FuzeQube: Vision and Roadmap
Since the FuzeQube Group was announced, we have received numerous requests for a comprehensive elaboration of the overall vision and intended concept. This blog post is here to clarify exactly what FuzeQube is, and what we hope to achieve with it.
In short, FuzeQube Group is an innovation ecosystem, facilitated by a holding structure, where ventures come to life through the fusion of ideas and collaboration of driven individuals. The structure has some of the similar characteristics of an incubator in that it seeks to provide the necessary resources for ventures to get past the early growth stage. After all, the “Qube” part of the name was included to represent these intended traits. However, there’s more to it.
Putting a finger on where entrepreneurs derive the value that enables their businesses to be successful down the line is immensely difficult, and therefore an incubator may not cover all the needs of an early-stage founder. Sometimes this value may simply come through synergies with other founders who are going through the same process. Sometimes the problem is not even the growth stage, but what comes after, in which case a constellation that has been there from the start may have better perspective than any other. The scenarios are many, but point being — we need to think bigger about how to enable people, and subsequently businesses, to create value.
The word “ecosystem” is often thrown around quite loosely in business contexts, without any reference to the complementarities that make an ecosystem different from other forms of organizational constellations. That is not the case here — we are putting together structures that will allow for these organizations to actively benefit from one another, both directly by sharing resources of various forms and indirectly through the capabilities that the success of one venture enables for the ecosystem overall. Ecosystems do not try to put a finger on where the difference makers lie — they only make the case that some very complex dynamics often create value in ways that cannot be replicated. As ecosystem orchestrators, FuzeQube seek to create the best conditions for such dynamics to be sustainably realized and maintained.
The notion of FuzeQube came along by going beyond traditional Blue Ocean mindsets and strategies, and thinking of how ventures, even in cases where overlap of value generation (competition, if you will) exists, can have a collective mindset to growth. The digital revolution of our economy has over time established how it is possible to be competitors and collaborators at the same time — so then one wonders why business more commonly is framed according to the former.
Ecosystem thinking allows for one to instead place collaboration at the forefront, and move toward prosperity with a collective mindset aligned around a certain objective. In our case, that objective is to fuel meaningful innovation. The word “meaningful” is subjective; in our case, this implies being conscientious about having value lead the way and not financial return. It also implies that critical thinking goes into the applied use cases — innovation is, after all, very often not about coming up with a new, complex technology, but rather repackaging existing technology in ways that allow for it to have more impact.
We are fully aware that this is something incredibly difficult to achieve, let alone conceptualize. As conglomerates grow, they often become prone to losses in dynamism, and the task of not letting the structure take a life of its own that stops it from delivering its intended value is thus one not to be taken lightly. With that, we have constructed an initial roadmap, which allows for the vision of FuzeQube to be sustainably realized, while recognizing the many obstacles that this process inevitably will entail. Each of the steps are also to serve as enhancers of the ecosystem model on the following four fronts:
Shared capabilities and complementarities
This is the purpose of the ecosystem — to enable the actors within it to benefit from synergies and shared resources in their interactions. This applies not only to the ventures themselves, but also the individuals who participate in the structure. FuzeQube looks to enable individuals to get the most out of their presence in the ecosystem.
Diversification of income streams and investment
On the business front, the innovation ecosystem benefits from similar advantages as a common conglomerate. Not putting all eggs in one basket over time allows for the ecosystem to stay robust even when a subset of ventures are failing to keep up with the business landscape. Additionally, the resources of the ecosystem may, in cases where warranted, enable ventures and actors to pivot more seamlessly and with a clear purpose in mind. This is especially the case when the ecosystem has reached significant size.
Flexibility of ecosystem participation and engagement
As the ecosystem expands, the subsequently growing collective capabilities can be distributed in different shapes and forms beyond the formal structure. For that reason, it is important to make the ecosystem and its resources as accessible as possible, to the extent that allows for FuzeQube to enable the mission of fueling innovation beyond its own constellation without sacrificing the standing of the ecosystem itself.
