I Got (Business) Schooled!

Last year I and 9 other scientists were awarded a UK Newton Fund-DOST Leaders in Innovation Fellowship. The fellowship gave us and tech transfer officers  crash courses in research commercialization in London, Oxford and at the Asian Institute of Management. We were taught how to make business plans, pitch a product in under 3 minutes, negotiate, estimate market size, and project revenues.

Coming from Science all of the lessons were new to me and I enjoyed every bit of it for the novel and unique insights. I'd like to remember all the lessons I learned so I'm writing them down.

1. From Nieves Confesor of AIM - information is the currency of negotiation. In most cases, the more you openly share information the more you can negotiate better terms for your company.

2. From Richard Cruz of Ideaspace -  Scientists and engineers tend to think that their solution to a problem is the best for the end-user. But does it really address the customer pain? Stripped down to essentials our solution might not be answering their actual pain at all. Gather deep market insights by getting feedback from your end user.

3. From Maoi Arroyo of Hybridigm - the end-user is not necessarily the one who pays. Marketing should be directed at the one who holds the purse strings. Innovation = Invention x Revenues. If it doesn't earn its just an invention.

4. From Ricardo Lim of AIM - the former AIM dean introduced us to Design Thinking. Empathizing is the first step.

This is not the last in the list. I will add as I remember some more, since, hey, its been a year. I'll end with an advice that is somewhat antithetical to how we do science but which makes sense when we are developing solutions for an end user- Fail fast. Fail often. Iterate.

Me and my LIF Cohorts together with Tech Transfer officers holding up our business plans. This was at the Royal Academy of Engineering in London last March 2015.

With THE Nieves Confesor at the Asian Institute of Management. Photo by KM Magtubo.