Build
Starting companies from nothing.
Building is the harder of the two routes into our group, and the one where an idea has to survive contact with reality before it earns real capital.
Approach
Fund the learning, not the plan.
A new company is a stack of assumptions. Most business plans treat them as settled and spend money accordingly. We would rather find the one assumption that would sink the whole thing and test that first, as cheaply as possible.
In practice this means capital arrives in stages, and each stage is released against something learned rather than something scheduled. It keeps early mistakes small and it keeps the team honest about what they actually know.
It also means we start fewer companies than we could. That is intentional. A company we start is one we intend to own permanently, so the bar for beginning at all is deliberately high.
Process
From idea to operating company.
The sequence is not unusual. Following it honestly — and being willing to stop between any two steps — is the part that takes discipline.
Idea
A problem we have seen first-hand, usually inside a business we already own or one we looked at closely and passed on.
Validate
We test the assumption that would break everything if it were wrong — demand, unit economics, or the ability to reach customers at a sane cost.
Build
A small team builds the smallest version that can serve real customers. We fund it deliberately, in stages tied to what has actually been learned.
Launch
The company goes to market and starts answering the only question that matters: will people pay for this, repeatedly, at a price that works?
Grow
Once the model holds, it moves into the same operating support every company in the group receives — and stays with us.
What we look for
The kind of idea that gets built.
- A problem someone already pays to solve. Existing spend, however clumsy, is stronger evidence than stated interest.
- Economics that work at a small scale. If the model only functions at volume we do not yet have, it is a bet on fundraising rather than on a business.
- A route to customers we can actually afford. Distribution is usually the binding constraint, not the product.
- An operator who wants to run it. We back people who intend to still be there in five years, not to hand it off after launch.
- Something worth owning permanently. If the honest plan is to sell it in three years, it is a good idea for somebody else.
Build with us
Have something you want to build?
We are interested in operators with a specific problem in view — particularly ones who have already tried to solve it.