From Corporate to Co-Founder: Venture Building that Actually Works
Patrick Luke co-founded Zigzag inside Nestlé Purina and now runs it as an independent B Corp. He has lived every side of corporate venture building.
With Patrick Luke
From The Corporate Venturing Podcast, brought to you by Open Road Ventures
4 things this conversation gets into
- 01The structures that let a corporate venture scale
- 02Autonomy versus integration: where to draw the line
- 03Proving value with traction, not just vision
- 04Hiring for pace, ownership and adaptability
Patrick Luke is Co-Founder and CEO of Zigzag, a fast-growing B2C startup born inside Nestlé Purina and now an independent, purpose-driven B Corp. He has lived every side of corporate venture building, from strategy and innovation at HQ to spinning out a venture and leading it full-time as founder.
Davide Ritorto is a management engineer from Italy with an international MBA, currently working at Lamborghini. He is what some call an intrapreneur, passionate about open innovation and corporate venturing, and driven by curiosity about how things work and how to make them work even better. Through Open Road Ventures he sets out to inspire and inform other innovators, intrapreneurs and dreamers.
He founded Open Road Ventures as a weekly publication on open innovation and corporate venturing, and The Corporate Venturing Podcast grew out of it. He also mentors startups at Motor Valley Accelerator and sits on the Open Innovation Advisory Board at UC Berkeley Haas.
The Corporate Venturing Podcast is made by Open Road Ventures. The Bundl Venture Club is a partner of the show.
Read the full show notes
🎙️ Welcome to a new episode of The Corporate Venturing Podcast!
What separates corporate ventures that actually scale from those that stall in POC limbo?
In this episode, I’m joined by Patrick Luke, Co-Founder and CEO of Zigzag: a fast-growing B2C startup born from inside Nestlé Purina and now thriving as an independent, purpose-driven B Corp.
Patrick shares the rare perspective of someone who’s lived every side of corporate venture building: from strategy and innovation at HQ, to spinning out a venture and leading it full-time as founder.
Together, we unpack what truly makes venture building work—and where it often breaks down.
In this episode, Patrick shares insights on:
🏗️ Structural enablers : the systems, setups, and governance models that allow ventures to scale
💡 Consumer centricity as a North Star: why business value follows user value
⚖️ The corporate-venture tension: where to draw the line on autonomy vs. integration
📊 Real-world metrics: proving value with data and traction, not just vision
🧪 Why B Corp? the thinking behind Zigzag’s rare certification, and its unexpected benefits
🚫 Common pitfalls: why many ventures fail due to speed, funding, or unclear ownership
🧠 Team building in venture mode: hiring for pace, ownership, and adaptability
🔁 Lessons in iteration: how Zigzag evolved its strategy through constant learning loops
🎯 From strategy decks to scientific proof: the study that validated Zigzag’s impact
We close the episode reflecting on Patrick’s most meaningful milestones: from corporate innovation teams to publishing peer-reviewed research, and what it really took to get there.
Resources:
• Open Road Ventures Newsletter
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