Venture builders are entities that create new companies from scratch.
We dream up a concept and build a minimum viable product. Only once we know a model works do we hire personnel to take on the day-to-day.
Venture builders like Novus Labs play a crucial role in the start-up ecosystem by providing a robust framework for testing new ideas. We also have the resources and expertise required to scale the ideas that see early traction.
In many ways, venture builders are essential catalysts of disruption, driving innovation and economic growth by producing sustainable, scalable businesses across a range of different industries.
But what makes a good venture builder? Every venture builder needs several elements to thrive.
Let’s start by looking at three foundational aspects.
3 Pillars of Every Good Venture Builder
Every good venture builder consists of three core components: a strategic vision, a skilled team, and readily available resources.
Here’s why each one is pivotal to a venture builder’s success.
1. Strategic Vision
First and foremost, a clear, forward-looking vision is fundamental. It serves as a guiding light, allowing the team to focus on—and align around—long-term goals.
The vision provides a sense of purpose and direction, enabling everyone to make decisions that serve the venture builder’s ultimate objectives. Moreover, it serves as a strategic foundation on which to build new businesses.
Using this foundation, teams can analyze market trends and competitive landscapes, identifying opportunities. They can also mitigate risks, optimize resource allocation, and maximize the potential for growth and scalability.
Ultimately, a strong vision and strategic mindset are key ingredients for building sustainable start-ups with a competitive edge.
2. Skilled, Diverse Team
A vision won’t get you far without the right people. This is why the best venture builders have multi-disciplinary teams with varied expertise.
Starting and scaling companies requires experience in fundraising, product development, marketing, business development, the list is somewhat endless — and venture builders need a grounding in each one to succeed.
Even small teams can possess varied skill sets. The best venture builders have high performers across several domains.
3. Resources & Network
Start-ups are resource-intensive; they require capital and access to a range of technologies to even get off the ground.
Well-capitalized venture builders will make faster progress than those constantly chasing funding. Technically savvy teams with direct access to experienced developers tend to fare better than most.
On top of internal resources, access to mentors, partners, and investors shortens the path to success. But if these are foundations, what characteristics does the team require?
We’ll explore those now.
Characteristics of Good Venture Builder Teams
The best venture builder teams consist of adaptable, committed people pursuing a shared set of goals.
Adaptability is important as start-ups are an ever-changing beast. They often require an overnight shift in strategy, focus, even development direction as they have to do everything they can to survive in the early days.
This is why teams also need to be committed to long-term success. It takes years to build scalable, sustainable ventures, and hoping for a quick exit can be a surefire route to a quick failure; a team must be in it for the long haul.
Shared goals align people around a strong moral compass, ensuring decisions are made with transparency and integrity as each individual fights for the same outcome. Finally, everyone has to harbor a proactive mindset.
The ability to pinpoint challenges and find solutions helps navigate the inevitable speedbumps of building a new venture. The best venture builders are often just the best problem solvers, spotting the iceberg long before it sinks the ship.
At Novus Labs, we have a combination of all the above, which has helped turn our business into a company-creating machine.
What Makes Novus Labs a Good Venture Builder?
Novus Labs was formed following the merger of its founding partners’ two companies.
This brought an experienced developer studio together with a Web3 marketing agency, creating a skilled, diverse team with extensive in-house resources.
With the Web3 sector facing its dot-com moment, the team also saw how now was the time to develop sustainable, scalable companies fit for the Web3 era, much like how the likes of Amazon set about building the ultimate internet-enabled business.
Circ*mstances led Novus Labs to focus on creating the ‘Web3 brands of tomorrow,’ aligning the team around a long-term vision that could help take the industry from its speculative bubble phase to something more enduring.
And the team has further tackled industry challenges by innovating at the business model level. They’ve played with tokenomics strategies, even linking tokens to company revenue streams through novel buy-back mechanisms.
Such setups not only advocate the Web3 ethos of community ownership. They improve the long-term prospects of Novus’ portfolio companies.
We’ll soon see how the strategies play out.
Five Companies, Three Launches, All In 2023
As we all know, bear markets are for building. And the team has had its head down throughout the whole of this year.
Novus Labs has created its first five businesses in 2023, with three of our companies now in full launch sequence: Full Force, Sumsy, and Bonsai3 are all expected to go live well before the end of this year.
Drop us a message if you’d like to learn more about our full portfolio.
