Bridges for Ventures

Bridges have allways been constructions enabling people to go where usually they were not capable to go. And bridge constructions mostly have been projects for which men had to undertake unusual operations. Only when they decided and did so, extraordinary goals were finally reached.

In 1502, turkish Sultan Bejazid II Wali wished to build Instanbul's first bridge. The building should bridge the Golden Horn, a tributary of the Bosporus, geographical border between Europe and Asia. It should have been constructed to allow sailing vessels to pass below it. The Sultan's problem was: He couldn't find anybody capable to construct and build such a bridge.

Finally, his demand was heard by Leonardo da Vinci in Italy and da Vinci confirmed to be able to realize the venture. Da Vinci sent plans and comments to the Sultan to prove that. His idea was to build the bridge as one single part of 250m length without any bridge piers. But this time that has been an amazing and unbelievable idea and so the Sultan didn't believe da Vinci. He finally gave up and it took another four centuries (373 years !) till the Golden Horn got first a bridge swimming on pontons and finally a real bridge construction allowing vessels to be used for speeded up transportation of humans, animals and goods.

Trade and traffic were improved and eased significantly through that bridge since before ships had to be used to transport things over the water - expensiv and long winded.

The interesting point is: In Ås/Norway Leonardo da Vinci's bridge construction was built in 2001 following exactly da Vinci's historical plans. It was proven by this building that da Vinci's was right. Also by mathematical analysis' the same was proven. And it was clear to state that the Sultan decided wrong.
Istanbul has developed the last centuries but it's development could have been even much better when da Vinci's bridge would have been built that time.

What is it one can learn from this story ?

• Ambitious ventures from time to time need bridges to overcome resistant
  limitations. Solutions for overcoming of limitations then most often allow to speed up and improve development of ventures significantly.
• It often pays off to think big and try to find uncommon, unusual or bold solutions.
• The Sultan was a wise man but finally he didn't trust his engineer. In the end he decided wrong based on his intuition - instead to base the decision on knowledge and ratio.

The story about Istanbuls bridge is not the only one teaching that bold moves done by skilled and courageous humans enabled exciting improvements.

• The Suez Channel connected the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. The long sea route around Africa suddenly could be avoided. Ships saved months each time sailing the route between Asia and Europe.
  
• Likewise, the Panama Channel connected the Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean, avoiding the sea route around Southamerica and dangerous Cape Horn.
• Alexander the Great was able to form an enormously large Kingdom through cultural bridges. He integrated cultures and created win-win-situations for conquerors and underdogs as well - so there were no real underdogs any more and every party profited by the deal. Cultural integration has been the bridge Alexander built for himself and by himself.

In all cases, special goals were only reached by special measures and in no case special  goals were reached through  standard methods. This is, what leaders can learn form the past for their company's future options.

In the today's global economy, still ventures need bridges to reach ambitious goals even when the globe seems to get smaller and smaller. Companies need unhampered access to markets abroad. They need capital enabling technology development and growth. And they need partners and strategic alliances to ease access to the promising and exciting chances the global economy offers to entrepreneurial think leaders.

Without bridges, Start-Ups and also small and medium-sized companies often get stuck and further enterprise development suffers from missing paths and roads. Hurdles seem to be insuperable. Technologies can not be developed. Markets can not be served. Growth can not be financed. All those potentials can not be opened up. Substantial progress is impossible.

At TSSF we believe that there's in fact not a real difference between the job to develop a country (as the turkish Sultan's job was) to the job were a business venture has to get developed. Since we love ambitious goals and challenges and since we provide the expertise neccessary, TSSF's core philosophy and mission is to build BRIDGES FOR VENTURES.

The strategy factory was founded to provide it's special facilities, skills, networks, knowledge and experiences to build those bridges of strategic levels of any kind. We connect asian and south american companies to european markets and european companies to asian markets. We connect ideas and growth companies to capital and capital to attractive investments. We help to form strategic alliances between companies and manage mergers and acquisitions. TSSF supports entrepreneurs when undertaking big steps in developing their businesses - through outstanding concepts, intelligent business strategies and superior decisions making.

All those activities and measures function as bridges because they lift enterprises to the next stage of business development. They expand a company's operating range and they allow a company to do steps of development usually infeasible. That's the purpose, the advantage and the benefit of 'strategic bridges'.

Special measures are not a company leader's daily business. Building bridges is special business. It demands different knowledge, different experiences and different abilities. As generalists, proven by practise, and as strategy thinkers we're able to develop construction plans as well as do project management for realization of 'bridge projects'. Therefor, the strategy factory might be a partner for entrepreneurial thinking leaders of SMEs from Asia, Latin America and Europe - as a co-entrepreneur and as an essential part of a company's business development team.