Speed, Support, and Networks — The Real Resources of Startup Studios

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I don’t know why, but I always equate building startups to cooking meals.

• You need to have an appetite
• You need to have an idea of what you’re trying to make
• You need to have certain ingredients
• You’ll always be missing a few things and substituting (or eliminating)
• The end result looks a bit like what you were going for, but almost nothing like the picture on Instagram

If building a startup solo is the equivalent of opening the fridge to make something edible from the random food you have on hand, building a startup with a studio is like getting a personalized meal kit from Hello Fresh.

Side note: did you know Hello Fresh was a startup launched with and initially funded by Rocket Internet, a German startup studio?

Both produce a meal but the latter is a much more enjoyable experience and likely to result in a better dish- one you’ll want to take pictures of and post.

The founder brings the appetite and inspiration. They’re also the ones doing the actual cooking- but startup studios are a great conduit for the production.

The Studio Recipe For Success

Founders often wonder about the ingredients studios deliver. Often they want exact details of what a studio will provide and how much of each they’ll get and how long the startup is going to take to make and what it will look like when it’s done….but, unfortunately, that’s not how it works.

While it is true that studios offer fundamental “hard” resources (technical talent, designers, access to legal help and financial professionals…) these services are not the core value add of a studio.

If you’ve been in the startup world for any length of time, you know that these resources are commodities. You can hire a designer on UpWork, outsource the tech to an agency, and legal and financial firms typically have free help for startups through various organizations or their own…