[00:00:16] Speaker A: Welcome to the Few and Far between podcast. I'm your host, Chris o'. Brien. Are marketing and storytelling lost arts when it comes to biotech?
[00:00:24] Speaker B: Maybe.
[00:00:25] Speaker A: Or maybe they're crucial aspects of the product launch ready to be discovered. Today's guest believes there is a marketer in each of us just waiting to be activated. Ken Suzuki is the Chief Marketing Officer at Nautilus Biotechnology, a research company that, in Ken's words, has flipped the script on how we look at proteins, bringing proteomics to the world in a way that makes personalized and predictive medicine a reality. On today's episode, Ken and I dive into the art of storytelling in biotech, focusing on what resonates with customers and how to find that fine balance between marketing and reality. We also set the expectations on the best time to onboard a chief Marketing officer, how to anticipate your customers needs, and why internal company communications is the best way to bring your entire organization along for the journey. So put your marketing hats on, find your target audience, and let's get ready for a great episode. Okay, let's start the podcast.
Ken Suzuki, welcome to Few and Far Between.
[00:01:31] Speaker B: Hey, Chris, thanks for having me here.
[00:01:33] Speaker A: So we've had our share of CMOs on the program before, but it usually means something different in biotech. So you're our first chief Marketing officer and I'm really looking forward to this conversation and some advice on how to think about marketing in a biotech company. But let's start a little bit with your story and your background. So you know you're at Nautilus now. For those in our audience who might not be familiar with Nautilus, can you give the elevator pitch on what Nautilus Biotechnology is all about?
[00:01:58] Speaker B: Thanks, Chris, and really great to be here. In a nutshell, so the reason why we exist is really because we believe that proteins are super important to explaining how life works. And so I think for many decades we've looked into the genome and genomes tell us what might happen, but what's actually going in our body is all the proteins, right, that are leading all these functions. And what we're doing here at Nautilus is really trying to reinvent how these proteins are discovered and looked at. So, so we're doing this in the hopes that through all this work, our end customers are going to find better new therapeutics and just make life better overall for all of us.
[00:02:35] Speaker C: Very cool.
[00:02:36] Speaker A: So that might be part of the answer to my next question, but why did you make the move? You had a long and successful career at Agilent I think before that, a sort of well established player, a larger company. What was the spark that caused you to make the jump to this, I assume, more entrepreneurial environment?
[00:02:51] Speaker B: Yeah, really good question, Chris. And you know, I think even though I've been with agilent for about 25, 26 years, I'd always had this desire, curiosity, to join an early stage company. When I was back in business school at Berkeley decades ago, pretty much everybody except for myself and a handful of other people went the entrepreneurship route. So this was back when the Internet was still new. AOL.com was still a thing. Google was an emerging startup, a search engine. So anyway, I've always had that curiosity in me. And in fact, when I first joined Agilent, when it was hp, I joined in a division that was actually a startup, had just been acquired by hp. It was in the semiconductors test space.
[00:03:31] Speaker A: Gotcha.
[00:03:31] Speaker B: So it began my journey inside a big company, inside of a small business. And I think as I looked through my years of experience at Agilent, I had been working many different functions, but all different sizes of business. So that was always something that left was unfinished business on my end and I was really curious to see what that would be like.
[00:03:50] Speaker A: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
[00:03:51] Speaker B: And then came this opportunity with Nautilus. And really what drove me here, Chris, was the opportunity to work on something really cool with something, a really great vision. But more importantly, it was also the people. I think I was always drawn to the people that I work with. And after meeting with the founders of the company with Sujal and Parag, I was like, yep, this is where I want to give it a chance and finally address that itch to go try something smaller.
[00:04:16] Speaker A: Yeah, I guess it was in the water at Berkeley, right? I mean, as you said, it's almost unusual to not go down an entrepreneurial road.
[00:04:22] Speaker B: It was fascinating.
[00:04:24] Speaker A: Okay, but so you moved from sort of mass spec to the proteomics revolution. So is there a link between, between your former life and your current life? How do you think about that?
[00:04:32] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, today if you look at how proteins are analyzed, there's like two big camps. You have the mass spectrometry camp, which you know, I was related to when I was back in my years from Agilent. And that's where you take proteins mostly, you chop them up into smaller pieces and you kind of analyze what comes up that way. That's one established method. The other one is to use affinity based methods and that's using, you know, different types of probes. And you get to maybe get one or two confirmations to tell you what you have. But the connection back to where I was is that, you know, it's always been a fascinating area for us, especially looking at it from the mass spectrometry space. It could be used for a number of applications. But for us, you know, proteomics had always been one area that, you know, we thought we wanted to do more. And I always had in my head, especially as I was running the mass spectrometry division at Agilent, that this was a space that, you know, had a lot more promise and that certainly we can do a lot more.
And then came this opportunity to join Nautilus.
[00:05:31] Speaker A: Gotcha. So you were the right guy at the right time.
[00:05:34] Speaker B: I'd like to think so.
