A stage model is only useful if a venture can fail one. Ours has six stages and six gates, and the gate matters more than the stage.
Every venture we build runs on the same operating model. Not because ventures are the same, but because the order in which the unglamorous work happens is what separates a company from an expensive prototype. Each stage produces one output and answers one question. If the question cannot be answered, the venture stops there — and stopping at Validate is a far better outcome than stopping at Scale.
01 · Discover — is this a problem worth solving?
Field interviews, market mapping, competitive and infrastructure reality, opportunity sizing, and a written venture thesis with a decision memo. The output is the thesis memo. Discover is where the venture is allowed to be wrong cheaply.
02 · Validate — is the demand real?
Demand tests with real customers, pricing and willingness to pay, channel experiments, unit economics, operating and regulatory constraints. The output is an evidence pack. This is the stage most often skipped, and the one that most often explains a later failure.
03 · Build — is it usable and supportable?
Product design and engineering with Labs, brand and messaging, data and analytics, finance and legal foundations, and the first operating processes. The output is a live product. Not a demo — something a customer can use and someone can support.
04 · Launch — is acquisition repeatable?
Channel selection, first sales motion, partnerships, pricing in market, onboarding and support design, and a weekly learning cadence. The output is first revenue. A launch that produces attention but no repeatable acquisition has not passed.
05 · Operate — does it run without the studio daily?
Hiring and onboarding, management rhythm, service quality, financial control, reporting, vendor and compliance operations. The output is a running company. This is the least photogenic stage and the one that decides whether the venture survives its own growth.
06 · Scale — is the business durable?
Partnership development, capital readiness and data room, new market entry, senior hiring, governance and long-term venture leadership. The output is an expansion plan.
A venture that cannot run without us daily is not finished, however good it looks.
Why the gates are explicit
Stage gates make the uncomfortable conversation scheduled rather than personal. Nobody has to decide, mid-sprint, whether to raise the thing everybody already suspects. The gate is the place where the question gets asked, the evidence gets looked at, and the venture either earns the next stage or does not.
The stages also tell you what a studio is actually responsible for. When we describe our role in a venture, we describe it in these terms: which stages we carried, over which period, and with whom.