Ecosystem standardization
To ensure that the abovementioned flexibility of the ecosystem doesn’t curb scalability, certain parts of the structure need to be standardized and automated to reasonable extents. This is also a requirement to enable the network effects to facilitate innovation beyond what is possible through the formal structure of the ecosystem alone.
We will outline the roadmap below, while attempting to explain how this approach addresses the four points above. At every point there will be room for many examples, but for readability’s sake, we will limit the mention of these to the extent possible without rendering the roadmap too abstract.
1. Foundational Orchestration and Initial Proof of Concept
Most ventures start with a validated proof of concept (POC). For startups, establishing these POCs is often an expensive and time-consuming process, where investors, VCs and associated accelerators provide a helping hand. Doing the same for an ecosystem, where we want to provide tangible examples of how the complementarities in question enable crucial benefits for ecosystem participants, becomes increasingly demanding. We see the establishment of a POC for FuzeQube requiring a two-fold process:
Establishing a POC for each of the initial ventures founded within the ecosystem, which is different for each venture
Highlighting how these POCs benefited from complementarities within the ecosystem
For this stage of the ecosystem, to allow for an easily understandable structure while the number of ventures are (relatively) few, we only have two forms of venture classifications: intra-ecosystem and exo-ecosystem. For a venture to be considered intra-ecosystem, FuzeQube must have a majority in both equity stake and voting rights, while the rest will be considered exo-ecosystem. This definition is useful in our context, as the initial orchestration of an ecosystem warrants a higher degree of control of intra-ecosystem activity to set the foundation and align the structures, ensuring that the figurative tree grows straight up. Thus, equity stake and voting rights serve as proxies for control here.
This stage will likely not entail the involvement of more than five intra-ecosystem ventures at a time, to ensure that each project gets deserved time and attention with limited bandwidth. We say “at a time”, as we are fully aware that some POCs will fail, in which case other projects of similar nature will serve as replacements. This is the point of an ecosystem — things never go according to plan, and that must be accounted for. From the managing partners, this mainly includes finding the appropriate people to drive the project and subsequently supervising and supporting business-related functions. This will enable the POCs to be created for each venture. Additionally, this stage will include the creation of a board of advisors, which will be integral in guiding the trajectory of the ecosystem through orchestration and beyond.
To complete the second step of POC establishment, it is imperative that “complementarities” are defined. Complementarities can be represented by many different dynamics within the ecosystem, but with the inevitable limitations of this initial orchestration stage, the complementarities in question will mainly take the form of streamlined knowledge sharing. This can be anything from the coordination of a collective communication channel for ecosystem venture leaders, to the managing partners compiling and distributing observed valuable learnings from each venture across the ecosystem in the form of workshops and information databases. The case is made that if the least funded and standardized aspect of complementarities is a difference maker in how POCs are established for individual ventures, then one can expect expanded ecosystem capabilities to extend the validity of such a dynamic significantly.
If we further hold the notion that direct complementarities are often enabled through reasonable interactions between intra-ecosystem entities, then it follows that you increase the probability of establishing valuable links if there is a common denominator between the involved parties. In our case, with the FuzeQube ecosystem seeking to fuel meaningful innovation, determining what the optimal common denominator would be entailed the consideration of four criteria:
High level of innovation in the chosen unit of analysis (in our case, industry or field)
Low barrier to entry and subsequent establishment of POCs
Low-to-medium degree to which use cases have been defined and validated
High investment activity
This led to distributed ledgers (of which blockchain is a subset) and web3 becoming the field to align with for our initial orchestration. With much excitement around the prospects of web3, the field is still in the earlier stages of its adoption lifecycle, justifying ventures that highlight valid use cases of the technology as important next endeavors. For this reason, the initial intra-ecosystem ventures will be focused on enabling meaningful mass adoption of web3, in different shapes and forms. More information on each respective venture will be shared publicly when (or if) a successful POC warrants it, with failures also being recorded as case studies for future reference. Thus over time, the idea is for FuzeQube to let meaningful web3 adoption serve as the vehicle for ecosystem expansion, and subsequently the scope of the holding structure.