[00:05:36] Speaker A: I bet your colleagues do too. Okay, let's flip to the role of a chief marketing officer in a biotech. So I think many of our listeners run or aspire to run early stage pre commercial companies. And as I said up front, CMO tends to mean something different in those organizations. So what does a chief marketing officer actually do at a biotech company like Nautilus, especially one that's still in R and D mode. And then we can talk a little bit about when that person should enter the conversation in a leadership team.
[00:06:03] Speaker B: Really good question, Chris. Well, as a chief marketing officer and as I had imagined, coming from a big company to a smaller company like Nautilus, you get to wear many, many hats. What I work on is everything from the overall business and product strategy to our brand strategy to our internal communications and investor relations. So you wear many hats as that. But for a company like ours that is still pre commercial, we're still working on refining our product. You know, what is it exactly that a CMO works on? Right. I think it's a really good question. And I think the most important part here is to have a really clear marketing strategy of who are the customers that we are going to address with this fabulous technology and what is the value proposition to them? Getting that strategy right is probably the most important thing that we can have, I like to believe, because of the stage we're in. Cause once you start going commercial right now, you want to be running with that. Now's the time to make sure that you absolutely measure twice and cut once.
[00:07:03] Speaker A: I imagine most people listening would think, okay, that makes sense to me. But you know, gosh, aren't these founders the CEO, the chief scientific or medical officer? Aren't they doing that already? And I know the answer is Oftentimes, no. Right. So how do you get started with that process? Maybe this is obvious, but I guess by hiring you in creating a role like this, they're sort of seeing a need for this. Is that right? Or do you have to sell that story? Talk to us a little bit about how you get started.
[00:07:27] Speaker B: So I think, well, hats off to both Sujal and also Parag. But, you know, they have the foresight that at some point they're going to need to have a formalized marketing organization. Yeah. And I did come in and I inherited a staff. I have some very talented product managers, people working in scientific affairs and communications. But to really start to formalize, that was their foresight. And you know, again, as any great CEO are able to flex into many different areas. And I think every manager that I ever worked for always had a say into marketing. But I think there comes a point where you realize you've got so many other things that you have to take care of. You want someone full time. And so really I think that was the genesis of it and the fact that we were getting closer to commercialization, that it was really time to now start formalizing our thinking about how to introduce our product to the market.
[00:08:15] Speaker A: That makes a lot of sense. I also think there's a difference in early stage companies. This is a little less true in biotech, but even in biotech, I think the founders end up playing. They're the sort of. They're the MVPs, they're the athletes who can cover all these different positions. And they tend sometimes to be hiring more arms and legs, like people can do implementation and create leverage for them. And then there's a point where company sort of passes this point, starting to move towards maturity. Not in maturity, but towards it. Where I think smart CEOs are trying to hire people who are better than them at their individual disciplines. And the CEO's job is to be able to have good taste in hiring that person and to collaborate effectively with that person. But still, I imagine when you bring a new discipline on board, it still takes a little time to figure all that out. So, you know, maybe tell us a little bit more about that. The early days of, like, how do you build into the DNA of the company? Hey, we should be thinking about marketing, the messaging and all this stuff right away.
[00:09:07] Speaker B: Yeah, no, really excellent point, Chris. You know, like I said, like, every great leader always is able to play into multiple areas. And really it's about starting to formalize that function, having a thought partner to continue to build that, that vision. But I think for me in particular, my journey began with turning the question back to the customer to understand how are we viewing the market? Right. Because you have this great capability that can mean a lot of things to many people. Yeah, right. But who are the right ones to begin with? And so we started that question with, okay, who are we talking to? What's the market size look like? How do we start now segmenting these markets and understanding which is the right one to go after and starting to build a plan around that. So really a lot of focus on making sure that we knew exactly who we're going after. That was one area of work that I engaged with the team shortly after joining. And the other one which is next up on my list is I'm really then to take that to the kind of more to the enterprise level and really think through. We have a great start of a brand with Nautilus. And I think many companies, after they launch their first product, you know, it's successful, it's great. Then what? Right. How do you make that decision about where to go next? And this is why it's so essential, I think, Chris, that make sure that you as a company, not just from a marketing perspective, but have that vision of where you want to go and how that translates into your brand strategy. Because those should be your guiding principles for determining what's next. And that comes a lot sooner than you think once you start going commercial. So those are the two areas that I've been looking at and really enjoying so far. The engagement with the team and what we're finding and excited about what's to come.
[00:10:41] Speaker A: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So I guess if you've done it right, by the time you start to ask yourself that question of where do we go next, you have a framework or some guidelines or some agreement about what likely makes sense. It might make that process a little easier.
[00:10:54] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. My recommendation is that don't wait till like the product is almost baked to start asking questions. I think the right trigger is really about when you start, you know, finally getting your hands around the core technology or the capability and you start asking, okay, like, who are we going to sell this to? Right. Yeah. That's about when you should really start to formalize this because you'll still have time to make adjustments to fine tune your strategy and then really make sure that when it comes now time for commercialization, you're just executing.
