Venture studio, startup studio, product studio: which is Innovablast?

People who meet Innovablast reach for a category: venture studio, startup studio, product studio, company builder. The words overlap and none of them fits exactly. Here is what they mean, and where we sit.

Venture studio.

A venture studio builds companies from its own ideas. It comes up with the idea, tests it, finds a team and spins the company out with its own funding. The studio keeps a share and moves on. Startup studio and company builder mean the same thing.

Product studio.

A product studio builds products, usually for clients. It’s closer to an agency with a portfolio: one team, many briefs, each product handed over at the end.

Incubators and funds.

An incubator takes in companies that already exist and gives them space and advice. A venture fund puts money into other people’s companies. A venture studio starts with its own idea and its own first build, and the money comes later.

Where we sit.

We’re closest to a venture studio. The ideas are ours and we build the first version ourselves. Two things are different.

The first is what the innovations stand on. A venture studio starts each company more or less from nothing. We start each innovation on the spine, with accounts, payments, data, AI, apps and a website already in place. Whatever one learns, the next one starts with.

The second is how we’re organised. There are no departments at Innovablast. Each innovation is a company in miniature. It can grow, be spun out, be sold or be stopped, and the spine stays whatever happens to it.

So which word?

Innovation studio, if you need one. If you need a comparison, a venture studio where every venture stands on the same foundation. The Spine page shows how that works and the innovations show what it has produced.