The Bundl Venture Club’s Guide to Killing and Exiting Corporate Ventures
Knowing a venture should stop is not the hard part. Saying so, and making it stick, is. This guide covers how to spot the moment and who actually owns the decision, with Disney's metaverse division and Google Stadia worked through.
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23 pages · PDF and onlineWhat you walk away with
- How to tell a market timing problem from an execution failure
- A traffic-light test, and what a good stop actually looks like
- Who owns the kill decision, and how to make it survive the room
Drawn from venture work with
Why this report exists
Spotting a dead venture is easy. Killing it is not.
The signals are usually there long before anybody acts on them. What stops the decision is that nobody owns it, the evidence is contested, and the people closest to the venture are the ones being asked to end it.
A good stop is a decision with an owner, not a conclusion everyone reached separately.
What changes
When to stop, and who gets to say so.
Two halves: reading the venture honestly, then making a decision that holds once it leaves the room.
Spotting when to kill
Read the venture honestly, and early
- 1Recognise bridge productsThe ones that exist to postpone the decision
- 2Timing or execution?A market that is not ready is not a failed team
- 3Use the traffic-light testA read anyone in the room can apply
- 4Balance data with human proofWhat the numbers miss, and what they do not
Who owns the decision
Make a call that survives the room
- 5Build the investment committeeWho decides, named in advance
- 6Bulletproof the decisionEvidence that holds when it is challenged
- 7Balance speed and consensusA fast decision checklist, for when both are needed
- 8Manage resistanceThe stakeholders with something invested in continuing
Inside the report
Built for the call nobody wants to make.
2Worked cases: Disney's metaverse division and Google Stadia
8Actions, from first signal to final decision
1Traffic-light test to run on any venture
1Fast decision checklist for contested calls
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