Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Speaker A: Welcome to the Few and Far between podcast. I'm your host, Chris O'. Brien. Hydrogels are 3D structures composed of hydrophobic polymers, and they're found in everything from drug delivery systems to contact lenses. But one place you might not find them is Lab Robotics. Today's guest identified this biotech opportunity and has developed automation to streamline repetitive lab testing. Sinan Golhan is the CEO at Geltech Labs, a company poised to revolutionize hydrogel testing. On today's episode, Sinan and I explore his path to entrepreneurship. From Lego prototypes and robot value props to next steps in funding and commercialization strategies. We'll also zoom in on biotech startup life, especially for a younger founder. And we'll play our new lightning round, rapid fire questions and inspired answers from our podcast guests. Also, don't forget to check the LinkedIn comments for Sinan's insights on entrepreneurship, favorite books, and more. Okay, let's start the podcast.
Sinan Gohan, welcome to Few and Far Between.
[00:01:08] Speaker B: Good to be here. Thanks, Chris.
[00:01:11] Speaker A: I've been looking forward to this conversation.
You are your path into entrepreneurship is a little bit different from many of the biotech CEOs that we, that we interview on the pod. And I think that probably makes you in some ways easier to connect with for folks who are considering entrepreneurship, considering startup life, all, all of that kind of stuff. So let's start a little bit with your history.
How did you come to the United States and you know, give us the, give us the early, the early story.
[00:01:41] Speaker B: The early story through to company formation.
[00:01:44] Speaker A: Sure, yeah.
[00:01:46] Speaker B: So I'm from Istanbul in Turkey.
I was raised by two entrepreneurs, so both my mother and dad started and are running businesses and I got into UC San Diego's nanoengineering program here. So I was super excited to learn all about nanomedicine and smart materials.
And my mother was taking me to the airport to ship me off to California and unfortunately she took told me she had cancer at that moment at the airport.
So throughout my college years, my mother was back home fighting cancer. So I decided to put my education to use and I spent my college years in laboratories working on cancer treatments, trying to make them more targeted and more safe.
[00:02:37] Speaker A: Did that change your direction? What were you thinking your academic life was going to focus on before your mom shared that?
[00:02:44] Speaker B: So I already had my degree in or I was had the, the major selected. So I wanted to do nano engineering, but I was stuck between should I do nanotechnology for energy or got lots of possible applications or no. So I really decided to focus on smart drug delivery. So, you know, I believe drugs work for the most part. It's more. So how are we going to get them to the right place?
[00:03:13] Speaker A: Right, so, okay, so you start. So you have that decision or you make that decision to focus on that.
And I guess that leads you to hydrogels. Is that like, Is that kind of. How does that happen?
[00:03:27] Speaker B: Exactly? So hydrogels are used to deliver chemotherapy drugs to treat tumor sites.
So there's a variety of mechanisms of which you can do this. Sometimes they're simply implanted.
So you put the drug into the hydrogel and implant it into the body surgically. And then over time, this material will break apart and it will stay localized or it can be injected into the body. So it's. When it's in the syringe, it's liquid form. Once it's injected, the hydrogel essentially forms the hydrogel and gels up and stiffens in your body so that it doesn't move to another location, allowing localized delivery. And.
Or there is, you know, they put the drugs into the contact lens shaped hydrogels. You know, there's a million ways to do it. And while all of these sound cool and revolutionary in practice, I realized it costs around a billion dollars and a decade to figure out if it's even going to work in the first place.
[00:04:28] Speaker A: Yeah, you came to that conclusion pretty quickly. I think there are lots of people who figured that out quite late in their careers. So. So kudos to you. So, okay, so then, so then what happens next? How do you, you know, take us to forming the company? How do you decide? How do you focus on.
Yeah, all that.
[00:04:46] Speaker B: So I spent, I spent probably three or four years working in labs on these types of drug delivery technologies.
And I worked through a couple different places. I worked at UC San Diego. I took a gap here, and I worked at an enterprise company back home in Turkey.
And then I went to a conference. I managed to meet a Harvard professor, a Turkish Harvard professor. And he was a, you know, our work aligned well, and he asked me to come join his lab.
And he had worked on these drug delivery technologies as well as robotics.
[00:05:24] Speaker A: So before we get to robotics, you skipped over something really important. You said, I managed to meet a Turkish Harvard professor who then invited me to join his lab.
So that's.
How did that happen? How did you persuade him of that? What was that initial conversation like? Did you seek him out? How did that all work?
