Startups as a Service

Rick Gregg October 01,2025 What do you think?

A New Approach for Building Startups

The concept of Startups as a Service is a new and innovative service model pioneered by The saaskamp Community Startup. The meaning of saaskamp is “Startups as a Service camp.” A camp provides a place where anyone with like-minded interests, such as entrepreneurship, can gather together for a common purpose. 

Startups as a Service, and saaskamp in particular, is targeted to anyone interested in exploring entrepreneurship in a real world startup without the risk of failure. The service consists of a no-cost or equity, on-demand hybrid (in-person, virtual) program with a technology stack that focuses on business model innovation first and technology second. The program starts with the development of ideas in a collaborative environment that are tested for viability before being incubated, funded, and launched on their own with lifecycle support from the Startup as a Service including funding on a founder friendly basis, if desired.

The collaborative community provided by Startups as a Service results in the development of startup teams that have had the opportunity to work with one another before becoming autonomous on their own, ensuring founder, co-founder, and team member fit. Recognizing that building startups are incredibly challenging, especially in these times, Startups as a Service provides comprehensive support including coaching, mental health counseling and both the one-on-one and team mentoring necessary to stay focused and on track during the entrepreneurial journey. The unambiguous roadmap provided by Startups as a Service ensures that the participants can successfully reach their goals by taking a holistic approach. 

Democratizing Innovation and Entrepreneurship for Everyone

The status quo consists of traditional incubators, accelerators, startup studios, and venture capital. The status quo is designed to exclude the majority of ecosystem participants by treating them as a curated probability. Startups as a Service encourages participation from everyone regardless of race, sex, age, skill sets, or experience. Anyone looking for an opportunity to improve their life and learn new skills is invited to find out if entrepreneurship is right for them including, but not limited to: 

1. Full time employees looking for a change while keeping their job.
2. Underemployed professionals looking to grow and use their skills.
3. Older, experienced professionals that have been shut out from professional opportunities due to discrimination.
4. College & high school students who want hands on experience.
5. Aspiring and experienced entrepreneurs.

The Community Startup

One of the features of Startups as a Service is the Community Startup. In every camp, there is at least one funded, for-profit Community Startup. Startups form at the ideation stage by the participants in the camp who decide which idea they want to build into a real-world startup. This becomes the Community Startup. Some camp participants may decide to stay with the Community Startup and some may prefer to build out their own idea with the team they formed while participating in camp. Those that build out their own idea continue to receive support and funding, if desired, from the Startup as a Service. 

As participants enter camp, they are given the option to gain important real-world experience in building a startup by joining the Community Startup. Everyone who joins the Community Startup receives equity. Additional opportunities also exist in the Community Startup for paid internships and salaried employment. Gig workers participating in camp can exchange their services for invoiced revenue, equity or both.

Organic Entrepreneurship

The Startup Genome has always been my “go-to” resource for how to objectively measure and rate startup ecosystems against each other. The Startup Genome’s Global Startup Ecosystem Report 2025 (GSER 2025) is a comprehensive analysis of the current state of startup ecosystems. The GSER lists the forty (40) top and 100 emerging startup ecosystems worldwide.

The Startup Genome’s ecosystem lifecycle consists of four phases, each with distinct characteristics and goals. These phases consist of activation, globalization, attraction, and integration. The activation phase is characterized by fewer than 1,000 startups with limited ecosystem experience, and face challenges like resource leakages (e.g. “brain drain”) to later stage ecosystems which make it difficult to grow an ecosystem in an activation stage. In order to move to the next phase, globalization, the ecosystem must achieve multiple $100M+ exits and attract national resource attention. 

The Startup Genome rates the top 140 ecosystems worldwide, leaving most stuck in the activation stage. These ecosystems consist of underserved metropolitan, urban, and rural areas with status quo programs, or no programs at all. As a result, opportunities don’t exist for a community to successfully diversify their economies through entrepreneurship. This imbalance occurs because there isn’t enough participation within the community. Why? Because entrepreneurship is risky and ninety-nine (99%) percent of entrepreneurs in any ecosystem are routinely shunned and shut out from social acceptance and funding opportunities. 

The deck has been historically stacked against the entrepreneur. Startups as a Service changes all of that by providing safe, risk-free opportunities for the thirty-one (31%) percent of Americans over the age of twenty-three (23) that consider entrepreneurship, but believe it’s either too risky and/or don’t know where to start. Startups as a Service offers an approach that’s different from the status quo by democratizing innovation and entrepreneurship for everyone resulting in the organic growth of entrepreneurs within the community. This helps to reduce resource leakage (i.e. “brain drain”) and outward migration flow from the community while helping to diversify the community’s economy.

Disrupting the Status Quo

Unlike the status quo, there isn’t an application process that rejects any applicant. There also isn’t a requirement that those accepted into a cohort have to change their lifestyle to dedicate a fixed period of time on a rigid schedule over a period of weeks or months. No applications and no cohorts. Instead, a stream of participants are continuously on-boarded in real time into the camp community. The program curriculum is tailored to the interests of the participant. A participant can be at a founder or contributor level with or without any experience. 

The status quo has a dirty little secret. They view the entrepreneur as a curated probability while treating them as their most important family member. Status quo programs force startups to scale before they are ready. The numbers speak for themselves. Only one percent of applicants get into a program with funding. Those programs fail on the order of ninety (90%) percent of the time. Remember, it’s the status quo that chooses who wins and loses.  Over ninety (90%) percent of the status quo “winners” result in a looser three to four years later having been long forgotten. Why would an entrepreneur want to waste both their time and money without a financial return on their investment? Startups as a Service offers a better way.

Want to Learn More?

Interested in trying entrepreneurship in a safe, risk-free environment? Register today for the original Startup as a Service, The saaskamp Community Startup. Are you interested in locating The saaskamp Community Startup in your community? Let’s have a discussion. Contact us today for more information. Together, we can create more economic opportunity for everyone.