Venture builders: new venture production in the entrepreneurship industry

Abstract Venture builders (VBs) are a new type of actor in the entrepreneurship industry (EI). Operating as a venture factory, VBs initiate, scale, and sell startups on an ongoing basis. This paper aims to unpack the VB phenomenon and its implications for the EI. Through an in-depth qualitative analysis based on 40 interviews with 16 entrepreneurs in VB-backed startups and secondary data, we demonstrate how VBs produce new ventures as products. VBs produce new ventures in a standardized process characterized by four production principles of productization, specialization, control, and accumulation. These production principles outline what we refer to as a “new venture production regime” in the EI, representing a distinct sociocultural influence on entrepreneurship. By combining these production principles with the seminal insights from Schumpeter, Kirzner, and Gartner, we help to articulate the theoretical logic of the “new venture production regime” and how it differs from the traditional “new venture creation regime.”