[00:05:43] Speaker B: It was honestly pretty relaxed. I mean, he, he has a. He had a relatively large lab, so it's kind of like we were talking. He asked me about the work I was doing, I told him about the work I did, and then he said, oh, that's cool. Like, that aligns really well with like my lab. Like, you should come. You should come intern for me next summer. He just said it and I was like, yeah, like, I'd love.
Okay, I think like Covid hit in between. So I went and worked for him the following summer.
It was pretty straightforward. He just kind of. He referred me to one of his postdocs and then I talked to the postdoc. We got along as well. And yeah, I went and worked at their lab.
[00:06:22] Speaker A: Got it. Okay. So you go and have that experience and then how does that lead to the formation of sort of the idea behind the company?
[00:06:30] Speaker B: Yeah, so I think just all of these experience coupled together, it's a kind of fuel, this frustration in the amount of work required by scientists to develop these treatments. You know, I had, I had a lot of ideas, right. And I'd pitch these ideas to my professors and, and for, for new therapies, I would pitch the ideas and they'd always be like, yeah, like, this is cool, but like, we don't have the funding to. Or the manpower to, to work through this. Or like we, we don't want to take another thing through cell trials or we don't want to waste our mice on this.
On this.
[00:07:07] Speaker A: Waste our mice, sure.
[00:07:08] Speaker B: Yeah. It's always like, it was always the same. Like, it's too difficult. We don't want to do it. So I just felt frustrated just repeating the same test, trying to do it myself, or, you know, repeating the same test for my lab that was struggling to commercialize what they were doing. And I just really genuinely felt like a robot just doing the same repetitive tests. I would try to be as consistent as, you know, non human and repetitive as possible.
I just really felt like a robot, which inspired me to get into laboratory robotics.
[00:07:38] Speaker A: Yeah, right.
If my job is to be more robotic, you know, what would be more robotic than me would be an actual robot.
That's the inciting insight. I got it.
[00:07:47] Speaker B: One thing I should mention here is that, you know, lab robotics is a pretty big field at this point. But the real gap here is that there aren't. There isn't really any lab robotics specifically for hydrogels.
[00:08:00] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:08:01] Speaker B: They've made lots of lab robotics, lab automation handlers for liquids, they've made tons for solids. But hydrogels aren't exactly liquid, aren't exactly solid. So there isn't really any instrumentation out there specifically designed for hydrogels, which sit in that in between state, which leads to even more manual testing required to commercialize. Got it.
[00:08:22] Speaker A: So did you, did you, when you had this sort of, I guess, realization, did you think, immediately I can see how automation will need to occur, or did you think, oh, there's a. There's a bunch of technical problems to solve. Is it. Was it. Was it this is an obvious space that hasn't been done, or this is a. It hasn't been done because no one's quite figured out how to do it?
[00:08:44] Speaker B: I think a bit of both. It's a new space, a new problem, an emerging industry, and also a challenge because hydrogels aren't as straightforward to work with as other materials.
Got it.
[00:08:59] Speaker A: So tell us a little more about then, the technology.
[00:09:03] Speaker B: So when I started out, I.
I had the idea to build a robot that automates one process called swelling test.
And I only had biomedical experience. The first thing I built was out of Legos.
[00:09:17] Speaker A: Excellent.
[00:09:18] Speaker B: Like a little LEGO robot. And I showed it to my professor and he's like, dude, like, you can't bring this into the lab.
Yeah, yeah, you can't like any.
[00:09:28] Speaker A: I think, I think as a rule, whenever your advisor starts the sentence with dude comma it's not good, right? That's generally not good.
[00:09:35] Speaker B: Definitely not. You know, he did mock me a little bit, but he then spent the next two hours kind of educating me on how to build like a proper engineering prototype and showed me all the websites you can source parts on. And then he's like, yeah, put together. He showed me like soft a CAD software and he's like, you know, spend like a month or so, like putting together a design of like a proper, you know, thing that we can actually take into the lab. And then like, let's talk again. And then kind of.
[00:10:03] Speaker A: Well, but honestly, like, you know, we talk all the time in product design about a minimally viable product, right? An mvp.
Lego doesn't seem like a crazy place to start to sort of show what you're trying to do.
Cost you next to nothing and really easy to assemble. And he got the point, right?
[00:10:21] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
[00:10:22] Speaker A: Okay, so fast forward a little bit then. So you create a prototype, you bring it into the lab and what happens?
[00:10:29] Speaker B: And yeah, I spent maybe a couple months tweaking it, working out the glitches, figuring out communication protocols between, you know, I had like this big scale in the center and essentially the scale and then there's a robotic tool surrounding it. That allows you to measure hydrogel mass over time instead of doing it manually.
