How to build a successful venture studio: The support organization

Being able to leverage your unfair competitive advantage as an established corporation is at the very core of venture building, but it’s not always clear how to structure a venture studio to support several portfolio ventures and effectively share resources and expertise among them. Establishing a support organization that brings together the appropriate resources and know-how is vital to streamlining the venture building process and enabling portfolio ventures to thrive. 

A team setup that can scale more than one venture

In order to create a collaborative environment for scaling multiple ideas simultaneously, there are essentially four types of entities required: a venture board, venture studio team, a couple of venture teams and ad-hoc expertise. Let’s go over them one by one. 

First of all, the venture board is the committee of executives responsible for shaping the overall venturing strategy, funding decisions and providing clear “go/no-go” decisions for the portfolio ventures. 

Beneath the board, there should be a venture studio team that takes ownership for quality and roadmap, and provides guidance and oversight directly to the venture teams who are busy running the day-to-day operations in each venture. Often, but not always, the venture team is made up of the people behind the initial idea, and they are responsible for executing, validating, and building traction that will drive growth and success.

Finally, the ad-hoc expertise are specialized individuals from the parent organization that are there to support when needed. Their main function includes serving as linkages to key assets within the organization, offering legal and technical support, and providing connections to potential customers and partners in their network.

Who to include in the team setup

The venture board should have strong representation from senior management, including roles such as: 

• CEO (if possible)
• Chief Innovation Officer
• Chief Strategy Officer
• Director of CVC
• Portfolio/Venture Building Director
• Division leadership (i.e. management executives from the division under which the venture studio is established)

In the venture studio team, there are a few key functions to establish: 

• Portfolio/Venture Building Director (also represented in the venture board)
• Methodology experts e.g. product development, design thinking, lean startup, business experiments, design sprints 
• Recruiters who source relevant candidates to support and be part of the ventures

The setup of each venture team will look different depending on the type of venture, however, a few key functions to consider in the initial phases of venture creation are:

• Venture Lead
• Tech Lead
• Business/service designer
• Growth and marketing expert

As the venture progresses into the growth phase, a number of new roles will emerge, such as:

• CEO
• CPO + service designers
• CMO + growth team
• CTO + tech team

Finally, the ad-hoc resources should cover a broad area of expertise, including:

• Subject matter experts (internal and external)
• Tech and developers
• Legal 
• Sales