[00:11:22] Speaker A: So this hits a theme that we've covered a bunch on the podcast and I don't think we can say it too many times that as one past guest said, you need to sort of have an economic strategy for your product. It's not enough just to do great science. You have to sort of think through, as you just said, you know, who are we going to sell this to? Why are they going to buy it? What are the key messages and all of that stuff? I love that. I honestly don't think biotech can hear that too many times.
Hi, this is Chris o', Brien, host of Few and Far Between Conversations from the Frontline of Drug Development. We'll be right back with this episode in a moment. I personally want to thank you all for listening to our podcast. Now in our fifth season. It continues to be an amazing opportunity to speak with some of the top thought leaders in the drug development industry. If you're enjoying this episode, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. It really helps people discover the pod. And don't forget to subscribe to Few and Far between so that you never miss an episode. One last request. Know someone with a great story you'd like to hear me interview. Reach out to
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Okay, a quote from you. I think you said there is a marketer in everyone. So tell us a little bit about what you mean by that and if I can say, the beauty that you find in marketing.
[00:12:43] Speaker B: Thanks, Chris. Really great question. And the reason why I often tell people that marketing is one of the greatest, best disciplines to be in in any company. Everybody wants to be part of it. Right. Regardless of whether you're. Yeah, yeah, you're in finance, you're in R and D. Everybody has an opinion on how something should be positioned. Everybody has opinion on how the story wants to be told. So you've got everyone's attention. That's a great thing. The bad thing is you got a lot of opinions, too.
[00:13:05] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Everyone. Everyone also feels entitled to critique your work.
[00:13:08] Speaker B: Exactly. And the worst is when you, you know, I've had experiences in the past where our general general manager or vice president will come in and start trying to, like, design, like, what the product looks like for you. Right. And you're like, you know, your opinion's great.
[00:13:21] Speaker A: Come on. Yeah, right, right, right.
[00:13:23] Speaker B: But, you know, I think in terms of, like, there's a marketer and everyone, I think it really comes back to understanding that, you know, it is very much an integrated discipline. And I think, you know, there is also, there's kind of the hardcore Element of it, like you got to define things, you got to get the strategy right, you got to understand what market size you're going after. But there is this art part of it, right. Which comes from how do you make sure that like for example, take the brand element, how's that woven through both. Through how the product is built, designed, how you express that through your collateral, how your people who go out and sell and support the product also resonate with that as well. And there is a level of, I think artistry that comes through that for me has always come. You know, that's been the fun part of marketing. I spent most of my professional career working in technology, but I come from a family of artists and that's given me that perspective and appreciation for things. That, that elegance. Right. That beauty and how you stitch things together.
[00:14:21] Speaker A: Yeah, I love that. Do you have to sell that or did you find that everybody goes, no, we love the idea of the emotion and the artistry of the brand and of marketing. Or do you find that dealing with a science based company, people are like, yeah, that's fluff. We want to get to the, get to the hard facts here.
[00:14:37] Speaker B: Yeah, well, you know, it's interesting when you talk about like in this case, scientists, right, who are our end customers. You get people who are very much, you know, want to be logical and fact based. So they often view things like marketing and messaging and positioning as being a little bit of salesy fluffy. Yeah, there's a built in distrust there. But I think what it comes down to is at the end of the day there's a person making a decision, I hear product or your service.
And so really getting in there and connecting with that individual emotionally I think is something that I've been surprised like how many scientists actually then go, oh yeah, you know, I love that.
[00:15:14] Speaker A: That doesn't shock me because I think so many people who come to any of the bioscience stuff are coming for mission driven reasons. I'm amazed at how many people you encounter who have a personal story for why they are working in biology broadly. So I guess that does make sense. And your ability to bridge that, of course, is, is what's going to bring me to my next question. So your storytel and I know when we prepped you talked a little bit about the importance of storytelling. So how do you think about that and how do you do it? I mean, I assume there's no campfire, that you're actually gathering everybody around to tell a tale.
[00:15:46] Speaker B: Well, you know, I think the art behind any storytelling is just how to make it personal. Right. Whether you're sharing something on your end or you're making it personal for the recipient. In the case here with Nautilus, I think one of the stories we use often which really does resonate is the story of a quote co founder Parag Malik, who is the one who's like, you know, there's got to be a better way to do this proteomics stuff. Right. So he's been, he's a professor at Stanford. He's been tackling the proteomics challenge for a long time. And he's used products like that. I used to be behind at Agilent, but they're complex and, you know, and so it came to him having an epiphany one day saying, you know, what if we flipped how we look at proteins completely on end? And that's what gave birth to the whole underlying platform of iterative mapping in Nautilus. And so that story about the frustration and going through and thinking about, there's gotta be a better way and then suddenly have that epiphany that resonates with people. Right. Because everyone goes on that journey.
[00:16:46] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think, right. We all like the idea of being connected to that kind of innovation. Innovation that comes out of frustration is sometimes, I think, the best. You've also talked about people and trust being kind of core to how you think about marketing. Can you give us a concrete example of how that manifest and something specific that you guys do?