So I was tweaking that, I was adjusting the communications, and then in a few months it worked.
And, and then we, we filed for a patent for that technology. That's very cool.
[00:11:05] Speaker A: So how much do you think you spent, excluding your labor? What was your cost to get to the point where you had something that was ready to be patented? Not the cost of the patent application, but just kind of on the technology materials? Yeah.
[00:11:18] Speaker B: Couple hundred dollars.
[00:11:20] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay, fantastic.
So actually the big initial cost must have been filing the patent.
[00:11:26] Speaker B: Yeah, it was filing the patent and the time I spent building it as well.
[00:11:32] Speaker A: One of the things that's really one of the reasons I wanted to have you on is, you know, we talk to. In fact, I'm going to teach a grad school class in a couple of weeks to a bunch of people who are doing PhDs and postdocs. And not all of them, but many of them are going to feel like they have, certainly they have more time than money. They may not feel like they have much of either, but they definitely feel financially constrained. And many of them feel like they do have some bandwidth, depends on the lab and the role and all that kind of stuff. And so I think what you did was to take advantage of what you had, which was access to the lab and, and your, and your, and your time and then not much money to build something that fills. Fill the gap.
[00:12:13] Speaker B: Right.
[00:12:14] Speaker A: Okay.
So, okay, so you. Then you're like, tada. It works. Did you then. Did you create the company then or what? What, did you file the patent? How do you. What's the order of operations?
[00:12:24] Speaker B: So we filed the patent and then this was during my gap year, right? Yep. I went back to school after that to finish my undergraduate degree and, and then I just saw this application, you know, like in the student email list to, you know, apply for nsf, I corps funding and translate your idea and figure out the market around it and do customer discovery. And I said, this is cool. I applied, I had no company.
I called the, I called the project Gold Tech, Like Gohan Tech. Now the company's called Gel Tech. But yeah, it was Gold Tech. I applied and we got in and then that program was fantastic. It's basically teaches scientists how to discover their market and communicate with customers.
[00:13:11] Speaker A: Very cool.
[00:13:13] Speaker B: Yeah, we, I interviewed maybe 20 hydrogel scientists and that was a difficult process. You know, we were literally, I was literally going around labs and at UC San Diego just knocking on doors, being like, hey, are you A hydrogel guy?
[00:13:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:30] Speaker B: Yeah. It was challenging. And went to conferences and put together the 20 interviews. Now it feels a lot easier to do those that work, but.
Yeah. And then submitted it to the nsf. They approved it. And then we went into another program following that. So there are 50 teams, and I think 15 got the NSF award. Okay. So, like, 30%. And then those 15 teams were made to compete for a $100,000 prize. And we got first place amongst those competitors, which. And that was around. Just around the same time I finished college, so got my undergraduate degree.
[00:14:07] Speaker A: So it's incredibly annoying. You were so young when you did this. It's really impressive. So, okay, so now, one of the things that's an interesting question is, so you had this initial idea of, like, I've done this work. I've done this work manually. I see this possibility to automate.
But did. When did you start to ask yourself, is this big enough to be a company, or is this just like something I'm doing almost for my own satisfaction?
How did you come to that decision of kind of assessing the market?
[00:14:38] Speaker B: I think from the moment I built that LEGO robot, I was like, I want to sell this. I want to bring it to the market. I didn't really know anything, but I guess I just had that mindset, that child of entrepreneurs. Yeah, exactly.
[00:14:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:55] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. So. So it could have been that you had this enthusiasm, but actually the market wasn't there.
But then when you went through this program, you kind of validated by talking to other scientists and et cetera, you validated that there was a. There was a. There. There. Is that.
[00:15:09] Speaker B: Is that right? Yeah. Well, I knew that the test I was automating was very essential to hydrogels. Very big core property of hydrogels. And I wasn't aware of hydrogel applications beyond, you know, drug delivery and wound care.
I think when. When that hit me, when I did that NSF program, because I realized hydrogels are used in, you know, contact lenses, diapers.
[00:15:35] Speaker A: Yeah, Broad.
[00:15:36] Speaker B: Broad agriculture and sustainability and clean energy and all these other fields where the swelling and degradation and all these other tests that I also realized our material is able to automate. So, like, I figured out that this core technology is able to do more than just swelling.
[00:15:53] Speaker A: Got it.
[00:15:53] Speaker B: And that hydrogels are used in more than just biomedical applications. And then that, I think, led me to really get motivated towards commercializing this.
