to overlay the expectation that a venture needs a clear outcome and governance, which has the power to and willingness to kill projects if they become zombies. This will ensure fresh resources are free to find the treasure in the market!