Entrepreneurship
Introduction
This summer, we have been conducting substantial research into how to implement our product in the real world and transform our idea into a potential start-up. Our experience from the EPIC bootcamp initiated our desire to extensively research all aspects that are involved in starting up in the synthetic biology and therapeutics sector, and the research carried out for our proposed implementation section aided in establishing our business plan. To thoroughly consider all entrepreneurial aspects of our project we endeavoured to reach out to many companies working in the fields of neurodegenerative diseases, or therapeutics generally, with the hopes to gain first hand insight into the current market. We also reached out to those without a life sciences background to develop our own business and marketing skills, and those with a life science background now working elsewhere, namely Sara Holland from Potter Clarkson, who gave us an informative introduction to patents. This page details our entrepreneurship journey and includes our business plan that we constructed along the way.
EPIC Bootcamp
The iGEM EPIC Bootcamp sparked our entrepreneurship aspirations and provided us with the foundations to formulate our business strategy.
The first day was focused on product market fit, prompting us to think about what our potential market could be and how this could expand in the future. Day two helped us to shape our business model in which we identified the unique aspect of our product and the strengths that allows our product to stand out against competitors. We identified the importance of customer relationships to guide the success of our product on the market. Day three gave us inspiration for pitching to potential investors.
By looking at the macro-environment from current data, we predicted the growth of our company and the impact our product brings locally and globally, forecast for 10 years time when our product is estimated to be in the final stages of clinical trials. The overall insight the bootcamp provided us with, helped shape our business strategy and gave us perspective on how entrepreneurship is a crucial part of creating a successful company through having clear values and future visions.
Pitch Deck
At the beginning of our entrepreneurship journey, it was evident to us that providing a pitch deck was an essential component when reaching out to companies and potential investors. From our market research we had identified a few companies that we were interested in contacting for a range of aspects including, entrepreneurial advice and more specific scientific outlooks on entrepreneurship. We sent emails to these prospective companies, and after securing our first meeting with Amir, CEO of Virtuleap, we began creating our first iteration of our pitch deck.
From this initial presentation, we came to the conclusion that our pitch deck should be altered for future meetings and decided to reach out to Adrian Signell from The Creator Fund for advice (Figure 1). He informed us of the essential components and agreed to review a second iteration of our pitch deck. All details regarding these discussions can be found on our Human Practices page
The first iteration of our pitch deck (left) and the following (middle) and final iterations (right) can be found in the links below:
Alongside updating our pitch deck in accordance to the advice given to us, we decided to create a guide specifically aimed at bioscience students to help them in creating their own pitch deck. This guide can be found on our Contributions page
Business Plan
In order to address all components of a business plan we decided to complete our own business model canvas, similar to the one shown to us in the EPIC bootcamp. This briefly outlines the key examples for each area that a business plan encompasses and displays the information in an easy to view table as shown below (Figure 2).
This business model canvas acted as foundational knowledge in building our business plan. This detailed guide of our project is intended to provide investors and team members with a clear outline of our company goals and provide clarity surrounding our business proposal. Alongside this, the business plan also supports our proposed implementation research and reasoning.
Industry Outreach
A core component of our entrepreneurship journey involved reaching out to a range of people working in the industry surrounding neurodegenerative therapeutics, diagnostics and more generally in business, namely patenting. Discussions with these individuals helped broaden our knowledge of the current market we aim to enter, how to navigate the industry as a university start-up and how partnering with other companies, especially diagnostics companies can not only benefit the progression of Symemco Therapeutics, but also contribute towards the progression of the AD market as a whole.
We spoke to Amir from Virtuleap about business strategies from the perspective of a bioscience business and the importance of partnerships within the industry. Amir also highlighted the importance of a founder-passion fit within any start-up, emphasising that this played a substantial role in the success of any company.
Moreover, we secured a meeting with Jasper Van Hoorick from BIOINX®. In this meeting we discussed the steps involved in transitioning from a university project to a spin-off company, including how our vision changes as we move from research and development into commercialisation. Additionally, we discussed a potential partnership where we use the materials provided by them to build a blood-brain-barrier model to test the permeability of our drug and market this model to other therapeutic companies.
In our meeting with Felix Oeding-Erdel from BetaSense, we spoke about the relationship between diagnostics and therapeutics and also gained advice on seeking investors at this stage of our project. After highlighting the importance of the development of diagnostic tools and techniques in the progression of the AD therapeutic market, we considered a potential partnership where our therapeutic could be provided in conjunction with a diagnostic.
Furthermore, we sought out expert advice on patenting from Dr Sara Holland at Potter Clarkson, a patent attorney that specialises in synthetic biology and biotechnology. In this meeting, she provided knowledge on intellectual property and how to navigate this within iGEM, as an open source competition.
Full details of each of the discussions held with these individuals can be found on our Human Practices page