[00:16:04] Speaker A: Yeah, that's really, really cool. I'm going to ask you to sort of bounce up a level for a second. And talk about lab automation in general.
So do you think you found one of the few gaps or would you say there's a lot of work still to be done in automating lab work broadly?
[00:16:20] Speaker B: Yes, there's a lot, a lot of work to be done.
And especially what I'm learning, you know, I'm working with them. We have a much more experienced CTO on our team.
He's commercialized products like this before. But developing a hardware product is a pain. Right.
It's a very iterative process. A lot can go wrong.
You have a software component to it as well. If something goes wrong in a product and it's in the lab, customers have very little tolerance for that in this biotech space. You know, they want their data fast and repeatable. And if they're paying that much money for an instrument, they expect it to deliver the results they won't. They want to deliver the results they want. And it's.
For most companies, it'll cost millions of dollars to get a new product the market in this space.
[00:17:15] Speaker A: So tell us, where are you now in the process of commercialization?
[00:17:22] Speaker B: So our current goal is to reach the market in June 2026.
So we, that first prototype I built, we essentially scrapped that patent concept and have identified a better, more efficient way of doing that that allows you to test multiple hydrogels simultaneously. So now we have a device that can conduct that testing on six hydrogels at the same time across practically any liquid solution. So pH1 to 3 through 14.
And we're essentially at the MVP stage now.
And early next year, around February, March, we'll have a finalized design for the market unit.
[00:18:10] Speaker A: Got it. And so then you go into production or are you still then producing kind of a beta version that you're sharing with a small number of.
[00:18:18] Speaker B: Yeah. So we're in alpha and early next year we'll be in beta. And then we'll do a very extensive vnv, so verification and validation on this instrument.
And then in June of next year, we'll have the production unit ready.
[00:18:38] Speaker A: Yeah, that's really exciting. Yeah.
What's the total duration in time from LEGO model to.
Let's assume next June.
[00:18:49] Speaker B: Total duration in time must have been four years, maybe five. I didn't work on it.
You know, there are gaps in between. Yeah. So like when I built it and we applied for the patent, they made me sign something that says, you know, I can't talk about this for until the patent is published. Right.
So there was like a year long gap. So.
And you know While I was building that robot, I was also doing like the, the more biochemical hydrogel work in the lab at the same time. So it wasn't exactly full time, I'd say, I'd say like two and a half years of full time work to get to where we are.
[00:19:27] Speaker A: Gotcha. Okay, so talk a little, if you will, about the value prop for the robot. So let's let the, you know, kind of post next June.
How much is it going to cost and is it a. Should we think about this as a cost savings play for the lab, A speed play, a consistency play, all of the above. What's the right way to think about the value story?
[00:19:49] Speaker B: Those are the three right there. So we save money, right, because, because our product works faster and 24 7. Yeah, it saves money. It gets you your data faster because it's able to work 168 hours a week while humans can only, only do 40 typically and expect more consistent data as well, more repeatable data. Because humans obviously don't have the most repeatable.
[00:20:23] Speaker A: Yeah, we're not that good at that. That's not our best thing.
[00:20:25] Speaker B: Right.
[00:20:27] Speaker A: And do you, do you, so do you anticipate selling on one of those variable, one of those factors or do you think you kind of just say, hey, it's actually all three. It's cheaper, faster and better? I think that's what, I think that's what you just said. It's all of the above.
[00:20:41] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
I think the.
Just high throughput is the real word there. I mean repeatability is nice, but I would say that's secondary to being able to do more tests more quickly. Right? Yeah, that's the big.
[00:20:58] Speaker A: That makes sense to me because I think my sense is that in general people feel like they can train, that can train folks in the labs to perform these kinds of tasks at an acceptable standard. It may not be perfect, but it's sort of above an acceptable threshold. So being more consistent than that is of course good. And maybe there are cases where it isn't that consistent. Of course that's also possible. But I like the idea of fast and being able to run kind of throughout the week. That sounds really exciting. So, okay, what, when, what keeps you up at night at this, at this point in the game? You've made an enormous amount of progress on this in the last, you know, a couple of years here.
[00:21:40] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, unfortunately, the things that keeping me up for night at night at this point are less science related. It's, it's more like the government shutdown which is causing the hardware parts we order to freeze in customs.
[00:21:55] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:21:56] Speaker B: You know, we recently converted to a C corporation and there's been delays in documentation due to the government shutdown. And yeah, that's kind of.
That's what's been keeping me up at night recently.
