You’ve spent years building someone else’s company. We help you build your own, on the side, until the revenue is real enough that leaving your job isn’t such a big gamble.
Businesses founded with DQventures
You can see the business that should exist in your industry. You’ve probably been able to see it for years. What’s stopped you is how companies usually get started: quit your job, live off savings, and hope you figure it out before the money runs out.
There’s a better way in. You keep your job. We build the company with you, doing the heavy lifting week by week, until customers are paying and you know it works.
The reason you haven’t started yet isn’t because you don’t believe in your idea. You think it could work. It’s just because there are so many reasons not to start. When you’re senior in your career, giving all that up to gamble on an unproven idea is a massive risk.
You have a mortgage, a family, and a career you spent twenty years building.
You’ve run a department. You’ve never built a company.
That money is for retirement.
What if you pick the wrong person?
Your industry is small and everyone in it knows your name.
You know operations, or sales, or the product. Nobody knows all three.
You were right to be cautious. You have too much to lose to risk it on an unproven idea. So don’t risk it. Build the proof first, on the side, with a team that’s done it before. By the time you hand in your notice, the business already works.
That’s what DQventures is for.
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.
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.
You bring your business idea. Together we test whether people will pay for it, build the first version, and win your first customers.
$1m ARR
We helped Patrick and Dan start a corporate services business, they've now scaled to over $1m ARR with no outside capital.
Patrick McGonagleDuellix · Singapore11,000 users
We helped Rachel start a travel marketplace, securing 11,000 users and $40,000 revenue in 3 months.
Rachel CramptonJuurnee · Australia$5m · 7 countries
We helped Rob start a $5m recruitment agency with offices in 7 countries across APAC.
Rob BrysonWe Network · Singapore$200,000 / project
We helped Toby start an agency he now runs from home, earning up to $200,000 per project.
Toby ScreggBlue Mongoose · PortugalGoal: Prove this is a problem worth solving.
1 monthGoal: Prove this business is commercially viable.
Up to 10 monthsGoal: Prove this is a $10 million business.
Ongoing until you exitBefore we build anything, we find out if anyone actually wants it. You’ll be having real conversations with potential buyers, and we’re listening for one thing: do they really have this problem, and would they pay to make it go away?
If yes, we take what they told us and plan the solution around it: what to build first, and how to win your first customer in the next stage.
If no, you’ve spent a month finding out, with your career intact.
We build everything the business needs to launch:
Then together we’ll reach out to prospective buyers, putting the solution in front of them. We’re in it with you every week: pricing, positioning, whatever it takes to win your first paying customer.
The website that lands your first customer.
Brand, positioning and an MVP built to sell — not to sit pretty.
The first time a customer pays, we move into a partnership. We incorporate the company together. You keep 80% and DQventures takes 20%.
Then we help you deliver what was sold, in the leanest possible way.
We build the go-to-market engine that wins customers without you chasing every one, and automate your manual processes to make the business more scalable:
Once you have five paying customers and a repeatable way to win more, the hands-on programme is complete. You’re in the driver’s seat from here, and we stay beside you for the life of the business: optional monthly advisory calls, plus help with whatever comes up. Governance. Financial planning. OKRs. Your first hires, or a cofounder if you want one. Whatever is needed to help you as you scale.
And when you’re ready to raise, if you ever want to, we’re here to help. We build the pitch deck, train you how to pitch, find the right investors, write the outreach, and walk you through the terms, whether it’s angels or VC.
A team of entrepreneurs who have built companies with multi-million dollar exits.
Operators that will actually build the first version of your business for you.
Weekly coaching and training for up to 12 months, helping you with the transition from employee to entrepreneur.
Advisors for the entire life of your business.
Help with selling the business when you’re ready to exit.
Each of these people started in your exact position today, wondering whether to apply to DQventures.
Spent twenty years at Michael Page and Robert Walters, then left at the top to build WeNetwork. It now places talent across seven countries in Asia Pacific and was our first portfolio company.
“I came to DQventures with a business idea in 2021. Today I run my own multi-million dollar agency with five offices across APAC.”
Ran car dealerships for over a decade before building DealerDoc, software that drags dealerships out of spreadsheets and into the present day.
“Raised £326,000 in six weeks with DQventures’ support.”
Came to us with an idea that did not take off. We worked through it together and landed on Duellix, corporate services for founders in Singapore. We referred 80% of his early clients.
“Without DQventures we wouldn’t own a business.”
Built Juurnee, a live marketplace that matches travellers who need a flight companion with people paid to fly alongside them and help.