[00:17:02] Speaker B: Yeah, thanks. Great question on that too, Chris. And you know, for me, I think at the end of the day, right, it's who's deciding to buy your product is an actual person. And I think quite often, especially in the tech space, everyone loves their technology or their platform, whatever it is. Right. And you often forget that, you know, the end recipient is going to be a person just like you and I. So number one, it's really about, and it goes back to a fundamental marketing is who are your people? Right. Who are your customers? What segment are you going after? And then making sure that you are bringing the messages and the value proposition that's relevant to that person. Right? So I think that's number one, the trust aspect of it comes from, you know, if you think about the end customers that again, we work with, they're scientific researchers, they're developing, you know, new therapeutics. And so there is a lot that they're trying to do great things in the world with. And they're relying on your answer, right. Your analysis. Yes. People that. And there's this trust they have to build by not overstating your capabilities, delivering what you said you were going to deliver. Right. And really being able to back them up when they need you most. And so I think that part of it is also something that we, you know, and throughout my career and also here at Nautilus, we make sure that we don't overstate the capabilities. We see so many companies get in that trap.
Yes, you promise futures, you kind of, you know, and it's a fine line between marketing and kind of that truth. But I do believe that you can strike that balance. Right. By being authentic but still being very optimistic about what it can do. And I think that's what kind of leads to this, this formal role in this discipline in marketing.
[00:18:43] Speaker A: Yeah, I really like that. I think unfortunately some of the biggest offenders of the overselling are probably companies that don't have a chief marketing officer. I think oftentimes the CE CEO can be guilty of such behavior and they like that idea of sort of anchoring everything in trust because that means we can make strong statements about where things are going, but we need to base them in fact and be able to defend them and all that kind of stuff. I think that makes a lot of sense. Okay, so now tell me, you know, for a, for a CEO who's listening, you've talked a little bit about what the value proposition is for that person for bringing a CMO on. I think you've kind of covered that pretty well that I assume the seniority piece that the C in the CMO gives you a seat at the table in shaping strategy and all that, that, that makes a lot of sense.
Should they think about doing this? When should a CEO start to think about bringing a chief Marketing officer on board?
[00:19:30] Speaker B: Great question, Chris. And I think if you think through is it like timing of when you go for funding, all that. Yeah, I think it goes back to, you know, what we talked about earlier is when you are at the point where you start to feel like, okay, this technology is going to work, we have something, who's going to buy this, who are we going to tell it to, who are we going to make money? I think that's about like, you know, it's a bit of a self serving answer, but I think you can't be too early to have the thought in terms of it. The CEO I think carries that initially, but I think soon after, you know, you've got to get that role specialization and you got to get somebody who's going to be a thought partner to be able to carry that forward.
[00:20:05] Speaker A: That makes a lot of sense. So, okay, now somebody's listening. They're thinking, dang, I'm late. I've got to go. And I got to hire a chief marketing officer. I'm sold. Ken's a good storyteller. So what should that person be looking for other than maybe, you know, kind of the most obvious stuff? If they've done this kind of work before, what's really important, usually the gut.
[00:20:22] Speaker B: Reaction is to go for someone who's been like career marketer, really hardcore in technology. And I almost would provide the opposite advice is go for somebody who is going to impedance match your staff and the people already at the company. Right. I love that. Okay, so, you know, I'm coming not from. I'm not a proteomic specialist. I'm not a chemist, I'm not a scientist. I'm an engineer. And I've been a marketer, but I've been playing in other areas. And so I think it's really bringing in a different perspective. But that also has to be, I think, seasoned and weighted with breadth. So not somebody who's only done marketing on their life, somebody who's been maybe in a little bit of an R and D stint, someone who's dipped their toe into manufacturing, someone who has, you know, worked in or with sales. Right. And I think across multiple business models, meaning not just only hardware, maybe software or services. Right. Because ultimately, if you think about our customers, they're not there really to buy your product. They want your product to get to an answer, an outcome in the best way possible. Right. They're looking for that success. So the more ways that I think one can come in with that broader view and see how things connect both inside the industry and in other examples adjacent to that industry, I think you just become, you know, and this is probably a general statement, as a marketing person, you're always kind of at the hub of many things. Yep. It just makes you just that much more impactful.
[00:21:44] Speaker A: That makes a lot of sense. It probably helps to mitigate the risk that we see in smaller companies of people who come from big organizations and just lack the ability to translate their skills into an entrepreneurial environment. So if you've done different kinds of things, at least that speaks somewhat to your flexibility and stuff like that. But are there other thoughts on that? First of all, do you agree that can be an issue? And then any other thoughts on how to mitigate that?
