Freddy's internet corner

Many people think that scientists (those little PhD students) don’t quite fit to be an entrepreneur. Scientists are too rigid, have no business experience, and an idealistic view of the world (which is quite true). Well, I have a different perspective regarding scientists’s entrepreneurial skills. I think that scientists and particularly PhD students have a lot of potential to become great entrepreneurs (holding myself a PhD). Let me show you why. There are several points where entrepreneurship compares with doing a PhD:

1. PhD students need  to propose and defend and Idea to get a grant funding. Entrepreneurs need to pitch a business idea in order to get angel (or any other)  investment funding.
   Very often, PhD students are required to propose a research subject along with a research plan and an idea. Such idea is in the very early stage and is “to be developed” during the next three to five years. This is similar to the incubation time in entrepreneurship. Although PhD students instead of getting money from an angel investor, get grants from the government or other institutions.
2.  PhD students need to do an in-deepth state of the art. Entrepreneurs need to conduct a market study before starting their business.
   A PhD student needs to know what he is studying in order to create new and original content. The student awareness about the state of the art is tested each time that an article is submitted for publication. Peer review is merciless with this point. This is similar to the competitors analysis that entrepreneurs need to carry on.
   Scientists and investors continuously test the PhD students and entrepreneurs’s awareness about their surroundings. These “examiners” as  ”what is the original contribution of your idea and how it compares to what exists” or “what are the differentiation aspects of your idea with respect to XYZ”. Remember that if an idea is good, many people are working on it.
3.  PhD students pitch all the time their ideas to other scientists. Entrepreneurs pitch all the time their ideas to everyone. When sharing ideas don’t be a paranoid psychopath, not everyone wants to be an entrepreneur and not everyone is capable of transforming ideas into real products and customer satisfaction (many entrepreneurs don’t succeed). Anyway, a lot of people can give useful advice about your great idea.
4. Entrepreneurs and PhD students need to stress test their ideas before going to the full market or submit to a named journal.
   Many ideas fail if they are not exposed to the public scrutiny of the scientific community. Other people will surely have a different point of view and will rapidly find the the weak spots and defects in your hypothesis. Therefore, it is essential to get community feedback as soon as possible. As well, entrepreneurs must expose their ideas to the public scrutiny, spotting early enougth the week spots and wrong hypothesis may save entrepreneurs time and money.
5. PhD students and entrepreneurs iterate their ideas several times before getting to the final product.
   Scientific journals seldom accept early version of a paper ( and sometimes of an idea). PhD students must iterate, review, and modiy several times their manuscripts, ideas, and hypothesis. This ensure the quality and originality of the produced material. Entrepreneurs are tipically eager to launch their product or service as soon as the first version is ready. Usually the first version of this produt or service is not a plain success, but a step that test the public reception and verify the entrepreneur’s hypothesis. Very often, before building a sucessful product or services, entrepreneurs iterate, review, and modifiy their idea and its execution.
6.  PhD students typically base their findings once well defined and controlled experiments. Entrepreneurs launch their products as soon as they can to get some feedback (results) from the market. Furthermore, scientists need to create and design their experiments and experimental data. Entrepreneurs need to develop a product, get market needs, and create a value chain. Both, entrepreneurs and PhDs need empirical evidence in order to prove the validity of their ideas. PhD needs good results and Entrepreneurs need good sales.
7. PhD students need desperately to construct a network of scientists in order to spread their ideas. Entrepreneurs need to construct a network of people in order to get their ideas stressed, get contacts, share experiences, and gather business opportunities.
   Conferences and symposiums are the place where scientists meet, exchange ideas, and build a network. PhD students (usually) assist to an inumerable amount of conferences, symposiums, summer schools, etc. Entrepreneurs meet in conferences an symposiums as well. Yet, the main medium they have to know other entrepreneurs and exchange ideas is within local (or even national) meeting groups such as bar camps, first tuestdays, and other events.
   
8. Experience is overrated. In both fields, entrepreneurship and science experience is overrated. You don’t need a lot of experience doing business to be an entrepreneur (tough is a good thing to have). What you need the most is the right mindset. Remember what Guy Kawasaky said “The great companies are with young people who don’t know how hard it is – because if you knew, you wouldn’t do it.”

Additional set of “entrepreneurial skills” that most PhD students get:

• Time management
• Budget management
• Creative spark / creative time
• Networking
• Idea execution / experimental design
• Empirical proof / method
• Proficient english
• Travel: you learn how to handle a travel budget, look for good enough flights and hotels and make the most of your travel time.
• People management (interns if you are lucky enough to get one)
• International event organization
• Project management (if you are in a big project and yo get a WP to manage, then you know what I mean)
• You use statistics approximations (AKA you learn to lie using statistics).

PhD students can make good entrepreneurs, they have only to change the mindset and start to market their idea (indeed, marketing is one of the skills that most PhD students lack).