DQ Ventures

Partner Info

  • Business Type: Acelerator/Venture Builder
  • Geography: Global, remote
  • Industry: Diversified
  • Stage: Idea stage
  • Focus: Founders who are experienced professionals

Summary

Blue Mongoose first worked with DQ Ventures helping to build and launch an exciting B2B SaaS that helped companies drive inbound referrals.  

The collaboration with DQ Ventures quickly developed, leading to our role as their official tech and product partner. Since then we've helped launch a wide range of portfolio companies and internal initiatives, from employee apps to the DQ Ventures Founder Portal.

In this case study we’ll expore how Blue Mongoose supports DQ’s founders, allowing them to focus on clients and investors, whilst providing some best practice and lessons learnt along the way.  

DQ Ventures

DQ Ventures specialises in helping experienced professionals launch startups while remaining in their full-time roles.

Experienced professionals often face financial and familial challenges when moving from a high salaried position to a pre-revenue startup, preventing them from starting a business. Partnering with DQ helps de-risks their startup journey, facilitating their transition from employees to founders. 

DQ works with the founder to refine and validate their initial idea, before helping them build and launch a product and demonstrate the traction required to raise investment. 

The team behind DQ have launched and invested in over 80 startups​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​, and that number looks set to increase as DQ Ventures continues to grow. 

How Blue Mongoose Adds Value 

In short, we use our team’s expertise designing and building products so DQ founders can focus on generating revenue and raising investment. 

Scoping & Validation

  • We first work with DQ to determine if the company is ready to start building an MVP, otlining any areas that require more research and validation 
  • During the scoping phase, we define what the MVP should include, identifying the essential features that align with the company's goals
  • We evaluate the technical aspects of the product, considering whether to build a mobile or web app, and choosing the right tech stack
  • Our team designs and develops landing pages tailored for pre-revenue companies to gather user interest, typically feautring waitlists and pre-launch sign-up flows

Product Development

  • Within a week of kick-off we’ll run through a detailed written scope and wireframes to make sure we’re on the right track
  • From there, our designers typically take a couple of weeks to put together high fidelity designs and clickable prototypes
  • Our builds take between 4-8 weeks, depending on the complexity of the product and the tech stack we've selected
  • We always add analytics and user feedback tools to all our product builds so on launch know what’s working and what isn’t

Ongoing Collaboration

  • Products are never perfect on day 1, we work with the founders to analyse the user feedback and analytics to build a data driven roadmap, which our team then executes 
  • For some projects, the BM Founder had a fractional CTO title and can support during the fundraising process, including investor/client conversations 
  • Check out the Dealer Doc Case Study for a great example of how we helped a DQ portfolio company build their product and raise a $400k seed

Best Practice & Lessons Learnt

Flexible collaboration model

  • For technical founders, our role often focuses on UI/UX design and landing page development, allowing them to lead on core product development.
  • With founders who have a more business-oriented background, we provide comprehensive support, guiding the project from concept to product launch.
  • As the business matures, we also assist in the transition to an internal CTO, ensuring a seamless handover

The power of form builders and clickable prototypes when validating demand

  • Form builders are a great tool for any pre (or post!) revenue business to validate customer demand
  • They’re quick to build, look great and you can integrate a payment gateway in the flow in less than an hour! 
  • We started to use these form builders to optimise the sign up flow, and then integrate the form into the product to avoid double work 
  • Clickable prototypes are a great tool to help founders demo a product-like solution to investors and customers. 
  • This is especially helpful for moving clients through the B2B sales funnel before the product is built

‍No-code is a powerful tool for launching quickly on a reasonable budget

  • For most projects in the DQ portfolio, bubble has been the go-to choice. It’s a robust web app builder that facilitates fast builds, rapid iteration and scalability. 
  • For mobile centric projects, we would recommend starting with a progressive web app (PWA) before a native mobile app to launch quickly and ensure we can quickly improve the product
  • No-code isn’t always the right solution. For most MVPs it’s the way to go, but an understanding of its limitations is critical to avoid any nasty surprises

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‍A dedicated founder management portal can be a vital tool for venture builders, especially in a remote model

  • DQ’s program is fully remote, with founders participating from around the world. Ensuring collaboration is key
  • We designed a portal specifically for DQ and its founders to work together seamlessly. The portal guides the founder through the journey refining their initial idea to a fully validated concept ready to be built 
  • The portal forms the foundation of the DQ-founder relationship, with perks and other ecosystem building features in the pipeline

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