Builders Recap #5 — Mastering the plan
Reflecting on 2023, it was a year of resilience, innovation, and growth. We’ve put our principles to paper in our manifesto and shifted gears in shaping the future of technology and entrepreneurship. Without spilling the beans too much, let me take you through our year, what we’ve accomplished and what we’ve upgraded to stay on top of our game. Not much stayed the same, whilst a lot stayed exactly the same.
Mastering the masterplan
Studios mature over years as they navigate the creative chaos of entrepreneurship and refine their venture building cycles. To complete our masterplan we needed to launch 2 companies each year and of course, become better at it each cycle. Not that the quantity is the main driver but the learnings are. As we’ve now experienced, this number comes with as many pitfalls as upsides.
To become the master of our own plan, we’ve elevated our ambitions to launching 4 companies each year. With that comes the need for a more focused scope, continuous partnering with more entrepreneurs, and the need for more efficient operations. The biggest win? When aiming to build 4 startups each year, you’ll battle-test your models way more, and the efficiency of the studio and its team members grows with spades. I might even dare to say it’s almost impossible to do with just one each year. Read more about our learnings here:
Embracing Future of Work
From the start, we focused on launching companies for the future of work and living. Whilst we are all very passionate about both verticals, the studio as a platform has more leverage when focused on one vertical. While these changes should not be taken lightly, it was a very easy call to make. For as long as Sharon and I can remember, we’ve been building software not only to solve business challenges but also to make work life more enjoyable. We’ve been on a mission to turn the daily grind into a joy for millions and we’ll continue to do so with this sharpened focus.
On top of that, with the non-stop growth of compute power and artificial intelligence platforms, technology can be leveraged as a driving force for societal progress now more than ever. For those reasons, we now focus exclusively on developing companies that shape the future of work, with a strong emphasis on applying artificial intelligence to solve more complex challenges almost humanly.
We empower entrepreneurs to build companies for the future of work, transforming the daily grind into joy for millions.
Empowering Entrepreneurs
As we thoroughly believe that changing the future of work is not done by a single entity or entrepreneur, we partner with entrepreneurs from day zero to go on a journey to solve the challenges still existing in the market. Whereas before this year we mainly focused on empowering entrepreneurs in the key areas we’ve identified ourselves, we’ve refined our model. Today, we partner with entrepreneurs with a strong origin story needing to solve challenges they’ve encountered or got infected with themselves.
We’ve learned that whilst this is a whole different ballgame than starting with a studio-led idea, it brings us tremendous amounts of great interactions with unique entrepreneurs and gives us all the ability to see the market even clearer. Check out this great article on what it’s like to start from scratch as a seasoned entrepreneur at Builders:
Making the flywheel move
Getting hundreds of entrepreneurs in your inbox that one can partner with is beyond belief, but that doesn’t mean anything if the flywheel doesn’t keep going. Reflecting on our masterplan, we’ve seen the biggest leaps in studio growth when starting a new venture building cycle, aka launching a new company. To pick up the pace and get the flywheel going faster, we’ve upped our target output to 4 companies launched each year. With that comes a revised overall modus operandi where we validate business cases within weeks instead of months and attract external capital earlier. Read more on our pursuit of momentum in these articles:
Crafting operational magic
So, we’re aiming to launch 4 companies each year now in a focused vertical. Sounds good, right? But of course, that’s not all fun and games. Partnering with more entrepreneurs also comes with a responsibility to get clarity on the ideas we’re exploring earlier in the process. There’s no need for a room full of entrepreneurs if there’s not enough time to empower each other to reach higher levels.
Instead of hunting for answers for months, we’ve put our learnings on early-stage company building into more elaborate playbooks. In those playbooks, we don’t only focus on dozens of customer interviews but also way more on go-to-market strategies and crafting early proof of concepts. In doing so, we shortened the problem validation to around 1 month and made a hard cut after solution validation by creating what we now call the 10-week shape phase. In the shape phase, we craft a minimal viable company, but only if we pass the hard gate at the start of this phase. At these gates, we self-evaluate if we’re on the right track and make hard decisions if needed. The result is a 20-week process to get from 0 to launch.
Sharon published a great article with behind-the-scenes insight about it:
Manifesto for the future
This year has marked the glow-up of studios; we’re all in the spotlight now. To solve challenges on the work floor with ever-growing AI capabilities, we need to empower entrepreneurs and create platforms within ecosystems to thrive and create impactful businesses instead of just solving what’s in front of us. In a year where venture capital was hard to come by, the studio model has been highlighted as one of the best ways to keep building in a more empowered way. As a platform, we aim to change the daily grind into a joy for millions. We’ve put our beliefs and studio optimism to paper to guide us in the years to come. Check it out here:
Build with us
In 2024, we aim to continue empowering entrepreneurs, not to build companies but to craft a future where technology enriches lives. We all know that if you want to go far, you go together. So, for all companies we build, we always partner with a business and a technical co-founder. Yes, the business founder does all of the validation work and has the backstory to get the company to the moon and beyond, but without the best tech and product, one will never get to the moon.
CTO-in-residence
Starting this year we’ll also continuously partner with technical founders who share our grit and beliefs. Holding a residency at the studio, working on proof of concepts together with the business founders, creating an amazing melting pot of possibilities.
Let me leave you with this. Our achievements in 2023 are a testament to the hard work and dedication of the founders, core team, advisors, and investors. Build with us in 2024 for a future bright with possibilities, where technology and entrepreneurial spirit converge to craft a better world for all.
Cheers. Your friends at Builders 🖖🏻
