Bio+Tech was started as a monthly gathering to bring together the best and the brightest entrepreneurial minds in biomedicine and combine them with leaders in the SF tech start-up world.  The idea was that we have an amazing collection of biomedical entrepreneurial minds in SF and with the advent of bio-incubators and tech breakthroughs, the barriers to starting a bio start-up continue to drop.  There’s also a curiosity about biomedicine in the tech realm.  Who better to infuse biomedical and informatics start-ups with entrepreneurial energy and push biomedicine start-ups over the entrepreneurial hump than folks from this bastion of entrepreneurial energy? Plus, the biomedical start-up world doesn’t network nearly to the same degree as does the tech start-up world – that’s critical to the tech start-up world’s success in the SF Bay Area.  Thus Bio [plus] Tech – not just the same old biotech complete with high barriers, lack of networking and support.  Six months in to the Bio+Tech experiment I’d say that so far it’s been a success.

As a note: When I talk about biomedical entrepreneurship I mean that broadly – whether informatics, biotech, pharma, bio-energy, etc – it’s all welcomed and encouraged at Bio+Tech. And, I can’t emphasize enough that not only are we looking to bring together biomedical folks, we’re also looking to bring tech folks – developers, co-founders, start-up managers, etc – in to the mix.  You absolutely do not need a PhD in biophysics to join the group.  Just a healthy interest in bio or medicine – trust me, you’ll blend right in to the group!

Bio+Tech has grown from a group of 10 in January to an average of about 30 people at each monthly gathering.  To boot, that growth has been achieved solely through word of mouth.  I’ve been to a lot of meet-ups and gatherings where there’s lots of noise and very little signal – Bio+Tech has been purposefully kept small to keep the quality of the level of interaction high.  This set up was inspired, in part, by the SF meet-up Founder Dating, which requires an actual application and recommendations from other start-up folks.  Jess Alter and her crew do an amazing job!  Go check it out if you’re looking for a tech start-up or a techie person to help you build your start-up.  I also want to give a shout out to Vinnie Lauria and his Silicon Valley NewTech Meetup as the founding source of inspiration behind Bio+Tech.

Bio+Tech isn’t quite as complicated as Founder Dating and not as large as the SV NewTech Meetup, but to join the invite list you do need to demonstrate a basic interest in biomedical, tech or bio-energy entrepreneurship.  All too often a lot of biotech meet-ups are crowded with sales people and other vendors who are more interested in selling than sharing ideas, tips, contacts or starting businesses.  That’s not to say that we don’t accept sales people in to the group – you just need a genuine interest in creating a company or joining a start-up.

Michael Shuster speaks on the changing IP landscape and how that affects biomedical entrepreneurship.

Want to join us? Each month, the time and date of Bio+Tech will be posted on its webpage, with the location in SF to be announced. If you’re not already on the invite list, feel free to contact me at windmiller@gmail[dot]com and let me know why you’d like to attend.  Just a little paragraph with your interests and what type of company you’re looking to start or join, and a link to your LinkedIn profile – nothing too complicated.  In return, I promise to do my best to connect like-minded people at the meet-up.

We’ve had a couple bio start-ups find co-founders or developers – heck, there’s even been cross-pollination of neuroscience-principles back in to a tech start-up’s social media algorithms!  Yes, it’s a bit nerdy, but I can honestly say that out of the 6 gatherings so far, everyone who has attended has been someone I’ve really enjoyed talking with and sharing ideas.

Each Bio+Tech starts with a good bit of mixing and conversation.  It’s kept that way to maximize interaction and to warm things up.  We then get together to introduce each other to the group – with 30 people I’m always amazed at how efficiently we get through the group.  This is an opportunity to introduce yourself to the group and also spot others with like minded interests.  And, of course, we welcome solicitations for co-founders or technical help or any other start-up needs to the group.  This is a chance to network and find those you’d be interested in working with.

