Been a while; I might be back

It's been a good long while since I've written here. A great deal of upheaval in my business had silenced me. Just over a year ago, I laid off the last my employees, at the culmination of a three-year R&D effort for the U.S. Navy. The work had been progressing, and our client was satisfied with our progress and prototype, but (due to reductions in funding and shifts in priorities) we were unable to attract either follow-on R&D funding, or outside investment, at least in the immediate term.

As a researcher, I continue to believe in the effort, and remain convinced that a lacuna still exists in the technology that will be filled by what I've got under development. But the funding isn't accessible in the short-term to support my full-time working on it, nor to support a business solely focused on it. There were some attempts to extend the scope, to find adjacent efforts, but I have so far been unable to leverage the core technology in a new viable direction. I believe that some technologies just take time to develop. As I've written before, it took the Pixar crew more than 20 years, and probably close to a million hours of effort to finally achieve Toy Story. They were lucky in having funding throughout that period, and clearly in the end it paid off.

Shy of finding a series of billionaire investors with a long view and patience, I am left putting the research on the back burner for a while as I focus on the need to sustain my family financially. One lesson I have learned is that running a research-based business may be hardest when the founder is strongly attached to the research and results. That is, often a business requires dramatic shifts in approach, in subject, in product, in service, which can only be accomplished with sufficient personal distance.

Put another way, it's one thing to be interested in marriage, or in buying a house, and quite another thing to be committed to a particular person or offering. I don't regret my personal attachment to the research I have been conducting. But I do recognize that as an entrepreneur, that attachment gets in the way of pivoting to achieve a viable business model.

That said, there is nothing that holds me back from new ventures which will afford me that distance, likely providing a clearer path to achieving success, and the hope that I might return to this effort down the road, when I have more freedom to pursue it. I think of this as the Elon Musk approach: make your millions first, then do what strikes your fancy. Musk has been able to found and lead Tesla Motors and SpaceX after having achieved success with PayPal. It's not to say that what was achieved with PayPal was not worthwhile, that it didn't have a positive impact on people's lives and on facilitating business and financial transactions. But something tells me he's far more passionate and personally attached to those newer ventures.

So, I've entered that journey. I expect to write about it here.

Funding Innovative Science

Government budget cuts and deficit reduction become a dangerous game when innovation and science take a hit.As Anthony Hyman writes in his Jan. 11, 2013 piece in Science: "A Science Editorial called for 500 [NIH New Innovator Awards] in 2009, only 51 were awarded in 2012." Hyman describes programs in Europe that hire and fund young researchers for five or nine years to work on their own projects, at their own pace, to encourage innovation, and create independent scientific leadership. We need more of these sorts of programs around the world.

There is too much short-term thinking driving governmental and corporate policies. If we plan only for today, there will be no tomorrow. Even before today's toxic environment of cut first, ask questions later austerity, there has been too little commitment and investment in science and innovation. There is striking hoopla given to flash in the pan repackaging and rehashing of existing technology, and too little support given to high-risk/high-reward efforts.

Entrepreneur of Another Ilk

Back in March, I featured a post about Sara Blakely's interview with Kai Ryssdal on Marketplace.org. Blakely is the founder of Spanx. During the interview, she offered a few tidbits:

• "I feel like a lot of entrepreneurs end up getting in the way of the growth of their own business, because it's a totally different skill set, to run operate a business."
• "I learned very quickly what I liked to do, what I didn't like to do, what I was good at, and what I wasn't good at, and as soon as I could afford to hire my weaknesses I did."

Hard lessons to learn, but important ones. Know yourself, as the old hemlock-drinker said. Self-knowledge, and self-honesty are paramount to the success of an entrepreneur. Why then is there so much resistance to the honesty of a research entrepreneur who seeks to fill the gaps in business development expertise, marketing and sales, any more so than if an MBA with drive and verve seeks to fill in their gaps in technical fields?

I think of my days as a graduate student and recently-hooded PhD, asking career advice of professors. No matter how well-intentioned, nearly every conversation returned to academia, how to get a foot in the door for a tenure-track post. I realized then that we are all limited to some extent by our own experience. The same is true today of many of my entrepreneurial advisors.

But the path of an entrepreneur is singular. Why then try to fit us all into the same boat, with the same skill sets, the same motivations, the same paths to success? The tent of entrepreneurship ought to be a big one, an inclusive one. I tire of hearing "give me an A-team with a mediocre idea over a great idea with a B-team any day." Why not pair the greatest ideas with the best teams to deliver results?

That's the true path to success.

Lingering Bitter

Recently, I was contacted by a colleague, whom I've known since I first entered my current field. We met at a conference as I began my transition from a would-be academic to a full-time research entrepreneur.* She asked me to write an article for a book she's editing, in particular to capture and promote my vision for the field. Six years since I entered the fray, I am still in many ways an outsider. She wanted an outside-the-box perspective, rather than asking "the people who are developing more of what we have today."

Validation. As I said to her on the phone, "it's good to know I have things to contribute to the field." I was thrilled to be asked, and more than happy to oblige.


* For those who don't know my history, in the three years surrounding completion of my PhD, I submitted fully 150 faculty applications for employment, netted three or four interviews, and not a single offer of full-time employment. I spent one term in "adjunct servitude" with no benefits, too many students, and a salary that barely covered my gas. If graduate school was one of the best times of my life, the academic job search ranks among my lowest points. Discovering the entrepreneur within me was a remarkable journey. I can only imagine that there are thousands just like me. I hope for them that they find entrepreneurship or something equally satisfying to renew and sustain them.