[00:22:11] Speaker A: Yeah, I think, by the way, I think that's an important point to make because I think for most entrepreneurs, for most business leaders, a lot of the stuff that worries you is. Is like super annoying friction in the system of one sort or another. So it could be bureaucratic friction can be static within a team.
Lack of access to a key person or capability or part or whatever it might be.
And that's way less sexy than coming up with a strategic breakthrough or something like that.
But that's actually the reality of running a business, right?
[00:22:49] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, definitely.
[00:22:51] Speaker A: So what about AI? How does AI fit into the picture for the business?
[00:22:56] Speaker B: So AI is more of a long term vision for us.
We're essentially collecting a lot of data on hydrogels as we work with this instrument. And we anticipate that within a few years, due to our specialization in hydrogel automation, we can essentially have a larger set of data on hydrogels than any other party in the world.
[00:23:24] Speaker A: Interesting.
[00:23:25] Speaker B: We believe we can leverage that to create predictive models of hydrogel behavior. So even before you test it in the device, we can use software to predict how the hydrogel is going to behave.
[00:23:38] Speaker A: A virtual hydrogel.
[00:23:39] Speaker B: Virtual hydrogel. Another concept is integrating our automation tool because we have a standalone automation tool with other automation tools and using hydrogels for that. So one idea we have for a follow on product is a hydrogel formulation tool.
So we can combine these and have a robotic arm operating between devices. So one is formulating the gels and the carousel is testing the gels. Right. So they work in tandem to create formulations and then test it and keep iterating that until the ideal formulation with the right properties has been achieved.
[00:24:16] Speaker A: That's really interesting. Do you think that that.
Of course that means you can move faster because of the. Obviously you can move faster. Do you think you get to better answers as well because you can test more options? Or do you think the core thing is about just speed?
[00:24:29] Speaker B: 100%. It's basically like, you know, it's basically like you have a technician working endlessly doing these processes and.
[00:24:40] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, right, that's end of sentence. Yeah, that's a pretty powerful thing.
Okay, very cool. Let's move to the lightning round. So I'm just going to run A few questions by you. So from your, from your sort of perch or position, what do you think the single biggest lab automation mistake that teams make is, is when they're considering these automation options?
[00:25:05] Speaker B: That's a great question. I think it's launching.
Are you talking, sorry, are you talking about a company like purchasing a lab automation tool or a company developing the lab automation?
[00:25:18] Speaker A: I mean, I'm thinking more about teams in the lab that are thinking about how to find efficiency, you know, as they go forward.
[00:25:26] Speaker B: So the question is, what's the biggest mistake?
[00:25:28] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Or what do they miss?
[00:25:34] Speaker B: I think a lot of the time teams can overspend on very comprehensive large automation rigs that do this whole like elaborate automation process. And then the rig, they don't have the right expertise to operate that automation rig. They think, you know, because it's automation, it'll just kind of work by itself. But really you need an automation engineer to, you know, work with that whole device. So I think a big mistake that can be made is just thinking that an automation tool, like especially the larger ones can just solve all your problems.
[00:26:16] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. That makes a lot of sense to me that it's, I think a mistake that smart people make oftentimes is to think like, well, I'll just, I'll just sort of figure it out.
I'm clever, I'll figure it out. And a lot of times there's a whole bunch of hard won insight that somebody who's done this a bunch of times has and they might be able to steer you in a different direction. So that makes, that makes good sense.
Okay. Looking back from your present status in the company or the current status of the company, what's a lesson around company formation or getting started entrepreneurially that you wish you'd known earlier?
Something that you, yeah. You got out of that process.
[00:26:57] Speaker B: I think it's very important to have a very or relatively detailed plan.
Even really earlier on.
[00:27:06] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:27:07] Speaker B: I think I didn't have that type of plan. I wasn't thinking about raising money or all the steps I would need to take to bring this to market. I was kind of just, you know, rolling with all these, these programs that were, that I was, I was doing with, but I wasn't really thinking about, you know, how to get to that end goal that I really want, which is to commercialize this product. I think that led to some friction along the way. Like one mistake I made was to form an llc. Yeah. Instead of a Delright Corporation.
And now we have to convert from an LLC to a Corporation, which is just, it's just such a nightmare, such a hassle to do over.
Just starting that from the start.
[00:27:53] Speaker A: Yeah, I think, I love that point. And I think there's, you know, if you are only a planner, you never start anything. So entrepreneurs are the people who get up off the couch and start doing.
