Structurally weak
The business idea is capital-heavy, low-margin, hard to scale.
Ideate by DQventures
Good founders fail by picking the wrong idea.
Most people who try to start a company waste their first two years on an idea that was never going to work. In one month, we’ll help you find one that will.
Businesses founded with DQventures
Get the idea right before you build.
We meet a lot of smart, experienced people who’ve spent 10, 15, 20 years getting good at something — and want to build their own thing. Almost all of them have a business idea. Most of those ideas won’t work.
Founders fall into the same three traps over and over:
No real demand
They fell in love with a solution, then went hunting for a market that was never really there.
Bad fundamentals
No recurring revenue, no clear buyer, no path to scale. The numbers never had a chance.
By the time they realise the idea was the problem, they’ve burned two years, their savings, and a lot of belief. That’s the regret we exist to prevent.
Time is the one thing you can’t earn back.
If you’re like most people we work with, you’re probably in your late 30s, 40s, or 50s. You have hard-won expertise, a network that took decades to build, and one — maybe two — real shots at building something of your own.
The cost of picking the wrong idea isn’t just the money. It’s the opportunity cost of the time you’ll never get back.
DQ Ideate helps you get it right.
DQ IdeateOne month to find the business idea
One month to find the business idea
you should actually build.
The safest move in an uncertain world is to build something of your own. If you’re going to do that, spend one month making sure you start with the right idea.
Founders arrive here in one of two places. We help both.
No idea yet
You know you want to start your own thing, but don’t have a business idea.
Too many ideas
You have more than one business idea, but don’t know which one is best.
“What surprised me most was coming back to an idea I’d first explored years ago but couldn’t previously chart a viable path for. By working through DQ’s methodical steps, drawn from real founder experience, I’m now far clearer, more confident and genuinely excited about the direction ahead.”
How it works
From a blank page to an idea you believe in.
In just 1 month, we guide you through a process to rule out the bad ideas and land on a great one.
01
Start with your edge
The step most founders skip, and the one we put first. You’ll get clear on what you know better than anyone, who you can reach, and what you genuinely care about. Every idea later on gets tested against it.
02
Build a long list
You’ll generate ten or more ideas from the two places good businesses come from: problems you’ve watched up close, and markets you know deeply. The process we guide you through pushes you past the obvious first three.
03
Run them through our filters
Every idea goes through our filters to assess if it’s the right business for you to be building. Most won’t survive. That’s the point. If a stranger could move as fast as you, it’s out.
04
Pressure-test the survivors
You’ll build a one-page deep dive on each idea left standing, stress-testing the assumptions underneath it. The questions get hardest where founders fool themselves. You’ll end with two or three finalists.
05
Write your Foundational Hypothesis
You’ll land your lead idea in one line: who you help, the problem you solve, why they choose you. That sentence becomes the thesis for the business you build next.
“I came in convinced I had a clear sense of the space I wanted to build in, and only realised during our sessions that I was probably over-confident.”
The frameworkDQventures’
DQventures’
Business Building Principles.
Some investors chase the next billion-pound rocket ship. We don’t. These twelve principles are how we assess what’s worth our time and yours.
Who you work with
Work 1-1 with Oliver Palmer.
Oliver co-founded TigerSpike and sold it for $85 million.
He built it from an idea into a global company of 400 people across Sydney, Singapore, New York and London, before it was acquired in 2017. Since then he has backed and advised dozens of early-stage founders across Europe, the Middle East, Australia and South East Asia.
In DQ Ideate, his decades of experience are directed towards one question: what is the single best business for you to start? You work with him directly to pressure-test your ideas, kill the weak ones fast, and land on the one worth your time.
Most founders never get in a room with someone who has done it. You get him on your team.
Three paths
What happens after DQ Ideate?
Continue with DQ.
If we both agree the idea is strong, we invite you into our Explore Sprint — 1 month of evidence-gathering to pressure-test your hypothesis with real potential customers.
Build it yourself.
Take your idea and run with it. The framework is yours to keep and you own 100% of the Intellectual Property for your idea.
Decide not to start.
Sometimes DQ Ideate reveals the timing isn't right. This is also a win. Better to spend one month finding out than two years.
Pricing
Two ways to do it.
Self-Led$500
You, at your own pace.
Work through the full sprint on your own, with the worksheet and templates. It ends with one 30 minute call with a DQventures team member to pressure-test your thinking.
Suited to founders who work well from structured material.
Get started →DQ-Led$2000
Us, alongside you.
Work through the sprint with a DQ general partner across three 60 minute calls, pushing your thinking at every step.
Led by Oliver Palmer
DQ General Partner
What you save
Doing this is a fraction of the cost of:
- Two years working on the wrong idea.
- An MBA or executive programme that won’t get you closer to building.
- Giving up your salary to chase an idea you never tested.
“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. Through that process... 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.”
Why now?
Waiting is the riskier bet.
For most of the last century, a steady job was the safe path and starting a business was the gamble. That has flipped. AI is rewriting which roles companies need and how long they keep them, and the income that felt secure a few years ago is harder to count on. The one thing you control, a business you own, is becoming the steadier place to put your bet.
Right now your expertise is your edge. Wait too long and it’s the thing AI replaces. Building your own business is how you put it to work while it still counts.
And you can start while you’re still employed. You keep your salary, your stability, and your runway while you work out what to build. Start now and you build your safety net before you need it, not after AI has already come for your job.
The month you spend now is what makes the next decade yours.
Your DQ Ideate partner
1 month with Oliver Palmer.
$2000 for the fully guided DQ Ideate
People who’ve built and sold a company for $85 million don’t spend a month on one founder’s first idea. They run their own funds, sit on boards, back a few companies a year. There’s no way to get one of them working on your idea.
But Oliver wants to help the next generation of founders. Three calls, one on one, every minute aimed at one question: which idea is worth your next decade. He’s built a company from a blank page and sold it, and he’s watched plenty of smart people bet years on the wrong one. He’ll know which is which, and he’ll tell you straight.
Access like this is rare. You get it at the point it counts most, before you build.
Start DQ Ideate with Oliver →FAQs
Common questions.
Can you really help me find an idea that I genuinely believe in?
The ideas come out of you. We start with what you know better than most people, who you can already reach, and what you actually care about, then build a long list from there. Nothing comes off a shelf. By the end you’ll be choosing between ten or more ideas that came from your own experience, narrowed down to the two or three strongest. You’ll care about the winner because it was yours all along.
Do you take my idea or any equity?
No. Whatever you land on is yours, along with the framework and worksheets you build it with. If we both think the idea is strong and you want to keep building with us afterwards, that’s a separate step with its own terms. DQ Ideate comes with no strings attached.
Can I do this if I still have a full-time job?
Yes, almost all the people we work with are still in their full-time jobs. We recommend dedicating about 5–8 hours a week to the DQ Ideate work, and it’s designed to fit around a demanding day job.
Start
The wrong idea costs years. The right one starts here.
If you’re going to spend the next decade building something, spend one month making sure it’s the right thing.