[00:22:07] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think, you know, the more breadth you have, especially for these type of roles. I think you have a bigger library of things they can go to refer to. Right. Because the answer is not always like what your customers are immediately asking for in the industry or what your competitors are doing. Because if you are, the whole purpose of strategy is to create that differentiation. You got to sometimes look outside or beyond what you're doing. And so that that set of experiences, I think gives you that, that library that you can leverage. But you know, I think the other areas that are important is also to not only be data driven, but I think to some extent of being able to have the both experience and ability to just at some point trust your judgment. Yeah, there's no data is ever going to be perfect. And I think I see a lot of people who get very stuck into using data as a means to answer their decisions. Yes, this is where the creativity part, and I think the forward looking part of the marketing role comes in, is that you have to look beyond what is today. Right. You have to look beyond what the customer is specifically asking for and anticipate what that need is that they don't see yet. And that's the balance. I think that one should be.
[00:23:11] Speaker A: I really like that, Ken. That makes a lot of sense. You might have just defined the difference between a junior and a senior marketer too. That ability to trust their gut and look into the future in some meaningful way. With that said, you know, are there metrics that you track carefully that your CEO, you know, wants from you? How does that stuff work?
[00:23:28] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think ultimately, you know, Susie will be asked for, where are the orders and where's all that growth going on?
[00:23:34] Speaker A: Yeah, right, right, right.
[00:23:34] Speaker B: Now, short of having a commercial product, what we're looking at is really making sure that are we, you know, starting to now nurture this target group of customers that we're going to address first once we go to market? So is it share of voice? So we look at social, we look at, you know, the newswires and see how much, you know, share of voice do we have relative to, like, companies. We just recently launched our first brand awareness study too.
[00:23:57] Speaker A: Got it.
[00:23:57] Speaker B: Our company's been in place for a number of years now. And you know, again, back to the importance of brand strategy. Well, this sets the baseline. So we are looking at, you know, what, what is the unaided awareness of our brand and what does it mean to customers? Right. So tracking that very closely. And the last one is, I think around just customer engagement. So whenever we post something new, new content, what is that uptake? Are our Target customers consuming that. So it's really about, I think, getting our audience ready for the moment that we launch. But there's also internal things that we look at. Right. My boss deeply cares about. Are we very clear and aligned with our development team?
[00:24:33] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:24:33] Speaker B: Right. This is back to we're at the point where we can make adjustments if needed. Be really clear about where we're going to go with market first. That alignment is one. And the last one that I wear my hat for is around employee engagement. Right. So I'm also responsible for internal communications at Nautilus. And bringing your entire organization along for the journey is one of the most critical things. Yeah, I love that. Not just externally focused. It's got to be inside and out.
[00:24:58] Speaker A: Love that. So, slightly switching gears, how is AI changing the way you do your job or how do you think it will change over the next short window? I'm not super interested in what things are going to look like in a decade. I don't think anybody knows, but, like, what are things going to look like in the next six to 12 months?
[00:25:13] Speaker B: So I'm thinking both from an inbound marketing standpoint and outbound marketing standpoint. Chris. So from an inbound standpoint, like we're doing market research, right. Before we used to have to hire, you know, all these reports, do interviews, and then collate that information. AI makes it so easy now, like, we're engaging right now with an external firm to help us with this and, you know, just the process of collating information and distilling it down into discrete, actionable items, like, here's your segment, here's what they value.
It's becoming so much easier to do that. Right. And then on the outbound side, I think, you know, as everyone is, you know, creation of content, being able to identify usage patterns and then recommend where, you know, where next to target some market campaigns, that outbound marketing design also becomes a lot easier. So, you know, it's. It's just you have so many more powerful tools to extend the people and knowledge right behind all of our marketing. So that's kind of what I see. The next six to 12 months is really just making us a lot more efficient and effective in leveraging our finite resources. Yep.
[00:26:16] Speaker A: So some of that work was done by junior people in the past. Do you think that the junior jobs in marketing or in other spaces, do you see them going away? This is a sort of a hot topic right now with some people saying it's a really tough time to get started in your career.
[00:26:30] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, I Think if it's something that is just simple and easy and repetitive, then yes, I mean, those jobs. And that's not just unique to marketing. Right. I think with the advent of automation, you see that across all of the disciplines in any business. You know, I had the opportunity to hear Jensen Wang at Oregon State University about a year ago, and, you know, he was giving his talk about Nvidia and the onset of AI. And I remember distinctly his, you know, phrase being that AI, it's really about prompting, or you had to have someone who knew how to code or program, they controlled everything because they were the ones who knew how to prompt. Now prompting is democratized. And so, yes, the same, I think, applies to anyone in marketing, anyone in the junior role. It's learn how to use that prompting to your advantage. Right. So get out of the repetitive kind of, that sort of type of tasks and really spend your time and understanding, you know, both thinking about the strategy, but then using that prompting to leverage your thoughts. Right. Your ideas. Because behind any AI and any great idea, it's got to start somewhere and it starts with you.
[00:27:34] Speaker A: That's great advice. So let's talk a little bit about the proteomics revolution concept and reality. You've talked about us entering a new era of discovery, which is a really exciting phrase. What do you think the biggest misconceptions people have about the promise of proteomics? Where does that go? And how's Nautilus, you know, positioned to address that?