And that's obviously the critical thing that you brought to the table. But we also then need to step back a little bit and say, where are we trying to get to? And build a plan, I think that makes sense. And seek advice, I think goes with that as well. How did you raise your first outside dollar? You know, when you, when you started raising money?
[00:28:21] Speaker B: So that took a while for me, actually. I think after I did that program and got the, that first award or grant from the school, I spent maybe six months raising money with zero traction.
And I think maybe my grandpa gave me like 5 or 10,000 or something like that. Like that was the money, grandpa money. But that was it.
And then.
And then, yeah, just one day out of nowhere, I'm just doing another pitch on some, you know, online, you know, venture founder pitch thing, and boom, this biotech CEO in Boston just says, and hey, I'm in for a hundred thousand.
Let's do this.
[00:29:06] Speaker A: Fantastic.
[00:29:07] Speaker B: And then I was like, wow, okay. And then I go back and I, I talked to everyone I've talked to over the last six months, and I'm like, yeah, we just found first.
[00:29:15] Speaker A: First significant angel.
[00:29:16] Speaker B: Yeah. And like, and then everyone's like, oh, wow, okay, maybe I should get in then. And at the time, we were only trying to raise 300, so people were very concerned that the round was just going to close. And then within I think maybe five weeks, five or six weeks, we got to about close to 500K.
[00:29:33] Speaker A: That's fantastic. Okay, so the lessons there are be persistent. You, you stayed in it even though it was, it was painful. And then I love this point about, go back and tell everybody that you raised the first dollar because FOMO is a powerful force. Right. It just is.
[00:29:47] Speaker B: I wish I used some type of tool back then, like a HubSpot or something like that to just track all those conversations.
Yeah, Just make sure you're, you know, documenting all those conversations and there's some system to manage that is important because as a founder, you're going to talk to so many people like, yes. I just feel like it's genuinely not possible for a human brain to remember everybody.
[00:30:12] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I think that makes a lot of sense. So. So getting a CRM and you can do. You can do very. They're very inexpensive and light versions of that that you can do. Right. So you can start early and start tracking people. I think that's. That's also really terrific advice.
Is there a book or podcast that you'd recommend to people who are either currently entrepreneurs or considering becoming entrepreneurs?
[00:30:35] Speaker B: I think I like this book. Crossing the Chasm.
[00:30:42] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah.
[00:30:43] Speaker B: Crossing the Chasm by Joffrey Moore.
[00:30:45] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:30:47] Speaker B: And then there's one more book.
One of our investors and close advisor, Gregory shepherd, he's a serial entrepreneur. He has a book, the Startup Life Cycle.
That one is fantastic.
[00:31:04] Speaker A: We'll put both of those into the notes.
And Crossing the Chasm, it's a famous book, but it was written a while ago, so will you just quickly say we. What the chasm is that. That book kind of teaches you how to think about.
[00:31:20] Speaker B: Yeah. So the chasm is really the gap between your early adopters, or innovators, as they call it, and the.
I think they said the early majority following that.
It's kind of like the gap, I think the jump a startup has to make to get to the other side of no longer being a startup and becoming, you know, a business that can, that can last. Right.
So that's really what it's, it's talking about. And, you know, even though we're in that innovator, early adopter and not at the stage of making the jump, I think it's important to set up your company and communicate the vision of making that jump to your investors. That is really critical.
That's. That's what I picked up.
[00:32:10] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's great. And, and I think you're 100% right. It's nice that you have a few people who like what you're doing. And it's really important in the early days to have a few people who support what you're doing. But to get people excited, you have to tell this, this story about the path to broader acceptance and, and bigger revenue and all that stuff. Right. So that, that makes it. That makes a ton of sense. Okay, that's great.
You are a highly productive guy. How do you do it? Is there a productivity hack or, or, or habit that, that you use that you think enables you to get the stuff done, that you get done?
[00:32:45] Speaker B: In all transparency, I'm not really, like, I'm not the type of person who, you know, wakes up at 5am every morning and sticks to an exact schedule.
[00:32:53] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:32:54] Speaker B: Every day.
So I don't have a lot on that regard. I will just Try to divert my attention to whatever is most needed at that moment and just prioritize tasks and just focus on what I really need to be doing at that moment. If it's the middle of the day and I need to take a nap, I'm just tired, then I'll do that. Right. I mean, if it's.
If it's focusing on, you know, the science or. Versus focus on the business, evaluate what the company needs most at that moment and work on that, terrific. But I don't have a lot of lifestyle.