Starting in August we’re going to try to have monthly speakers as well.  It’s a highly informal 10-20 minute talk from people in the biomedical start-up or in the tech start-up world designed to bring ideas and prime the conversation.  We’ve had Michael Shuster, partner at Fenwick & West, speak on the changing landscape of Intellectual Property (IP) and how that’s affecting start-up strategy and execution.  A lot of biomedical start-ups are realizing that execution is just as important as securing IP to start-up success.  This isn’t news to tech start-ups, but this shift in perspective is somewhat groundbreaking in biomedicine start-ups.  We’ve got John Wilbanks, VP of science at Science Commons speaking at our August gathering on the open sourcing of biomedical data sets and tools and how that is altering and encouraging opportunities in the biomedical start-up scene.

And, Bio+Tech is purposefully kept free.  Whether you’re an undergrad or grad student, or on your 5^th start-up, everyone is welcome and encouraged to come.  I believe firmly that cost should not be a barrier to attendance.  And, please pass this along to people you think would be interested in Bio+Tech – that’s how we keep new, fresh ideas coming in to the group!

Biology and technology have much to learn from each other - concepts from each discipline can inform and help create breakthroughs and new businesses. Image courtesy of Scientific American

I recently sat down with a friend who’s developed an ingenious way of using neuroscience concepts and neural networks as the basis for an information filtering algorithm. He’s taken that algorithm and created a personalized and customized news feed from Twitter.  In short, he’s helping to actually make sense of the Tweetstream.

So, what do I really mean by saying that he has employed neuroscience concepts as a foundation for his algorithm? First, think about the brain and how it processes incoming signals and stimuli – if it’s an important signal, say a pouncing mountain lion, it’ll get through all the other noise and register with you.  Much the same way, my friend’s technology uses a couple “filters” that determine whether the incoming tweet is relevant to your interests. If it’s relevant and important it’ll pop up in your news stream. In works much the way that neurons in the brain work – in order for a signal to pass along it’s gotta make the next neuron fire.  The same can be said about tweets this technology filters – if it’s relevant and important it makes it through the algorithm.

The second instance of neuroscience inspiration in this friend’s Twitter algorithm comes from the basic premise that how and what we forget is just as important as the things that we actually remember.  Think of it this way – if we remembered EVERYTHING that we see, hear, touch, smell and taste our brains would be overloaded and wouldn’t work efficiently.  We’d have trouble actually finding memories in our brains if we stored too much information.  The same goes for computer systems – learning how to forget, to get rid of irrelevant or increasingly irrelevant information is just as important as figuring out what to keep. However, the tricky part is figuring out what to forget and what’s worth remembering. That’s part of his trade secrets.

By merging his knowledge of computer science with a dabble of inspiration from neuroscience my friend has been able to pull together a really, really compelling product that might actually make Twitter useful for the 95% of the population that’s not on it. Where other techniques have failed to make sense of the Tweetstream, my friend’s inspiration from the fundamentals of neuroscience has greatly aided his product.

In the above example neurobiology has inspired and informed computer science design, but it’s also a clear case of how this interdisciplinary approach can help both fields make advances.  Another example would be 23&me. I clearly don’t think much of their business model or clinical relevance – but they did inspire some advances in bioinformatics through employing experienced techies to help build their data systems.

See, this is what you get when you mix biology with technology!

What I mean is that (as I’ve been told anecdotally) one of the things 23&me did absolutely right was hire a number of engineers from eBay who were fantastic at database engineering and management.  Instead of bringing in data folks with 10 years of background in bioinformatics and creating databases the way a biologist would, 23&me created an extremely efficient and scalable system for their genomic data.  This type of insight will enable science to make more advanced breakthroughs all that much quicker and effectively. It has also enabled 23&me to have a more feasible business model as well. Technology enabling and inspiring the advancement of biology.

