By: Donna Ramaeker-Zahn (ISU Startup Factory Entrepreneur-In-Residence)Scientists are uniquely suited for entrepreneurship. However, there are several roadblocks. Fortunately, with a rich history of ground-breaking research that improves lives, ISU has developed a companion focus on entrepreneurship that helps with this transition.
Building a scalable business as a scientist takes a significant shift in mindset. But that transition can be successful by learning business basics. Several items are critical in the first few years.
You are the Entire Team
In the early years of a startup where money and team members are scarce, the founder wears every hat – customer advocate, CFO, communicator, CEO, market researcher, etc. It’s critical to shift from rigorous protocols and long peer-review cycles to a market-driven mindset, where flexibility, storytelling and speed is rewarded.
Science Guides but Customers Decide
There’s no guarantee that a lab-proven idea is a business opportunity. Finding customer pain points is not always natural for scientists because “protocol” depends on the founder’s ability to follow the flow of customer conversations and not formulas. However, codesigning with customers increases new product adoption rates by up to 85 percent.
Storytelling
A key item is that the technical details of how an invention works matters less than the value that the idea delivers to customers and investors. Selling that idea requires more of a “movie script” where the listener sees themselves as the main character than a manuscript for a technical paper.