[00:33:33] Speaker A: Well, I like that too. I think sometimes you read or hear entrepreneurs talk and they're like, well, every morning I get up at 4 and I journal and I do this and I do that and, you know, I consume some special supplements and blah, blah, blah. I think lots of people don't live their lives like that. I certainly don't. Okay, final question.
Is there one question that you wish that people would ask you more about the business than you get asked on, on a regular basis? I'm sure you get the same questions often, but do you have to steer people towards something about what you're trying to accomplish?
[00:34:13] Speaker B: I think.
I think people, or at least I hope people, would focus more on the impact that hydrogels are having on the planet and how amazing materials they are. I think that's really the driving force behind the company is how revolutionary this. These materials are. And we're just trying to accelerate that so we don't get a lot of questions about, you know, the gels themselves, their applications, what they're used in.
You know, some. But, like, I guess maybe that's just what I want to talk about more.
[00:34:52] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's. That's a fine answer. It's like you want to be an advocate, an evangelist for.
For a broader understanding of hydrogels, and that's no bad thing. Yeah, terrific. All right, well, Sinam, we'll leave it there. Thank you so much for joining us today on Few and Far Between.
It's really cool what you're building, and we'll look forward to checking in with you roundabout next June.
[00:35:13] Speaker B: Great. Thank you, Chris.
[00:35:15] Speaker A: All right, welcome, producer Adam.
[00:35:17] Speaker C: Hi, Chris.
I think we're both impressed by Sinan's journey and what he spoke about during this podcast.
Did you get a fresh perspective on, you know, taking an idea or an innovation from startup to commercialization?
[00:35:33] Speaker A: I really did. I also think, you know, you get a sense that some people have this startup gene where they're just, like, ready to try things. You know, we've Had a bunch of people on the podcast recently who are incredibly impressive. They're highly credentialed, they've worked in other companies, they may be tenured faculty at prestige institutions, all of that kind of stuff. Sinan didn't have any of that. He just kind of jumped in with both feet and it started working on stuff. He had, I think, a really interesting idea.
And yeah, he's making good progress.
[00:36:04] Speaker C: Yeah, I agree. I, I just thought it was a great opportunity to hear exactly the way things were happening for him almost in real time, which I really like.
[00:36:14] Speaker A: Yeah, that's well said.
[00:36:16] Speaker B: I like that.
[00:36:17] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:36:17] Speaker C: Yeah.
So I'm always excited when there's a robot involved in our podcast.
Makes me feel like very futuristic. Is there still a viable strategy for automation and robotics and biotech, or is it really now more of an AI focus?
[00:36:35] Speaker A: No, I think that, I think. Well, I think robots are a really important part of what's going to happen with AI broadly in society. So, you know, we see lots of innovation happening. A lot of it's happening in China, but there is exciting stuff happening in robotics in the us And I think the question for, for someone like Sinan is going to be scale, how big can this business get? But he believes that there are other, you know, other opportunities for automation in the lab. And if you think about it, having humans do repetitive tasks like that probably doesn't make the most sense. So if he can get his costs under control and as he said, you know, present a solution that works 24, 7 on, on, you know, on, on running these tests, I think it's kind of interesting and very, very cool progress for him so far.
[00:37:19] Speaker C: Yeah, I, I agree. It's definitely a need for this. And it, and you know, the concept of streamlining, you know, the clinical task before you're actually trying to get to where you need to go is a great idea.
[00:37:31] Speaker A: Yeah, we see it in clinical research also, right. That, that increasingly we're looking for, are there things we can replace with automation that are currently not great when done by humans because humans aren't as consistent time after time. And we're talking about tasks that oftentimes people think are kind of boring or repetitive, and therefore they don't necessarily get a full focused attention from the human who's performing them. So if we can automate some of those tasks while keeping a human in the loop and making sure we've got auditable data, et cetera, I think that's, that's an exciting direction that you see across clinical research. Although it's true, Adam. We don't have the cool robots yet. I mean, you know, they're virtual.
[00:38:10] Speaker C: I'm waiting patiently. I'm so patient when it comes.
[00:38:13] Speaker A: As am I.
[00:38:13] Speaker B: As am I.
[00:38:15] Speaker C: So one of the things that we mentioned in the Lightning round where we asked Sanan what his favorite books were and he mentioned Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore.
How has the chasm gotten larger in biotech market development since 1991?
[00:38:32] Speaker A: That's a really interesting question. I was not looking at biotech companies in 1991, so I'm going to scratch my head a little bit there. And we would welcome input in the comments from folks who have stuff to say on this. I would say this is a great.
