Imagine putting your best into your business and still failing.

That’s what happened this week here in England to Celebrity Chef, Jamie Oliver.

His entire £100 million restaurant chain has collapsed, 22 of his restaurants have gone into receivership and 1,000 of his staff have lost their jobs.

This has happened despite Jamie pumping millions into the business to try and save it.

What made Jamie fail when he could have succeeded?

It wasn’t the way he started his business. It was the way he grew it.

Every successful business has three key players:

> The Founders, who started the business with a great idea
> The Funders, who help to resource the business
> The Farmers, who have the job of growing the business

As a startup, you may be doing all three, but as you grow, you need to decide which you’re going to be. And as you grow, you either need outside funders, farmers, or both.

Deciding what to hold on to or what to let go of depends on whether you’re using the Venture Capital model (that led Society 4.0: The Information Age) or the newer Venture Builder model (which is now leading Society 5.0: The Impact Age)

> In the Venture Capital Model, the Funder funds the Founder and expects them to grow the business - with the result that only 1 in 10 startups succeed. Whenever the company outgrows the Founders’ ability to manage the growth - which is most cases - the companies fail.

> In the new Venture Builder Model, the Founder finds a Funder who both invests and helps grow the business - with the result that 9 in 10 startups succeed. Today, companies like Google, Amazon and Apple know how to buy companies and then help the Founders to scale. In this Venture Builder model, it’s the Funder who has the skills to also be the Farmer. The success rate goes up exponentially.

With competition in the UK restaurant industry coming from Venture Builders like Jeff Bezos investing $575 million in Deliveroo and Uber Founder Travis Kalanick investing $150 million in FoodStars, the market shifted while Jamie was stuck in the Venture Capital model.

He used his own money to prop up a loss making enterprise with sky-high costs. He put in £7.5 million of his cash two years ago and another £5.2 million before the company collapsed.

As for the farming, he put his Brother-in-Law, Paul Hunt, in charge of running his empire - and because neither knew how to grow the business well, even with an amazing brand and money behind it, it still failed.

Are you growing with a Venture Builder model? Are you making sure you’re getting others to help you with the funding and farming? Or are you hoping you'll work it all out by doing it it all yourself?

The saddest thing about Jamie’s business collapse? Even after losing everything, he says “I honestly don’t know what happened. We’re still trying to work it out…”

As Benjamin Franklin said, “The only thing more expensive than education is ignorance.”