The Allure – and Pitfalls – of a Single Big Bet

“We just want ONE unicorn”. I’ve probably heard that a thousand times. But trying to disrupt a whole market with just one project is like trying to grow a forest from a single seed.?

Companies often think that nurturing one promising new project will create their next billion-dollar business. This single "big bet" strategy, while enticing, is incredibly risky. It's much smarter to adopt a diverse approach, placing many smaller, higher risk bets across a variety of projects.?

The unpredictable nature of new projects make it unlikely that one alone will be successful. Nine or more out of ten startups will most probably fail. However, with a variety of projects, all it takes is one win to balance out the rest. This is the venture capital model, at its most simple. But funding is not building. And this silver bullet mentality overlooks the realities of venture building inside large corporations.

New ventures operate under conditions of extreme uncertainty. Will customers want this product? Can we achieve product-market fit? Will this work in the unique market that is Europe? What business model works? With so many unknowns, most ventures fail. Even the most promising ideas can fizzle out once they leave the building (if they even make it out of the corporate mothership, at all). This unpredictability is a nightmare for large companies – your leadership probably demands detailed project plans and revenue forecasts before investing in new ideas. But you can never eliminate uncertainty. You must embrace it. But how?

By running many parallel experiments, you can avoid over-investing in any single product.?

In our new European Venture Camp 2024, we give large corporations the opportunity to build up to four ventures simultaneously, resulting in just as many fundable businesses with a milestone-driven, detailed execution plan at the end of 20 weeks. By working together, learning together, we’re able to build ventures “cohort-style”.?

So, no single incubation, no big bet.?

(I’m not suggesting you purposely build 9 ventures to fail. In fact, our methodology outlined in The Unicorn Within has an 85% success rate). Instead, Camp provides the space to experiment, ideate and strategize a series of small investments that have everything going for them, with the intent to disrupt markets.?

Want to know more about European Venture Camp 2024? This year, we focus on everything Climate Tech and AI.