For almost a year now, Anthony and I have been thinking about structuring our investment and business creation activities. This very special moment in history, linking crisis and uncertainty, comes at the right time to launch our investment structure: The Factory.
We had fun with the name for several reasons. In the technological age in which we live today, nothing is more old-fashioned than a factory, except that we know that the real value is created in things that are not intuitive.
A factory is our way of doing things, trying things out quickly, iterating on a simple process, characterizing it with a series of steps, breaking down a big problem into a series of very small problems, passing it on to our team and spreading it over several businesses.
This is really our way of working and I think our real added value is to easily manage to set up this process whatever the domain (Investment, reporting, organization, marketing …).
The Factory is composed of two entities :
The Studio where we produce businesses without any real investment theory. The best known of them is by far Sesterce which we have focused on 100% in the last 18 months. The idea now is for us to produce 1 business per quarter. These businesses don’t pretend to become Sesterce number 2 each time but at least to have an iteration on a simple muse to set up quickly profitable and allowing to be a cash inflow.
The Capital part allows us to continue to invest tickets in businesses that inspire us a lot and thus exchange with world-class entrepreneurs. We have neither a thesis nor a pre-defined investment rhythm, it will be done naturally and by feeling with each business we count on.
We think that having a framework for investment or business creation is a hindrance, the famous quote “Connect the Dots” by Steve Jobs comes to mind often and that’s why it is important to have a very broad horizon to allow us to be inspired by very different things in each business and thus create a major advantage in a market.
We don’t forget of course the importance of focus and execution, that’s why this entity is small enough at the beginning and we will structure it over time it will represent only a very small part of our time now that we have a simple and clear process of creation and investment for The Factory Capital and Studio.
Today we have about ten businesses in the Capital portfolio and 3 businesses created under the label The Factory Studio.
Our goal is to reach 30 investments and 10 new businesses over the next 18 months.
For more information about The Factory , do not hesitate to contact us at contact@thefactory.capital to discuss the subject!
Youssef EL Manssouri , General Partner