Business Design

Find your next bold business bet

Explore new market opportunities in a structured and effective way

Identify new
business opportunities

De-risk your
innovation efforts

Understand your
customer expectations

Early on, good and bad ideas are indistinguishable

Innovation is hard work. You can’t just pick the winner.

You’re probably asking yourself, “Which ideas are worth investing in? What trends should I be looking into? Should I enter a new market? What’s driving my customer expectations?”

The journey of exploring new business ideas is not a linear one and differs radically from managing an existing business. It’s a radically different profession that requires a different skill set and different experience. When exploring new ideas, companies are facing a lot of uncertainty, risks and countless directions of exploration.

What if you had a step-by-step guide for a structured process to systematically explore new opportunities, define next moves and decrease uncertainty?

At Venture Factory, we help ambitious founders and organisations to co-create new business model options and value propositions in order to concretize their strategic vision and objectives and get ahead of the competition.

With experienced coaches, a clear and well-structured process, and visual outreach tools, we can help you:

Let us help you to systematically search for new business opportunities

We have experienced coaches, who will guide you through the process of identifying and mapping new business opportunities and de-risk innovation efforts in a time and cost-efficient way. We are masters of facilitation that deliver the right, frictionless design process, an engaging experience and high-quality output.

Let's start working together.

Schedule a FREE 30-minute strategy session

Discuss your goals, challenges and solutions

Start your business
design process

Business design support is built on our 20+ years of experience and our startup DNA

Startup DNA is what’s defined our experienced team on its journey for the last 20+ years. We have successfully supported a number of corporate innovation teams, as well as several 100 startup teams. We have developed the PODIM conference into a leading startup and tech platform in the CEE region and built a global network of startups, experts and partners across various industries. Learn more about us here.

We offer you end-to-end innovation services

Workshops &
trainings

At Venture Factory, we design and facilitate workshops and trainings on business design.

They are ideal for company teams who want to learn how to explore new market opportunities in a structured and efficient way or to just upgrade existing products and services. We help companies design new value propositions and business models to realize their strategic vision and goals and get ahead of the competition.

“How to Create Products and Services Customers Want?” 6 hours (includes multiple breaks) – can be held in one day or split evenly over two days

“How to Create Personas for Design and Validation and Find Early Adopters in Real Life?” 6 hours (includes multiple breaks) – can be held in one day or split evenly over two days

“Business Design with Business Model Patterns” 6 hours (includes multiple breaks) – can be held in one day or split evenly over two days

“Mastering Value Proposition and Business Model Design Ideation”

4 hours (includes breaks)

Workshops and trainings are based on a proven design & innovation methodology. They can be 100% remote and organized digitally or physically at Venture Factory, a brand-new creative space designed to co-innovate and accelerate.

  • Sync call before the workshop to start from a clear and solid understanding of your business, context and objectives.
  • We challenge you and your team to find new breakthrough business opportunities, unmet customer needs, and identify promising market trends.
  • Together, we will develop variations of value propositions and business models based on those that are already working well in practice.
  • We facilitate the relevant strategic discussions on the most appropriate target customer groups, existing solutions and trends. You get practical tools for business design.
  • You will learn how to identify the critical assumptions in your business model and value proposition to review in the testing and validation phase.
  • We follow up to get feedback and define potential next steps.

Innovation as a
service

We offer a full-service support package to find, map and develop ideas for future business models.

Ideal for company teams that need more hands-on support in the process of finding and defining new business models and value propositions. It includes support in intensive preparation, content design & research, facilitation of strategic conversations and co-creation of all outputs.

32 hours – Consisting of intensive preparation (4 hours), Content design & research (8 hours), Facilitating strategic conversations (8 hours), Finalising outputs (8 hours), Joint presentation of the results and next steps moderated discussion (2 hours). We ensure complete project management down to the last detail to get the job done.

Innovation services are based on a proven design & innovation methodology. You can choose between an online version or take advantage of a work retreat at Venture Factory in Maribor, Slovenia, a brand new creative space designed to co-innovate and accelerate.

  • Great opportunity for a work retreat to spend time brainstorming, searching for fresh ideas, analyzing customer needs and designing new business models.
  • We are masters of facilitation, delivering the right, frictionless design process, an engaging experience and high-quality output.
  • We challenge you and your team to take a more systematic approach to finding and testing business ideas, with the aim of reducing risk and learning.
  • We challenge you to invest more time and effort into innovation to re-inject the innovation spirit into your company or just boost it to higher levels.
  • We help you design your business models to deliver more sustainable competitive advantages and ensure market success.
  • We provide complete project management down to the smallest detail to get the job done.

Partnership for collaborative innovation & special projects

We build partnerships with ambitious companies challenging the status quo and building resilient businesses.

Ideal for companies that are looking for a long-term partner in innovation with a proven innovation track record, global reach and strong roots in the CEE startup ecosystem. For companies looking for a specific innovation project or program we can co-design and co-execute.

We have prepared three packages for you, namely Startupper, Outlier and Unicorn. Each includes a specific amount of consulting hours per month, scouting talents and promoting innovation projects and activities via Podim & Startup Slovenia platforms.

We can provide services online or in person at Venture Factory in Maribor. You can use our creative office space 2 days/month for free.

Startupper package: 12 consulting hours/month.

Outlier package: 24 consulting hours/month.

Unicorn package: 32 consulting hours/month.

  • Support for constantly reinventing your business. Building the right environment of talent, processes, methodologies, Support in addressing and finding external partners to drive innovation through cross-industry collaborations.
  • You can leverage our Podim conference and Start:up Slovenia ecosystem platforms.
  • We can co-develop tailor-made innovation projects or programs. We can deliver fully customised solutions to ensure you reach your goals.
  • You can reach an international audience through events, media and community partnerships.
  • We can help international companies looking to the CEE market. We help you with constant innovation.
  • We help you stand out and speed up your innovation by being disruptive.
  • We can co-develop special innovation projects or programs (execution/implementation is not included in the base price).

Get on the path to becoming a resilient business

Work and innovate with us to create new value for customers and make a difference in the market. Together with your team, we will discover;

From this point of view, we will clearly envision the future of your business and make the best strategic decisions to get there.

Sign up for free updates

Wondering what the future can bring to your business? Looking for ways to stay ahead of your competition? To spot unique business opportunities where others only see risk. How to inspire your team and your investors to join forces and commit?

Register today. You’ll receive our latest tips to help you build a resilient business! You’ll also get special discounts on our workshops and events