“I feel that they genuinely care about me and my startup.”
We’re not just advisors. We’re rolling up our sleeves to do the work.
Built TigerSpike from a blank page into a 400-person company across four countries. Sold it for $85 million.
Fifteen years building companies across Southeast Asia. Two exits, the most recent a sports group he ran as CEO and sold in 2024.
Scaled her own startup from an idea to a multi 7-figure exit. Raised over a million dollars from angels, Jason Calacanis among them.
Built a portfolio of fifteen companies worth more than $30 million between them, with two exits.
Backed more than ninety startups and three venture funds as an angel investor.
Relying on a job is.
You’ve spent twenty years getting good at something companies pay well for, but AI is learning to do more of that work every day.
The way to de-risk your future is to start your own business — something that can’t be restructured out from under you.
Start it now, alongside the job, and the second income exists before you ever need it.
Every new business needs runway. Most founders burn through their life’s savings, then regret it. Other founders get theirs from investors, and pay for it with equity, control, and someone else’s deadlines.
You already have runway: your salary. Keep it coming in while the business gets built, and you can take your time, say no to bad money, and keep what you make.
The catch is time. A full-time job doesn’t leave you sixty hours a week to build. That’s where we come in. You put in around twelve hours a week. We put in a team that’s built, scaled and sold companies before.
1 month process.
Zero equity taken.
Usually takes 2–4 months, depending on your business model. Zero equity taken. You still own 100% of your IP.
Zero fee once DQ is granted 20% equity in the company. From here onwards we are working for equity only as your partner.
Zero fee. We're your partner now.
Ongoing until you exit.
We put up to 1,000 hours of team time into your business. You put in about twelve hours a week around your job, and $2,000 a month until we incorporate and you grant DQ 20%. From there the fee stops for good.
You’re never locked in. Every month prior to incorporation we look at the evidence together and decide whether to keep going. Stop at any time and everything is yours to keep, including your idea. And once the company is earning, the fees you paid are reclaimable from its revenue.
67%
of founders who’ve set out to launch a business with us have done it, to date.
You’ll know within the first month whether your idea is worth pursuing. Founders typically land their first paying customer, and incorporate, around three months into the Validate Stage.
You don’t need to be in a startup hub for this to work. Our founders build from wherever they already live and work.
We’ve partnered with founders in over 20 countries so far, including the UK, Germany, Switzerland, Portugal, Singapore and Australia.
Nothing about this depends on where you are. You keep your job and build around it, a few hours a week, in your own timezone. Our team is spread across the world too, so working across timezones is second nature to us. You never have to move, travel, or be in a room to do this.
Becoming an entrepreneur is a big decision. Sometimes going through this process helps you realize you don’t want to start a business after all.
And that’s ok with us, too!
“Before DQventures, I had an idea but struggled to get in front of the right people in an industry that’s hard to break into. As a software engineer, building comes easy to me. Figuring out what to build and who will pay for it is the hard part, and DQventures reinforced that. The team helped me connect with key decision makers and find my first potential customers.Through that process and several pivots, I realized this wasn’t something I wanted to continue to pursue at this time. That clarity is a valuable outcome. They’re not only great at what they do, they’re even better people.”
We have pressure-tested more than 80 business ideas. We know quickly whether one has a real business inside it, and we tell you what we see.
No business idea yet, or too many to choose from? Start with DQ Ideate and arrive with the right one.
No. Almost all of our founders stay employed the whole way through Explore and Validate. You go full-time once the business can pay you and the proof is already in. That is the entire point of doing it this way.
Roughly half of the ideas we take into Explore do not survive the first month, before you have risked anything real. You keep your salary, your career and your savings, and you walk away with an answer that would otherwise have cost you years. A clear no early is worth a great deal.
Enough to keep momentum without putting your job at risk. Most founders run it in the evenings and at weekends in the early stages. We carry a large share of the build work, so your hours go into the things only you can do: the buyer conversations, the decisions, the delivery.
We do a lot of it with you. We write and send the outreach, ship the landing page, join the sales calls, and build the automation. You stay close to the customer and make the calls that matter. You are working with a team, not following a course.
A partner who is paid only when you sell, and who therefore wants exactly what you want for the next five to ten years. Growth, hiring, fundraising, warm introductions, and people who have built and sold companies sitting across the table when the big decisions come. The cash fee is gone by then. From incorporation onward, we are working for the exit alongside you.
The application takes about 20 minutes. We read everything and reply within a week.
Apply now