Experienced people make the best founders. But with a career and a mortgage on the line, the risk looks too high, so the best businesses never get built. We’re here to change that.
They’ve done it, so can you.
By the time you get to our age, quitting your job to start a business isn’t usually an option. You’ve worked hard to get to where you are, so giving it up to chase a dream feels reckless. And walking away from a steady salary for an idea you haven’t even tested yet is a big bet to make.
With DQventures there’s now another way…
We partner with experienced professionals to launch a business in their area of expertise. You stay in your job and put in a few hours a week. We’ll do the building, the launching, and everything in between.
The best businesses are started by people who already understand the problem. Not recent university graduates chasing a market they’ve read about. Operators, consultants, specialists, senior employees — people who’ve worked inside an industry long enough to see what’s broken.
We partner with people to design, build, launch and scale B2B businesses that are asset-light, automatable, and have a clear path to a $10M+ exit. We back you with a hands-on team, structure, and a model that’s been refined over 80+ business ideas.
Founders we’ve partnered with, in their own words.
Without DQventures we wouldn't own a business. When our initial idea didn't take off, DQ planted the idea of corporate services. They've been instrumental in helping us start and grow. They also have a great network and referred us 80% of our early clients.
After meeting with the team from DQventures, it was obvious that they brought more to the table than just funding or tech. With DQ's support, we secured £326,000 in investment in just six weeks.
Without the guidance and help from DQ, I would never have got to the point I'm at with Juurnee. The team are so helpful, friendly and supportive. I feel that they genuinely care about me and my startup.
Businesses founded with DQventures
DQventures is for experienced professionals, usually a decade or more in their field, with the expertise, relationships and drive to solve a problem they’ve lived.
You’ve run a department, but never built a business from scratch.
Can you do it, and what’s the right way to go about this?
Everything feels just “ok”. Don’t you have more to offer?
Gaps in your experience create fear about the unknowns.
Incubator, accelerator, venture builder, funding, bootstrapping… what’s best?
You want help, but are afraid to give equity to the wrong person.
WeNetwork
After a long career in senior recruitment roles around the world, Rob came to DQ to help him start WeNetwork — now placing talent across multiple countries in Asia.
Read the case studyJuurnee
Rachel had the idea for Juurnee after needing help on a Sydney-London flight with her three kids. It now matches travellers who need a flight companion with people paid to fly alongside them.
Read the case studyZenn
Steve was a designer in Sydney who got tired of watching good design get bottlenecked. Zenn was his answer — an AI-powered design platform that puts beautiful branding in everyone's hands.
Read the case studyDealerDoc
Richard spent over a decade running car dealerships before coming to DQ to validate his idea for DealerDOC — custom software that drags dealerships out of spreadsheets and into the 21st century.
Read the case studyBlue Mongoose
Toby kept watching startups lose months building things they could have tested in weeks. Blue Mongoose is his fix — getting founders to a working MVP, fast.
Read the case studyDuellix
Pat and Dan came to DQ to explore a business idea that failed validation — but with DQ's help, they founded Duellix instead. Duellix takes the boring stuff — incorporation, payroll, tax, corporate secretary — off the plates of founders running businesses in Singapore.
Read the case studyAI is already reshaping what companies need from people. Roles that felt secure a few years ago carry question marks now, and nobody can tell you for certain where yours lands.
You can wait and watch how it plays out, or you can start building something of your own while your job still covers the bills.
That’s where DQventures comes in. We’ll help you build a business now, while you’re still in your job, to safeguard your future.
Rob spent twenty years at Michael Page and Robert Walters, then walked away at the top to start his own recruitment business.
WeNetwork now runs across seven countries in Asia Pacific and was DQventures’ first portfolio company.
In this conversation with James Green, Rob talks about the stuff startup podcasts skip: the financial hit, the strain on family, the bad hires, the lonely months, and why he’d still do it all again.
Most startup stories glorify the 20-something disruptor. The data tells a different story. In episode one of Founder Unlocked, Oliver Palmer and Sam Middlehurst sit down to unpack what experienced professionals actually bring to the table.
They walk through DQ’s three-stage framework, why older founders’ experience, humility and networks are unfair advantages, and the company-killer mistakes to avoid before going all in.
Watch all episodes →The application takes about 20 minutes. We read everything and reply within a week.
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