science to profits

Category: science-based startups

  • Mentoring Lean healthcare startups @ UCSF. Fascinating.

    I am a mentor at present in Steve Blanks course at UCSF on lean startup methodology for healthcare startups. It’s fascinating to see the methodology being deployed simultaneously across a whole cohort of startups. The main takeaway is just how rapidly the “get out of the building” approach leads to important insights by the entrepreneur.…

  • Crowdfunding done right: Scanadu’s tricorder

    I’ve been excited about the potential of crowdfunding for quite a while (here and here). The campaign that launched this morning on Indiegogo by Scanadu (developing a Tricorder) is a good example of a campaign done right, and shows the potential of this approach. The campaign reached its goal of $100K in 2 hours. It’s…

  • Web-based healthtech startups have invention risk. Surprise!

    As readers of this blog know, I am interested in the potential of novel social networking and other internet-age techniques to transform our creaky healthcare system. A particularly intriguing class of startups is using these social techniques to change the behavior of patients in ways that lead to better health. For example, helping people to…

  • Invention risk makes lean science startups different

    A hallmark of new ventures that are based on scientific advances in fields like medical devices, health tech, or cleantech is that they often have invention risk. Frequently they also have market risk. And while the standard venture capital reaction to startups with both market and invention risk is “come back when one of the…

  • “Lean” medical device, cleantech, telco startups

    The Lean Startup movement is a good example of the new internet-company methodologies mentioned in my last post. I got around to reading Eric Ries’ book over Thanksgiving. I liked it a lot, and I have been mulling over what its lessons are for non-internet businesses – particularly for the sort of science-based business I…

  • Can science-based startups learn from Web 2.0?

    For startups developing web-focused businesses, the ecosystem has changed enormously in the last 2-3 years, almost entirely for the better. In contrast, in the world of new ventures based on hardcore science (cleantech, medical devices, biotech, etc.), as far as I can see it is more or less “business as usual”, and in some areas…