In making all of this happen, we also want to ensure that the vision of FuzeQube does not get impaired by investors’ expectations on early ROI, justifying the bootstrapping of the overall ecosystem as our chosen approach. This implies that investment instead will be sought for the individual ventures within the structure as opposed to the holding structure itself. A potential exception is reserved for a partner we believe truly aligns with the ideals of the ecosystem on all applicable levels.
For this stage, the ecosystem will have three streams of income:
Exo-ecosystem collaborations
As we are building a consulting and education layer for the ecosystem, we are collaborating with companies beyond the ecosystem to advise on various aspects of innovation. Often this takes the shape of consulting projects and workshops that allow for initial influx of revenue to support ecosystem participants and the growth of the overall structure.
Individual intra-ecosystem ventures
We will let this speak for itself.
Investment token
Our investment token will be one of the vehicles through which we cover the initial funding of the ecosystem, allowing those who believe in the mission and vision of FuzeQube to get direct returns and unique benefits for their early-stage support. We will communicate more on this in due course.
The given streams will enable us to move to the next stage of the roadmap.
2. Expansion and Elasticity
Depending on the timeline of success with establishing POCs for the initial ventures and the required structural iterations to further accommodate complementarities, the ecosystem is eventually expected to reach a point where it will have displayed ways that the ventures were aided by the interactive conditions of the FuzeQube holding structure. This, in turn, would imply the successful establishment of the initial POC for the ecosystem.
Equally, this is the point in time when it is expected that the ecosystem has generated enough funds to expand on its capabilities through investments in human, technical and structural resources. The majority of the funds gathered from all revenue streams outlined in Stage 1 will be reinvested to enable further complementarities within the ecosystem. In the case of intra-ecosystem ventures, this could include an introductory welcome package given to each venture when joining the ecosystem, which covers various needs such as digital infrastructure, administrative necessities such as payroll implementation and beyond. Offerings like these will contribute greatly to FuzeQube’s ability to increase interest in and value of ecosystem participation.
This is also an example of how increased capabilities can enable reasonable, higher-level standardization for FuzeQube. This is mainly to allow for increased scalability and streamlined, sustainable expansion, in turn letting FuzeQube offer some of its ecosystem capabilities to more diverse audiences. The importance of packaging the capabilities of the ecosystem in reasonable ways is therefore not limited to interactions with intra-ecosystem actors. In fact, the expansion of the ecosystem subsequently warrants an expansion of the classification of ecosystem actors and what is offered to each of them.
For this stage, the ecosystem seeks to move from the dichotomy of intra-/exo-ecosystem classification, to one that allows for reasonable fluidity of engagement. This entails introducing various degrees, or tiers, of participation to the ecosystem. The orchestration stage only covered intra-ecosystem and exo-ecosystem ventures. Stage 1 will have given the managing partners and the advisory board some intuition regarding what tiers that will benefit the ecosystem and its intended dynamism most, and Stage 2 will enable those intuitions to be beta tested with ecosystem partners and participants, in line with the findings. Although these tiers have not yet been established, one can for instance imagine this stage making ecosystem resources available to individuals in various shapes or forms. This may take the form of something as simple as an online subscription to the FuzeQube education layer, or something more complex like a career development program that places interested individuals in ventures that could use their help. The possibilities are many.
This is also where there will be increasing enforcement of shared capabilities, and unique intra-ecosystem benefits. Think, for instance, of a scenario where an intra-ecosystem employee whose skillsets are transferrable to other similar projects is looking for a change of environment. If we are doing things right, FuzeQube will, similar to how consulting firms allow for employees to relocate, enable the same sorts of benefits within the ecosystem with limited disruption.
