Oxford calls every newly established business a start-up. Wikipedia says a start-up is any company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. According to us, Wikipedia is closer to the type of businesses that are typically being called start-ups. Of course, that leaves several types of new businesses withouth a specific label. A shared service created by regional divisions of a large corporate organization, for example, is not a startup according to wikipedia. And also, the new ventures that ImpactBuilders create are not a 100% match to the wikipedia definition.
That’s why we invented a new name: greenfield venture.
A ‘greenfield’ venture appoints the team
Just like a start-up, a greenfield venture is a newly created venture. But, it is not created by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. It is created by a group of people, who have defined a common need in their daily practice, and are assigning a team to create a solution and scale a business around that solution. Potential clients are around the table from day one. And, they assemble the team, whereas in a start-up the entrepreneur seeks the clients. It’s just like a football team, that is assembled by a team manager, not by the players themselves.
Product-market-fit from day one
A typical team of a greenfield venture consists of creators, leads, and ambassadors. The creators have a common need, and they create a rough solution around the need. Then they attract the leaders, and coach them to develop that solution and make a business out if it. They also (often) become the ambassadors in a later stage of the greenfield venture. That way, the solution is validated by the market from day one, and is kept close to the market by the team that has initially created it. Therefore, the chances for success are higher than with a classic start-up where often, the product-market fit is an issue.
Building greenfield ventures
ImpactBuilders did not only invent the term, we also build such greenfield ventures. We gather the creators, leads, and ambassadors. We work on assignment from corporate venturing departments of large organizations, or help individual creators to build the greenfield venture around their core ideas. We also have a small venture fund that takes a few initiatives each year, on our own account. The role of a venture builder such as ImpactBuilders is to support the creation and scaling process, to attract the leaders and ambassadors, to attract funds, and to offer services such as accounting, marketing, recruitment and app development.
Greenfield ventures that create impact
Our purpose is to ensure businesses create a posiitve impact on society. Of course, each greenfield venture at ImpactBuilders should also be prosperous, but we are not driven by gaining millions of euros at whatever cost. We’d rather create a venture that has a long-term perspective. That’s why we want our leads to prioritize on motivating the collaborators to offer an added value to the clients. With such an tactical focus, it is much easier to create a positive impact on society, without green or social washing.