Let’s explore the startup studio: a model for generating new businesses.
Early collaboration between established businesses and startups developed through startup accelerators. A further model has since emerged: the startup studio. Let’s look at how it works.
What is a startup studio?
A startup studio is a startup factory designed to create new businesses. It begins with market and trend analysis, identifies potential or latent demand, and develops a specific new response.
The model focuses on rapidly scaling a selected number of projects and building a portfolio of high-quality startups from scratch while limiting risk. Its approach aims to help the projects it develops, supports and launches grow faster and reach the market sooner.
A startup studio brings together experienced entrepreneurs and a portfolio of businesses. Zalando, for example, was developed within a startup-studio model.
How startup studios differ from incubators and accelerators
A startup studio is designed for ventures starting from scratch. Once collaboration begins, both human and financial capital are available.
The team is a defining feature. It works alongside the project while also becoming part of the startup, using specialist methods and tools to manage and scale initiatives efficiently.
Incubators and accelerators generally support startups that already exist, providing workspace and advice. A startup studio begins with a business problem and creates a venture to solve it in line with customer needs.
Here are the main differences between startup studios, incubators and accelerators:
— Startup studio: also called a venture builder or startup factory, it works over the long term. Through parallel entrepreneurship, it creates multiple startups and supports them from initial idea to exit.
— Accelerator: works over a shorter period, offering paid or free strategic advice on areas such as business definition, team formation, fundraising, pivots and product launch.
— Incubator: works over a medium-term period, providing physical workspace, access to services such as meeting rooms and internet connectivity, and networking opportunities.
The startup-studio model seeks to reduce the risk of failure and improve the quality of the ventures it creates.
These benefits offer investors a different approach to startups. Established businesses can become industrial partners, working with studios on new ventures. Aspiring entrepreneurs can gain the skills they need through direct experience.
Why choose a startup studio?
Here are some of the model’s distinguishing features:
— Experience: studio founders are experienced industry professionals and entrepreneurs. Their background helps them avoid common first-time-founder mistakes and apply proven practices to customer needs from the outset.
— Methodology: studios often use lean-startup methods to manage incremental development across several projects and pursue serial entrepreneurship. The approach depends on the founders’ previous experience and expertise.
— Challenging bias: the studio model encourages teams to question ideas rather than become attached to them. Business concepts are tested, revised and pivoted when necessary. Teams seek alternatives—even ones that overturn the original idea—to achieve their objective. Practicality and objectivity are central.
— Decision-making: a studio draws strength from its professionals and investors. Management approaches such as holacracy aim to make the most of each member’s expertise and base decisions on objective data, reducing individual bias and common startup mistakes.
— Resources: financial and human capital are available from the business-model validation stage, including expertise that an independent startup may not yet have.