Further, this stage will enable FuzeQube to invest, both within the orchestration field (web3) and beyond. An ecosystem often enables complementarities by hosting interactions between parties that ordinarily would not associate with one another. Similarly, with success of individual ventures translating into expanded capabilities for the ecosystem overall, there is therefore additional incentive for FuzeQube to diversify into exciting prospects across various industries, and with that increase the probabilities of meaningful and unique interactions within the ecosystem.
In a sense, this trajectory further allows ventures to make intra-ecosystem collaborations integral parts of their overall business models, as expansion of the ecosystem increases the probability of also having potential clients within the ecosystem. However, these sorts of capabilities have limited viability without network effects. This is something that the third stage of the ecosystem roadmap will elaborate on.
3. Networked Capabilities and Iterative Enhancement
Stage 3 of the roadmap will position FuzeQube to scale beyond a point where the capabilities of the ecosystem are recognized by a larger audience. This is where the size and impact of the ecosystem will allow for network effects to be even more relevant on certain fronts — both internally and externally.
As much research suggests, innovation can rarely be forced: more often, it just “happens”. The notions of generativity, which Zittrain refers to as "a technology's overall capacity to produce unprompted change driven by large, varied, and uncoordinated audiences”, and how such generativity often derives from connectivity enabled by platforms, justify networked capabilities as the next point of evolution for the ecosystem.
An example is the prospects of building a digital platform around the offerings of FuzeQube ventures. This could, for instance, enable the ventures in question to make the most of FuzeQube’s credibility to not only market and sell their services and products beyond the ecosystem, but also within (at a discount for other ecosystem participants, according to their preferences). These and similar approaches will enable the ecosystem to further reduce the search costs of all ecosystem participants, and can as conceivably be applied to the contexts of HR/recruitment, employee benefit programs, investor networks, and more.
We want to note here that Stage 3 is a continuous one. FuzeQube will have to be prepared to constantly expand on its capabilities and offerings for its participants, to further ensure that there is value in staying within the ecosystem. It is therefore important to put solid feedback mechanisms in place to ensure that value generation can occur over the long-term and adapt to changing conditions. Once again highlighting the value of networked capabilities, a possibility is to introduce decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) to enable decision-making for ecosystem participants on various levels, subsequently ensuring that the trajectory of FuzeQube aligns with some of the preferences of those who make it all possible.
At this stage, the opportunities for the ecosystem are vast, and an open mind should be kept about what could be accomplished. The main point of this stage is that an ecosystem benefits from removing imposed restrictions over time to allow for innovation to just… well, “happen”. Ecosystems are also not merely about establishing complementarities between actors, but rather to ensure that those complementarities only can be enabled by the given constellation. In other words, what FuzeQube enables should be unique: if this is not the case, the structure can be likened to an arbitrary holding company, and would not reasonably qualify as an innovation ecosystem. Let’s try to have FuzeQube go above and beyond what has previously been achieved.
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We fully understand that a roadmap never goes fully according to plan. There will be significant deviations to the establishment of the FuzeQube ecosystem as we go along, based on the resources and partnerships at our disposal. But the vision for it all does not change, and, at the very least, we hope that this document has done a decent job of conveying what FuzeQube seeks to stand for.
This is a people-centric endeavor, through and through. We will need the help and expertise of a lot of inspired individuals to make this thing happen. If you are passionate about our vision, please do not hesitate to reach out — as time goes by, we will have many opportunities for people from all walks of life to get involved in ways that only they can put a limit on. We hope that the collective mindset of the ecosystem enables more individuals to see venture building as a people-centric, problem-solving endeavor, as opposed to a competition whose primary objective is a large money grab at the finish line. May such a mindset have more of you join us in making this vision a reality.
Bardia Bijani & Marco Kogler
Managing Partners, FuzeQube Group