All of this to say that in the world of entrepreneurship and design there’s a lot that the intermingling of bio and tech can bring to help inform and advance both fields.  I’m hoping that Bio+Tech can be one of those ways that technology and biology can intermingle to bring about not only a more vibrant start-up community here in San Francisco, but to help create breakthroughs and inspiration for the next generation of technologies. Drop me a line if you’d like to attend the meetup on February 17th!    windmiller[at]gmail

Biology and technology coming together isn't really a new concept - it's clearly been occurring for thousands of years. We just need to continue to encourage new interdisciplinary approaches as see what comes of it. A beer along the way doesn't hurt, either.

UPDATE: Please RSVP to: windmiller [at] gmail

This Wednesday night – January 20^th at 7pm I’ll be hosting what I hope will be the first of many meet-ups for entrepreneurially minded biotech and bioinformatics people here in San Francisco.  It’ll be at Crossroads Café in SOMA. In February the meetup will most likely be moved to a more permanent location at i/o Ventures, a start-up incubator space in the city.  Information will be updated on the meet-up’s page on Medicine Think and on my @medicinethink Twitter account (follow me!).  Feel free to pass this info on to interested friends.

Genome Valance by Ben Fry. Ben's expertise is helping to graphically represent and interpret massive data sets and information. This piece represents genomic analysis using BLAST. I picked this piece specifically because it takes a new look at how to represent and understand genomics and informatics - something I hope this meetup will help to encourage more of. More about his work from Ben at http://benfry.com/genomevalence/ (click to enlarge)

So, why the meetup?  I’ve spent the past 4 years in San Francisco in both the tech and biotech realms.  Actually, I’ve been a passively active member of the tech community – out of interest I go to events and meetups with friends.  I meet people through my wife who’s in tech PR.  I’m actually pretty well immersed in the community without really trying that hard – it’s a pretty open and warm community.

But as I’ve actively tried to network and attend events in the biotech and genomics space, it’s been much more difficult.  While I’m just about one or two degrees from most of the tech crowd here in SF, I can’t say the same about the biotech space.  And, perhaps with some good reason – the biotech/life science/genomics space rely pretty heavily on intellectual property and trade secrets, so that stunts people’s ability to be social.  Despite that, I think there’s much more room for building a more solid general community outside of the big players and established start-ups.

One of the beautiful things about the tech community in SF is the intermingling of different specialties and cross-pollination of ideas.  This leads to start-ups, improved technologies and a more healthy and vibrant tech community.  Often, these ideas, through start-ups, are passed up to the larger players through acquisitions – so from early start-ups to big behemoths the entire community benefits from this networking and open community.

The biotech community here could use more of this attitude and community.  San Francisco and the University of California has made a substantial investment in the Mission Bay neighborhood – there are very, very few areas in the country that have the foundation for success as does this very special part of SF.  And with visionary institutes like QB3, which is based at UCSF and Berkeley, I see a whole new generation of PhD and other grad students with an entrepreneurial energy that hasn’t been created at other campuses.  Combine that with Stanford’s legacy of doing the same thing and you’ve got the seeds for an amazing industry and community.

Don’t get me wrong, the Bay Area is already a leader in biotech – clearly there’s a lot going on.  But to take it to the next level, the community also has to kick it up a notch.  I hope this meet-up can serve as a partial catalyst (of course, there will need to be many, many more events, etc) to tap in to both the tech and biotech communities here and bring together a diverse and energetic crowd.  Ideally, I’d like to promote an interdisciplinary meetup – between not only biotech and bioinformatics people, but to bring in members of the tech community.  I think tech could greatly inform how bioinformatics and biotech does business – from improving how data is handled, to user interface and analytics and beyond – there is much room for tech to impact the biotech community.  And, to a certain extent, tech would also benefit from some of the thinking from leaders in biotech.  From algorithm and natural language specialties, to managing massive data sets and making meaning, to scalable software, SF and Silicon Valley is well positioned to inform biotech and informatics and help solidify the Bay Area as a leader in biotech and informatics.