[00:38:44] Speaker B: Book.
[00:38:47] Speaker A: For entrepreneurs to sort of think about how you go from idea that you think is cool to idea that becomes an accepted product or service or offering.
So that's certainly a big challenge for biotech, especially if you're doing something innovative. I think, I think if you're doing the nth example of a kind of tech, that's less of an issue. But whenever you're innovating and doing something really new, figuring out how you get buy in from the market, from key customers, from influencers, et cetera is a really important part of the process.
[00:39:20] Speaker C: Thanks for that. I was very curious about that.
[00:39:23] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a good book too. I recommend it.
[00:39:25] Speaker C: Okay, you heard that everyone, and we'll put the link in the comments for this episode.
Let's talk about investor relations.
When Sanan was talking about his journey, he said he wished he had focused a bit more on communications management tools.
What else do biotech startups need to concentrate on with investor relations and venture capital?
[00:39:49] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that part of managing your investors or your board, it's like any other relationship, you want to avoid surprises as much as possible. So you want to be communicating clearly, but you also want to be efficient with how you use their time. So I think, I think thinking carefully about what can I what can this person do for me? If it's an investor and they've already invested, yes, you have their, you have some of their dollars, but you also want them to be helping the company. That could be an introduction or helping you with a particularly tricky problem. Or an introductions could be to customers, it could be to employees, you know, other investors, lots of different kinds of things. So you're thinking a little bit about that. I think investors like to be asked. They just don't want to be asked all the time.
So you want to be staying in Pretty consistent. You have a good, consistent cadence with your investors of telling them what's happening. You don't really want to come up, have a year go by without having been in touch with people and then on the other hand, thinking about what specifically you would like to ask them to do. Because I know oftentimes startup CEOs will complain. People say, well, I would love to be helpful, but the question is, how can you be helpful? And oftentimes investors aren't sure. So it is incumbent on the CEO to try to set that agenda.
[00:41:03] Speaker C: Yeah. And that kind of flows into my last question today, which is, how do CEOs, founders, presidents of companies find the balance between, you know, planning the company and what I think is very important entrepreneurship?
[00:41:21] Speaker A: Yeah. So it really does depend on the stage of the company and the team you have around you. So if it's very, very early, the CEO has to do all of that stuff because he or she is, you know, chief cook and bottle washer. They're responsible for everything. Right. As the company expands, you sort of pick lanes that make the most sense for you. So if you're a deep product person, you're going to be spending a lot of time on product. If you're the person who is, you know, out raising money or out as a public face of the company, you're going to spend more time on that.
And so it's a little bit about thinking carefully about what needs to get done and what the available resources are, and. And then just trying to do your best on allocating it. I don't think anybody who's honest says, I get that right 100% of the time. I think we all feel anybody who's in a leadership role, managing investors, trying to raise money, whatever it might be, the balance between being with your customers, being with your team, being with your investors, thinking about strategy, hiring great people.
Yes. It's a long list. It's very easy to get it wrong. We probably all get it wrong sometimes. But there's some real value in stepping back and thinking about that and asking yourself, you know, how am I doing in terms of allocating my time and do I need to do more or less here? And is there someone else in my team or network who can help me in some way that'll help to move the ball forward.
[00:42:40] Speaker C: I agree. It makes me think that, you know, when a seat. When you're starting out as a CEO at a new company or any.
No, pretty much at a new company, I would say that it's all about balancing things for yourself, because in a lot of situations, you're a very small group and you're trying to do everything.
And then it becomes a situation of finding the area that you really want to focus on as a CEO and hiring all of these individuals, your perfect team, who can start to ease more of a balance as your responsibilities become greater.
[00:43:14] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's right. You're sort of saying, where do I think I add differentiated value? So that's a little bit about understanding your own capabilities and strengths.
What can I get by at? Because, like, we can't afford to hire a specialist in X. And I'm not necessarily great at it, but I'm not terrible. And what is the stuff that I really should not be doing?
And those are the places you have to look for additional support. And so kind of taking an inventory of those skills and the folks you have around you is a really important ongoing part of leadership.
[00:43:46] Speaker C: Agreed. Okay. Great episode.
I'd love to wish our listeners, and I'm sure you do, too, a great holiday when this episode will be released. And. And a good holiday to you, Chris.
[00:43:59] Speaker A: Thank you very same to you. And yeah, happy holidays to all of our folks here.
[00:44:04] Speaker C: Awesome. Thanks so much.
[00:44:05] Speaker A: Bye. Thank.
[00:44:11] Speaker B: You, sam.
