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Hansel Tantohari · · 6 min readHow to break into a career as a venture builder
“I help corporates and family offices build startups from scratch.”
This is the introduction I’ve settled on as a venture lead in a corporate venture builder after years of struggling to explain to people that I’m not a VC, a consultant, or an accelerator.
The truth is somewhere in the middle.
Image credit: Timmy Loen
Venture builders create startups, but instead of investing capital for equity, we devote our time and energy. This makes for a very broad scope, which is what I think makes a venture-building career exciting for the right kind of person.
If you’re early in your career and want to get founder-level experience without being a founder yet, venture building is an underrated path you might want to explore.
What venture building actually is
Unlike VCs that wait for a founder with an idea, venture studios and corporate venture builders start from scratch. This means hunting for big problems, designing potential solutions, validating them with real customers, and spinning the best ones out into standalone companies.
Some of the world’s most famous firms were born this way: Rocket Internet built Zalando and Lazada, while Idealab launched Overture and eToys.
Although relatively less common, there are venture studios in Southeast Asia as well. For example, corporate venture studios like my employer, Wright Partners, have built startups such as AgriAku, Toco, and Labamu.
See also: Behind SEA’s venture-building boom in a bear market
Pure venture studios like Rocket Internet build and scale startups themselves, often by following proven models in new markets.
Meanwhile, corporate venture studios like Wright Partners and BCG X build ventures alongside large corporates or family offices. They use unique assets like customer bases, data, or supply chains to give their startups an advantage.
Even within this group, some follow the traditional fee-based consulting model more closely, while others focus more on the venture studio equity model.
Founder mode, sort of
I find venture building rewarding because it lets me live a founder’s life but with far less personal risk.
Getting a foot in the door
What you need to succeed
Career path (and why it’s not linear)
A day in the life
Founder crash course
Stay ahead in Asia’s tech landscape
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Want founder-level experience without starting your own company? Here’s how to break into venture building – and what it really takes.
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