Empowering Entrepreneurial Journeys: The Rise of YE Stack Venture Studio

CXOToday has engaged in an exclusive interview with Arun Antony, the founder of YEstack.io

1) Give us an overview of yestack.io and its journey so far.

YE Stack, a global Venture Studio launched in early 2023, fuels founder-driven startups through its innovative “Venture Studio” model. This approach, gaining worldwide traction for its unique value proposition, empowers entrepreneurs to build better businesses. Founders from India, the US, Australia, and Europe have already begun leveraging YE Stack Venture Studio to build their startups.

Unlike an incubator or an accelerator, YE Stack is an operational co-founder for any aspiring entrepreneur building a scalable startup. By assembling a “STACK” of capabilities (resources, expertise, infrastructure), YE Stack helps startups reach product-market fit faster and better through structured guidance and rapid experimentation. This “0-1 playbook” empowers founders to focus on solving customer problems and generating resources, while YE Stack acts as an operational co-founder handling other crucial aspects.

The Venture Studio’s roots can be traced back to a young entrepreneur mentoring initiative started by Arun in 2017. The initiative grew into a community that went beyond just a collective; it became a collaborative hub where young entrepreneurs shared experiences and fostered teamwork, united by their entrepreneurial goals. YE Stack dedicated itself to fostering a culture of continuous learning and breadth building and has built “ Learning Stacks” for its community members right from the beginning. YE Stack Community transformed into a Venture Studio in mid-2023 and began working with founders globally.

2) What are the reasons that make Venture Studio ideal for businesses?

Unlike other early stage ecosystem models like Incubators or Accelerators, Venture Studios offer a fundamentally different model. Instead of simply providing support and resources, they actively participate in building your startup alongside the founders. This deeper involvement can minimize risk and significantly increase the  chances of success of a startup

Think of a venture studio as a co-founder with extensive capabilities and expertise. They help you with everything from generating ideas and building your team to product development, marketing, fundraising, and securing initial customers. They even assist startups in setting up the organizational structure, governance model, and scaling the operations.

In contrast, many other early stage startup building models offer a more hands-off approach. They provide valuable resources and mentorship, but ultimately, the responsibility for building your startup falls squarely on the founder.

When to choose a venture studio:

• You want a deeply involved partner with significant skin in the game.
• You prioritize maximizing your chances of success, even if it means giving up additional equity.
• You prefer comprehensive support across all aspects of building your startup.

When to choose an incubator or accelerator:

• You’re confident in your ability to execute and only need additional resources and guidance.
• You have crossed the early stages and is no longer suitable for an operational co founder to join
• You prefer a non operational partner who provides support of an external nature.

The decision ultimately depends on startups specific needs and goals.  You should carefully evaluate your priorities and resources before choosing the right model for your startup journey.

3) What changes do you see happening in India’s VC/Venture studio market?

Venture Studios or similar operator driven models are likely to gain more traction in the early stage venture eco system. It is getting clearer that early stage startup building requires a different approach from mid or later stage startup building that is more focussed on growth capital of different types. Early stage startup building requires a tremendous focus on quality of founding team across capabilities and the quality of execution that the team can demonstrate within a very short time. This mechanism requires more visibility and guidance while allowing for Founders Creativity and Vision not to be affected by external factors.  Capital Allocators have realised this across the world and have started adopting such models and this is likely to grow in Indian early stage Venture Building space too.

4) What trends will shape this market in the coming years?

As startup building becomes more and more scientific and when playbooks become clearer, effectiveness and efficiency of building startups will become more prominent. Unlike the days of startup building which was largely driven purely through Founder Grit and Perseverance, since data about what drives startup success was almost unavailable, industry practitioners have understood multiple risk reduction elements which can improve the probabilities for a determined founder. Like every other dimension, once there is clarity on what reduces risks and what enhances speed, capital allocators will take note and implement these to protect capital as well as to grow the capital better.

Operator Models like Venture Studios have a clear role to play in addressing some of the “ addressable risks” in early stage startup building and this is getting clearer and clearer. This has resulted in a global interest in Venture Studios and the number of Venture Studios getting formed across the world has skyrocketed over last couple of years. This is likely to continue over the next decade where startup co founding institutions will play are a larger role in value creation through startups.

5) What are your plans going forward? Top priorities for 2024?

YE Stack intends to expand its geographical presence to more geographies and intend to work with more founders across the globe. We also intend to build better capabilities to make the 0-1 journey even more smoother for early stage founders. The objective is to bring more clarity in terms of the speed at which startups can be built by offering capabilities and tools to solve customer problems faster and better.

With YE Stack Startup building model gaining acceptance across Global as well as Indian Founders, we intend to build a team of rockstar youngsters who can work alongside Startup Founders across the globe in building their startups better. YE Stack is on the lookout for ambitious and driven youngsters who can join our team to build our rockstar team building for the world!