If you’re in SF or the surrounding areas, please come by Wednesday at 7 to the Crossroads Café. Even if you are a tech person with a curiosity about biotech, genomics, personal medicine and the like, without a super deep background or expertise, we’d love to have you.  I think these two groups have much to learn from each other and that this type of social interaction will lead to new ideas, energy and companies that will help take the Bay Area to the next level and retain a leadership in the life sciences.

What do you think?  What would you like to see at these types of meetups?

It’s been a little over a year since Sequoia’s infamous slide deck “leaked” to the internet proclaiming the end of the good times for start-ups.  The presentation contains tons of graphs detailing the oncoming downward spiral and suggested that start-ups tighten their belts in order to survive.  Clearly that was great advice, but my main issue with that message is that start-ups should be frugal to begin with and those who need a warning to cut back probably aren’t going to survive anyway.  Bill Gurley of Benchmark also issued a missive at the same time that listed about 10 do’s and don’ts for start-up survival.  Again, aren’t these things start-ups should do anyway to ensure survival?

I bring this up because at the time many commenters and columnists called out these warnings as disingenuous – the message conveyed by Sequoia and Benchmark was something VCs should tell their portfolio companies anyway, and by issuing such a warning (and highly publicizing it through an organized leak) they only served to create a panic.  A panic that tips the scale in their favor – the “harsher” the conditions, the more the risk, the lower the pre-money valuation for companies.  Sure, the economy was down, but VCs artificially raised the level of “economic harshness” through these missives, which actually benefitted them with lower pre-money valuations and thus larger chunks of companies. That or they’re madly brilliant – turning every day entrepreneur advice into a scare that benefits their portfolio.

That said, I think its good advice and good practice to remind companies to reevaluate their spending and burn rate – I object to the way it was done.  I think that Bijan Sabet, a partner at Spark said it nicely in a recent blog post: “we can all do better“.  What made me think of these notes from last year was Fred Wilson’s (of Union Square Ventures) post today that calls out VCs who say they need to command a specific percentage of a company.  He’s “calling bullshit” on VCs who make such comments.  And I believe him – it’s a disingenuous thing for a VC to do – to focus on a percentage rather than the true value they add to a company.  In a way, stating a desired percentage artificially deflates a company’s pre-money valuation, rather than focusing on what the company is really worth.  VCs, by only thinking in company percentages, are overreaching.  I applaud Fred for his message – as does Josh Kopelman of First Round Capital, who takes Fred’s VC greed point even further and says it’s a mistake for a VC’s required returns to drive company’s outcomes, rather than the other way around.  Again, I agree and am happy to see some VCs making this message.

But, on second thought, VCs are driven by returns – the largest return they can make to their LPs.  I think it’s a mistake to think this means “more altruistic” VCs will take a lower percentage of a company – afterall, they’re in it for the business, too. As an entrepreneur you have to take their points with a hint of caution. VCs are still out to get the most out of their companies, and part of that is taking as large of a percentage of a company as is possible.  A smart VC will balance the yin of the percent they take from the company with the yang of maintaining the founders incentive in making their company successful, but that often doesn’t happen.

It’s semi-noble Fred and Josh to express their vantage points, but it’s also smart business because they improve their image with founders.  I don’t have data, but it would be interesting to compare the average percentage of companies a VC takes versus the overall financial success of those companies.  Or, the macro performance of their funds.  Curious if some of my professor friends have insight on this?

Overall, I have to say thanks to Josh and Fred for making their posts, I think that the message is spot on, but I also feel that founders should take these statements with a gain of salt and always be aware of a VC’s true focus.

An amazing amount of books and sites and resources exist to help you start a business.  Whether you want to open a custom bakery shop or start the next big thing in life science, there’s someone out there willing to give you advice. Too many voices, with too many opinions, some trying to help, others not so much.  Knowing who and what to listen to is perhaps the toughest first decision you’ll have to make.  Most authors write books with hundreds of pages, telling you to write elaborate business plans, to create massive financial models in excel and so on.  My experience tells me this is wrong – at least for the most part.  Make no mistake – most of these authors and advisors are there to sell books or consulting service, so buyer beware.