[00:27:55] Speaker B: Yeah, I think so. Big promise with proteomics is that, you know, again, everything in life is driven through proteins. Right. And a great book out there, I think it's called How Life Works by Philip Ball. Kind of a heavy read, so be prepared. But it basically talks about how, like, you know, everyone was focused in genomics. That was really important and that tells you what could be. But what actually happens in our body is only so much of it is actually determined by our gene.
[00:28:19] Speaker A: Predetermined. Yes, yes.
[00:28:21] Speaker B: And so that's the big promise is like, if you figure this out, you're going to be able to cure disease, extend life, all that great stuff. So the big, I think, fallacy is that it's super easy. Like you fix one protein, then you fix a disease, you're good.
[00:28:34] Speaker A: Yeah, Right, right.
[00:28:35] Speaker B: And it's not that way, unfortunately. Right. Like, genes you're born with, they the same until you die. Proteins in our bodies right now are changing by the minute. Right. They're folding, they're doing all these cool things. So it's not Just one prote. You've got to figure out the system. There are complex, dynamic entities and so, you know, trying to use traditional methods to nail it down and say, I'm going to fix this one protein and cure this disease. Yeah, not going to happen. I think the misconception. Gotcha. So what we're providing is just another much more in depth way to deal with that complexity and dynamism through the platform that we're developing right now.
[00:29:10] Speaker A: So it's an exciting time, exciting in the old Japanese curse about living in interesting days or something like that to work in the pharma industry broadly, you know, lots of stuff changing, lots of misinformation happening from government officials, from, you know, folks, observers from all walks of life. How does that impact your job? The changes in the direction of public's perception about what's happening?
[00:29:33] Speaker B: Yeah, well, you know, I mean, I think if you got to kind of look at what's happening as a symptom of, you know, of the underlying cause and you know, I think if you look at, especially US in the U.S. you know, we have a very complex healthcare system and then you have this disparity of information. Right. So it's not so much more information at this point. I think it's about how do you change attitudes towards medicine. And some of it I think was, you know, self serving. And so with all of that going on right now, I think it is an opportunity to rethink about, okay, well how do you provide better information on why a certain therapy or why things are being prescribed? But I think it's also, and this is where, you know, be a little self serving and introduced, like companies like Nautilus that help to bring in new perspectives on how proteins work, will give our end customers, pharma companies the ability to really enable precision medicine. Right. Because today so many of our biomarkers and drug candidates are actually based on proteins today. But it's done at a very high level, meaning that it doesn't have the precision, not getting all that information in the proteins. And so by really thinking about how do we target our therapies with precision medicine with the right information from proteomics, that I think is the opportunity that all of this ultimately enables. And I think, you know, there's going to be some bumps along the road, but in the end it's going to net into just better targeted care for all of us as a nucleus.
[00:31:04] Speaker A: Yeah, I like that a lot. I guess also this is. You didn't say this. So it's not self serving you get a free pass on this one. Being a great communicator. Science communicator is probably more important in an environment where people are more skeptical of expertise. I think that's one of the themes of the last decade or so, is decreasing confidence in experts. And so your ability to tell a story that people can understand, probably because it's more important. You think that's fair?
[00:31:29] Speaker B: Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, again, I think you have to do a few things. You got to make it personable. You have to understand who your audience is, audiences. Right. So one, communication style and level of information doesn't fit. So, yeah, targeted to your audience. But tell the story in a simple way. Right. I think, you know, you'll be amazed. Like even with the most smartest people that have ever worked with ever. Right. You think they understand something and then, you know, you tell them again. Like then the light bulb goes on.
[00:31:55] Speaker A: Right, right.
[00:31:56] Speaker B: Never underestimate the need to like tell a story different way multiple times. I think it's what, seven times from seven different ways until someone truly gets it.
[00:32:04] Speaker A: That maps to my experience. Sadly, some days it feels like I need eight, but yeah, I think that's right.
[00:32:08] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:32:09] Speaker A: In closing, you've given us some advice for how the biotech CEO should think about hiring a chief marketing officer. What about somebody who's listening, who aspires to your chair, who wants to become a chief marketing officer over time? What are the kinds of things that you'd recommend? And it's maybe tricky because you said there are a bunch of different paths. What would be some advice for someone who's thinking about that?
[00:32:29] Speaker B: Great question, Chris. I think, you know, number one is don't go in thinking I'm going to be doing marketing or become a cmo. I think it's get the whole product experience along the way. Even better yet, be a customer. Right. To understand what it's like to be on the receiving end. I think that the more you can do that, I think you're going to start building out your resume and really building in, I think some of that artistry that we talked about earlier. The other one is I think go into a space that is maybe not directly product related.
[00:32:57] Speaker A: Interesting.
[00:32:58] Speaker B: So I had a, an interesting stint in services marketing where you have to now market the intangible. Yes. And your products are not something that ship out of a factory and say that shape, when they go, they're being invented on the fly by people. Yes. Try like marketing that.
[00:33:11] Speaker A: As the CEO of a CRO, I really feel that one you know, that's our life. Yeah.
