As a startup founder, it is natural to have the tendency of coming up with innovative business ideas to stand out from your competitors. However, conceiving groundbreaking ideas isn’t always enough as you also need to execute them in a seamless way for you to achieve success. Operating in a high-risk environment, having the wrong investors, launching an incomplete product, having incompatible team members, or focusing on the wrong goals could make your company one of the 90% of startups that fail.
One way to reduce the chances of failure is by working with an established startup studio.
What Is a Startup Studio?
A startup studio is a company consisting of experienced founders, investors, and startup experts that specifically work to build multiple companies either simultaneously or in rapid succession. There are two types of these companies; builder studios that majorly execute internally developed ideas and investor studios that help external businesses execute existing ideas to perfection in their early stages.
The contribution of startup studios to the success of developed companies includes financial capital, expert team members, highly-vetted strategic plans, efficient management processes, and effective technical tools.
How successful have startup studios been within this relatively new and unique business model? Well, this is evident in the success of companies that have emerged from it.
Top Companies and Products Created By Startup Studios
The effectiveness of the startup studio business model is evident in many companies, as they’ve grown to dominate their industries. However, the below startups created by startup studios are particularly successful.
- Overture/GoTo.com
- Tweetdeck
- Vacation Renter
You may already be familiar with these companies, as they’ve grown in popularity over the years. Keep reading to learn about the startup studios behind their success.
1. Overture/GoTo.com
Overture/GoTo.com is the pioneer company behind the pay-per-click advertising model implemented by popular search engines today. From the time the company was founded in 1997, it saw so much success that Yahoo! eventually swooped in to purchase it for a whopping $1.4 billion in 2003.
Bill Gross and his startup studio, Idealab, were the builders behind this immense success and are equal pioneers of the venture-building model we have today.
2. Tweetdeck
One product you would’ve probably heard of, Tweetdeck is a comprehensive dashboard application that provides an extensive array of tools for managing Twitter accounts. Although initially released in 2008 as an independent tool, Tweetdeck was eventually bought by Twitter for $40 million in 2011.
Betaworks is the startup studio that largely contributed to the success of the product in its early stages. Apart from providing expertise in building, Betaworks led Tweetdeck’s $3 million series-B funding in 2010, with this venture investment coming as support to maintain the growth of the platform. Today, Tweetdeck is second to only Twitter’s native platforms for sending out over 500 million tweets daily.
3. Vacation Renter
A more recently established company, Vacation Renter is an AI and automation-powered platform that facilitates online searches for vacation rental spaces. Since its founding date, the company has managed to facilitate hundreds of millions of dollars in annual rental bookings, earning features in top publications like Forbes, CNBC, and Bloomberg, among others.
Founded by ex-Google employees, David Kolodny and Phil Santoro, Vacation Renter was primarily built through the frameworks and expertise of Wilbur Labs. Wilbur Labs is a San Francisco-based startup studio formed as recently as 2016 that has also found success with other companies and products like Barkbus and Joblist.
Some other companies and products that made it out of startup studios worth mentioning include Giphy and OpenMedicare.
For many founders, especially if you are new to the startup market, utilizing the startup studio model could be your ultimate strategy for success. Startup studios don’t just ensure you survive within the ultimately fragile market but, as proven over the years, they also give you a higher chance of thriving in it. Check out Startup Studio Insider to learn more about the startup studio business model.