Venture Building When Real Profits Are Your KPI
Corporations build ventures to hold, depending on realized cash flows to deliver shareholder value, but the lean startup playbook is setting them up for failure.
In the quarter century since the bottom of the pyramid concept gained widespread interest, hundreds of thousands of ventures and billions in impact investment have produced a mere handful of winners — mobile money being the most notable, and perhaps only true commercial success. It’s an extraordinary failure rate, even accounting for the inherent risk of new ventures.
The culprit isn’t lack of effort, money, or startup ecosystems. It’s how impact startups are taught to design, test, and validate.
Lean startup bakes failure into impact ventures’ DNA, then traps them in long, costly, and potentially fruitless validation cycles. Patient capital acts as an enabler — propping up “zombie” ventures that will forever depend on concessionary funding to survive, let alone grow. There is a better way.
Sessions
Session 1 — Dead Ends & Warning Signs March 13, 2026, 1pm ET to 2:15pm ET
Why lean startup sets corporations up for financial failure — and how to recognize the patterns in your own portfolio
Session 2 — The FIT Startup Framework
March 20, 2026, 1pm ET to 2:15pm ET
A profitability-first design philosophy — and what it means for how your organization funds and governs ventures.
Presenters
Erik Simanis, PhD
Co-Director, Built to Hold Venture Design Lab · Cornell University, Half-Solved
30 years experience leading and guiding over two dozen ventures across a wide range of industries, including health, financial services, education, energy and mobility. Dr. Simanis’ work is published in Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, and Wall Street Journal.
Patrick Donohue
Co-Director, Built to Hold Venture Design Lab · Half-Solved
Product and innovation leader with 20+ years at Facebook, Automattic, Rockwell, and mission-driven startups. A 0-to-1 venture builder, he’s led both corporate innovation and startups and coaches product and engineering leaders at OpenAI, Anthropic, Gusto, and beyond.
Mark Yde
Senior Associate, Investor, Ajinomoto Group Ventures
Directs and supports investments across therapeutics, food, greentech and other segments of Ajinomoto’s innovation frontier. Mark has extensive experience as a venture builder and investor, with a deep background in biotech and neuroscience innovations and technologies.
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