Your dream is to launch a startup. You can now step into the role of an Entrepreneur in Residence, navigating the early stages of building a venture inside and alongside a larger organisation. This book places you inside that reality. You will not be an observer, but the one who must choose.
“Most books about entrepreneurship tell you what to think. The Venture Game does something rarer: it makes you choose, then makes you live with it.”
Jeppe Høier — Co-host, EUVC Corporate“This simulation-based format immerses first-time entrepreneurs in realistic decisions, bringing corporate venture building to life under pressure.”
Francesco Di Lorenzo — Associate Professor, CBS, Strategy and Innovation“Selling innovation into any legacy business is a challenge and none more so than postal and commercial carrier networks… Having worked on both sides of this dynamic I would recommend this book to anyone buying, developing or disrupting in this sector.”
Michael Anderson — CEO, PlaceB Limited and Advisory Board Member, Post & Parcel Expo InternationalVentures rarely fail for lack of intelligence or ambition. They fail because decisions get made under pressure, with incomplete context, and without the luxury of hindsight.
You choose without complete information. Some calls feel right immediately. Others only make sense three chapters later.
Getting through the mud: defining a problem worth solving, going into the field, and surviving the Problem-Fit review.
Pretotyping and evidence — showing value before the product exists, instead of overbuilding an MVP nobody asked for.
Corporate venturing is as much about people and power as it is about the venture. A brilliant idea does not automatically win.
Finding the right team for the right it — and noticing what it costs you when you try to carry the whole thing alone.
Twelve slides that hold up under scrutiny, and funding as a fork in the road rather than a finish line.
Seven stages and an epilogue. The route through them is yours.
Anyone who has to build something new inside or alongside an organisation that was not designed for it.
Into the Unknown and Defining the Problem, as one PDF. Fill in the four fields and the download opens on the next page.
ISBN 978-87-977549-0-0 · 376 pages · English · First edition 2026
Jesper Bang-Olsen is a Danish venture builder and innovation leader who has spent more than a decade working at the intersection of startups, entrepreneurship, corporate innovation and emerging technologies.
Drawing on his firsthand experience in startup and venture creation, governance and market validation, his book allows the reader to explore entrepreneurship as it is actually lived. The Venture Game is the first book of its kind in the field of corporate venture development.
Enjoy the game.