From iGEM to Entrepreneurship - Stockholm
| Date | |
|---|---|
| Department | Entrepreneurship |
| Description | A workshop by iGEM Stockholm on converting your iGEM projects to start-ups |
| HP sub-branch | |
| Links/media | |
| Participants | |
| Property | |
| Property 1 | |
| Property 2 | |
| Type | Meetings |
Speaker - Dr Fredrik Blitz (Business consultant)
- Identify stake holders
- Internal- employees, etc.
- external- Suppliers, society, government, etc.
- Business model
- Value proposition - What gain do you offer the customer?
- Who are we targeting? Individuals, specific gender, specific problems, business to business clients.
- Value Chain- How are the value proportions created? Every product has contributions from a lot of different people. Our company doesn't involve all people from research to marketing. We add a small value to the product. Who is involved in this chain? Suggestion: Try not to directly target end-user because that is hard. Instead collab with a company that already does that.
- Revenue model - How profitable is the business? How do you price your product? The cost of product has to be over the cost of making the product.
- A business model should have a scalable revenue model. Can you make money while you sleep? Eg: Subscription models, create value around your product, etc.
- Intellectual Property
- Patent- protect the idea for some amount of time. You don't have to commercialize it yourself but you can ask someone else and settle for a cut. Look at patent applications to understand their language.
- Trademarks- Name of company, figure
- Copyright- If we publish something as a part of iGEM we get copyright
- Digital assets- domain name, etc.
- In US we can have patents on software. In Europe we can patent processes.
- Market analysis
- If you have an idea someone might have already thought of it. But that ensures that there is a market for it. We can mimic them, get some of their employees.
- We look at the existing market and look at the existing player- suppliers and customers.
- Provide an alternate service, or a similar one which makes people choose.
- If you have volume but no margin, then no one will buy shares.
- How do we position ourselves in the market? Is there something special about our product? Do we market it differently?
- Every company has to publish their tax returns with balance sheet. Find that and see where they use their money, what are their margins.
- Digital Transformation
- When do you deliver something? Where? Is accuracy compromised by larger data points (think of apple watch measuring heart rate as compared to a BP machine)
- Collect a lot of data. Collaborate with AI company and use this to improve product reach.
- Without technology, we cannot make our products reach the end consumer.
- Regulatory Clearance
- Make a list of all the regulations that affect the idea.
- These regulatory clearances take time, so think of compliance to these clearance early.
- We might consider fitting our product under another company to get done with this faster.
- Capital Resources
- Take the first steps without external help- the longer we can work sponsor-free the more people will invest more money in your shares.
- Meet a venture capitalist- they check your CV, they make an evaluation based on this.
- Soft venture capital- from government, etc. which you get as seed money and you don't have to pay back.
- Marketing strategy
- How do you tell you story? Where do you come from? Why are you providing this product?
- Influencers- who influences the market and how do we get them to promote our product?
- Digital marketing- Linkedin
- Security and Safety
- They are always there.
- You can make this your selling point. Reducing fear can sell your product.
- Sustainability
- Not sustainable- pointless- not good for society but also the big investors look for this.
Priniciples
- Don't analyze too much - "Paralysis by analysis"
- Get data from consumers first before selling your product.
- Data-driven decision making
- It's all about the people
- Money is a sign value to society