[00:33:15] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:33:15] Speaker B: I think that's the ultimate expression of when you can actually nail that down.
You're ready for a lot of things. But the last piece, though, and I'll go back to my days when I was at. At the Haas School of Business at Berkeley, first year organizational behavior, Jenny Chapman, who actually now recently just got appointed to the dean of the school. So congratulations to Jenny, who said, forget about your econ, forget about, you know, your marketing and finance. This is the most important class you'll ever have. And you know what? She was right. Yes. About organizational behavior, how people interpret data, how people act, all of that. That is the most important part of marketing. So understand and study. I think that to me, is the biggest benefit.
[00:33:57] Speaker A: I love that. I love that on a couple of levels. I think that's right. I think lots of people coming out of business school, me included, felt like trying to understand people better was something that we should have had more time on. But it's hard. It's hard, hard work. It's hard to reduce to simple answers. And therefore, I think we often get a little bit less of that than would be beneficial. So I like that a lot. And then the study of people, of course, you can get in all sorts of ways, including from art, not only from science. There's lots of different inputs to that, I suppose.
[00:34:24] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely, Chris. I mean, I always recommend, and, you know, some of my greatest scientists, scientific friends and colleagues are they all have some kind of artistic and creative pursuit outside of work. Right. And so whether it is, you know, just pick up a camera, start thinking about the pictures you take, or, you know, draw. I play music, I like to draw. I love taking photography. So those are just some things, but just enrich your life with these other means that then I think as a marketer, it goes back to that aesthetic. Right. Like, you start building a consistent brand and image and story and storytelling style that then resonates with their customer and it's easily identifiable. So absolutely highly recommend go do something outside of just work and hardcore studies.
[00:35:07] Speaker A: Oh, fantastic. All right, well, Ken Suzuki, I think we'll leave it there. That's a great note to end on. Thanks so much for joining us on Few and Far between today.
[00:35:14] Speaker B: You're welcome. Great to be here, Chris. Thanks.
[00:35:20] Speaker A: Welcome producer Adam.
[00:35:21] Speaker C: Hi, Chris. Thanks. I don't know if you realize this, but this episode really spoke to me.
[00:35:26] Speaker A: Shocking, given your day job as a marketer.
[00:35:28] Speaker C: Yes, yes. But, yeah, to go with that, let's start off with Ken's Belief that there is a marketer inside all of us. Do you think that's truer now that a company's web and social media presence is paramount to their success?
[00:35:42] Speaker A: I really do. I think it's a really an important point. I think if we all step back and say what were the expectations on most people inside of most businesses across all industries 20 years ago, 30 years ago, of course you weren't expected to be a marketer. You were, you didn't have a platform. Now kind of everybody does. And certainly every executive in a company, especially a small company that's trying to make some noise in the market, has I think, an obligation to try and figure out how to tell that story in a way that excites them, their colleagues, people they work with, and of course the market at large. Clients, funders, patients, docs, lots of different constituents. For us in the biotech world, that.
[00:36:19] Speaker C: Is a true statement. I want to switch tracks a little bit to business school. Ken said that knowing people is more important than knowing marketing and finance. In terms of business school, how does that match with your own education?
[00:36:32] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I think that that's largely true. Business school teaches the language of business and there is real value in a lot of that content. On the other hand, I think Ken's right that for most of us especially, the further you go along in your career, the more it is about communicating, understanding people, understanding their motivations, et cetera. Those things loom larger and you could have been a terrific accounting student or economic student in school. If you don't understand how to connect with people and be persuasive, your career will tend to stall out, I think in most cases.
[00:37:05] Speaker C: So in my 25 year plus of marketing, I have seen marketing popularity swing across the spectrum from top priority to afterthought. Is it timing do today's CEOs or C suite have trouble accepting the need for a marketing strategy?
[00:37:21] Speaker A: Well, it's a really good question. I think if you ask most people, they would say no, no, we agree that's important. It's just not either not my job or not something I feel comfortable doing. So I think certainly even in organizations where there is a chief marketing officer, the CEO should see his or herself as the chief marketer, chief communicator for the organization.
I think that's an essential part of the job. And so does everyone do that? No, we all have different strengths and weaknesses and places we're comfortable and places that we're not. And certainly you can hire around that. So if you don't feel comfortable playing that kind of role. You can recruit someone else into the executive team who does. I think we should all feel an obligation there. And I don't think whatever the fad of the moment says about the popularity or necessity of marketing, it's always going to be important to figure out how to tell your story in a way that connects.
[00:38:11] Speaker C: Yes, I agree with that. But I think, you know, sometimes it seems like when you're just starting off, you're kind of, you know, you're in a perpendicular directional situation. I guess that's the best way I can describe it, where you're trying to build buzz, but you're also trying to bring in customers and sell your product or service. So I think that that could also be too much focus on one area and not a lot of focus on the other area. But I guess it, like I had said, it's like timing for that situation.
