Editor’s note: Why do you want biotech industry representatives at your networking event? Ricky Spero, co-founder and VP of Product Development at Rheomics, offers his thoughts in a post written for ExitEvent. Rheomics is a startup born at UNC with a test for measuring the strength of clots to help doctors control bleeding in sick and injured patients. ExitEvent is a news partner of WRAL TechWire.
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – I was happily nodding along with Bill Bing and Joe Procopio’s recent posts advocating a better exchange of ideas in Triangle Startup. Then a comment by Joe made me pause:
I haven’t cracked the puzzle of getting the gamers more involved at startup events and vice versa. I don’t know if it’s about the fragmentation of the industry or just an independent streak. Maybe it’s like biotech, where those folks really don’t see the need to interact with other verticals.
Joe gives us too much credit. If anyone needs to be spending more time with Triangle hacker-founders, it’s the biotechies.
I’ve spent a lot of time with both crowds. As the hacker-founders know, startup has changed a lot in the last 10 years. But ask a biotechie about Y Combinator, and you’re likely to get a blank stare. Mention “Lean Startup” and the best you’re likely to get back is, “I think I’ve heard of that book.” Drop the factoid that AWS runs a quarter of the internet and you’ll get, “What’s AWS?” Heaven help you if you suggest that seed stage deals could be done on a handshake, without full-cavity diligence.
It’s just a different world
The rebuttals to the last paragraph write themselves. Life science startups have high overhead, but lean startup and accelerators only work when the seed capital requirements are vanishingly small. Software is usually the least expensive part of a biotech company’s OpEx, so the software tech stack doesn’t matter. Life science valuations are IP-driven, so diligence remains critical.
The full post can be read online at ExitEvent.