My rule of thumb for just about everything in life is the K.I.S.S. principle – Keep It Simple, Stupid.  And I mean that the more complicated something becomes, the higher likelihood that it’s wrong.  Don’t get me wrong, I have made these mistakes – my co-founders and I became inundated by advice and books and speakers and lectures, etc.  For the most part, young companies need to validate their ideas and create a plan and messaging that will help them convey their idea, build a solid company and recruit quality help, including strong investors.

I’m a fan of finding multiple sources and integrating the different messages and figuring out the common themes and utilizing those common themes as my starting point.  I say this as opposed to following only one “guru” for advice.  In other words, I start by figuring out how to start.  As much as I think he’s a book salesman rather than a great help, Guy Kawasaki does have some excellent points when it comes to what topics to think about.  His first, incredibly important piece of advice is to make meaning with your company.  Think about what your idea accomplishes – does it matter to people?  Does it create value for them? How does it create that value and how will you sustain your advantage?  While I hope your business accomplishes some social good, more importantly it will create value for all of its clients and customers, which in turn is good for socioeconomics.  If it creates a social good, too, then mazel tov. Take this idea and force yourself to condense it to something you can explain in 20 seconds – it’s called an elevator pitch.  This will help you clarify your idea, force you to communicate concisely and effectively, and ensure you adhere to the KISS principle.

His second point comes buried in his 10/20/30 Rule.  Also available on YouTube.  After assessing the big picture of your idea and beginning to lay your thought foundation, Guy’s 10 slide outline can really help guide the way you think about your company.  It can help focus your thoughts and remind you of the important bases to cover.  It also serves to remind you to be succinct and to really know what you’re talking about.  Sequoia has a more robust example of these slides on their business ideas page.  Their outline is more in depth than you have to be at this point, but it serves again as a proper outline of things to think about.  By covering these topics you will begin to be prepared to test out your idea and will prepare you to handle many of the initial questions that will come your way.

Once you have some of this down, my next suggestion, before you put too much more thought in to the depth of the idea and company is to begin to socialize the idea with your friends and trusted colleagues.  Once you’ve gone through and understand the outline of your idea, running it past your friends will not only help you become more succinct and force you to really know your business idea, but it also helps to jump start the social component of starting a company.  Utilizing your network is a huge must at this point.  Use your contacts and their expertise to refine your idea.  Use their networks to begin to get in touch with other experts or investors.  Not so much to pitch, but to air out the idea and get feedback.  This exercise will yield an incredibly useful set of opinions and improvements – not only in your idea, but also in how you present it and skillfully get your points across to other people.  Finally, don’t be afraid to share your idea.  To be sure, don’t go blabbing all the proprietary technology or thoughts, but accurate highlights of your idea will be necessary for proper feedback.

I’d suggest starting this process 2-6 months before you really want to get going on actually building the business.  One of the lessons that I had to learn was that ideas really do need time to marinate.  Prior to my first start-up, I would have ignored this piece of advice, but these days, I think it’s critical.  Don’t sit on your idea too long, but do socialize it, improve it, and along the way begin to map out how you’d like to see it develop and turn it in to a business.

An additional resource to start with is by my friend David Weekly – he has a great presentation on lean start-ups – video here.  Also good is Aaron Patzer’s presentation on Minto.com and it’s beginnings. Video here.  While I heavily suggest not getting mired in the details at this stage, I would recommend familiarizing yourself with these topics and putting them in your consciousness somewhere for later use.  Learning these things also takes a good amount of time to really sink in.  Stanford has a great entrepreneurship video series and VentureBeat also has a phenomenal resource for entrepreneurs called Entrepreneur Corner. Again, don’t get bogged down, but do start watching.  Great lessons to learn.

Come up with the idea, flesh it out and then socialize it.  Thoroughly.  Next steps, well, those will be my next post.