[00:38:40] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's right. And leaders have to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. None of us do that perfectly. So we're all going to look back and say, ugh, I over indexed on something in the past six months and I under indexed on something else. I think that's sort of always the case. But I think what we should be aspiring to is doing both of those things. Of course we have to be thinking about product and we have to be really trying to understand customers and what their needs are. But yeah, we got to also be telling a story about why what we're doing is important and why people should.
[00:39:08] Speaker C: Be interested, you know, to go along with that. Ken mentioned that the time for bringing in a CMO can be gauged by when the CEOs and C suite and other co founders are feeling spread across the organization. But is it tough to let go as a CEO? You know, based on what you said, the CEO is the chief marketer for the company for a very long time and continued.
[00:39:30] Speaker A: Yeah, I do believe that especially if we look at some CEOs inside of biotech and more broadly in the world, there certainly are people who play that role. Even in very large companies where this one person is somebody with. We associate with a brand, we associate with a company. The CEO can continue to play that kind of role. But a CEO probably needs, I certainly think most do, a partner to think through messaging. And then of course there's a lot more to the Chief Marketing Officer's job than simply being the spokesperson. They should be a speaking partner to the CEO and other C Suite execs in Figuring out what that story is. And if we come back to Ken's point about understanding people, if you're a senior marketer, part of your job is to own. Understand what your fellow leaders and your boss are comfortable with and where they're not comfortable. And, you know, you kind of have to lean into that part of the job based on what you find when you get there. And I think, as for most of us, that role changes a little bit depending on what the capabilities are of the people who are around you.
[00:40:23] Speaker C: So we talked a lot about AI in this episode. Yes, I have an AI question for you.
[00:40:29] Speaker B: So let's go.
[00:40:29] Speaker C: If writing a good prompt is key in using AI in marketing and storytelling, how do you write a good prompt?
[00:40:37] Speaker A: Okay, I have several suggestions here. So number one, the AI will help you to improve the prompt. So you can say, I want to do whatever it is that task is that you want to do. Help me improve this, ask me questions, and help me improve this prompt. And it should give you a bunch of suggestions. And it should also ask you some questions. Is this what you mean? Do you want this, do you want that, etc. And then that enables you to refine the prompt that you're working, working with. And then the important advice that I think getting pretty widespread now, give it an expertise, Tell it what you want it to be expert in. Tell it, give it some context, as much context as you can, and don't be bashful. The more context you give it for how it should think about this problem, the better its response tends to be. And then give it a task, Right? So it's make it an expert, give it context, and give it a task. And then the golden rule for all of these things is, is iterate with it. So ask it how you can make the prompt better. And then when you get a result, if you're not happy with it, ask it again. Say, that's not what I was looking for. I need more of this, I need more of that. Often what that means is you gotta give it a little more context. So I have found, you know, some people give up very quickly on AI prompting and say, oh, it's not that great, doesn't do what I wanted it to do. That's generally wrong. It's incredibly powerful if you work with it. And so, you know, practice on prompts and looking at examples that other people post. Those can all be really helpful.
[00:41:58] Speaker C: Yes, I am a big proponent of refinement. A lot of people, I think when they receive a result back from an AI, they Just take that result and move on. And I think that refining it further is definitely the way to go. You know, if you've gone this far with AI to ask it for its opinion as an expert in a particular area, it's definitely just another couple steps to say, hey, can you refine this just a little bit more to get.
[00:42:23] Speaker B: The result you want?
[00:42:24] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's exactly right. And we know as a skilled copywriter yourself, you know that there are some quirks to AI writing. It for some reason tends to really love the EM dash. And there are a few other kind of ways that AI writes that can feel obvious or, you know, overly kind of bloated and stylistically bloated and things like that. So first, you can tell it not to do the things that you don't like, and that will help. And secondly, there's still a really important role for humans in that as editorial process. So I think you treat it as. There's a great line that I heard from on a podcast recently. Treat it like the intern with the PhD and everything. So that doesn't mean they know everything. They're not godlike. They're limited to what they knew when they were trained and what they can learn from the Internet and in some cases your internal docs today, depending on which one you're using, and then just, you know, keep iterating towards success. And in most cases that. That's compelling.
[00:43:12] Speaker C: Yes, I agree. Well, definitely. I hope people who are using AI will. Will take that to heart. So great episode though, I think.
[00:43:19] Speaker A: Lots of fun. It was really fun having Ken on. Thanks, Adam.
[00:43:22] Speaker B: All right, thanks. Bye.
[00:43:28] Speaker A: Thank you for listening to the latest episode of Few and Far Between Conversations from the Front Lines of Drug Development. Our podcast is now available on Apple Podcasts and other streaming services. Please take a moment and leave us a user review and rating today. It really helps people discover the podcast and we read all the comments. Those comments help us make Few and Far between better and better. Also, be sure to subscribe to Few and Far between so you don't miss a single episode. Got an idea for a future episode? Email us at fewandfarbetweeniorrosti.com or contact us on our website at biorossi.com I'm your host, Chris O'. Brien. See you next time.
