I would love to say that my science degree made me a better scientist, but life had other plans. After completing my Masters in Biotechnology and Biochemistry, at age 25, I was faced with a choice – either start at ground level in a local research company, push through some kind of existence in crusty academia, or continue doing software development. I chose the latter, for many reasons*.
This allowed me to continue to build things that I wanted to see exist in the world – which was all kinds of apps, tools, games, mini-sites, services and gadgets. The goal with all of these was to make money. Most of them did not, but some of them did. That winding uncertain journey between the failures and the wins I call Entrepreneurship. While I had no clue at the time, all those hours spent in the lab prepared me well for entrepreneurship, and my business ventures later on benefited hugely by what I had learned and experienced during those years.
Here is what I found:
1) You can design great experiments, which drive success
The scientific method entails neutrally exploring a hypothesis, and using all available data to prove that hypothesis either true or false. When there is no data, you have to design a cunning experiment to extract that data from reality. A badly designed experiment is a waste of time for everyone involved, as your downstream research, future funding and hard-earned reputation are on the line.
In the business world, unless you are executing a cookie-cutter business plan for a well established business model that is wholly unoriginal (think hot dog stand, barbershop, mini-mart), then it is likely that you will find yourself in uncharted territory. The only way to chart this territory is to boldly take one step, measure the outcome, evaluate, then take another step (creating a feedback loop). If you take steps, but don’t watch where you are going, you could end up in the rubbish dump and not know why it smells. Being conscious of every step is crucial.
I will give you a simple example: Our website was an e-commerce website which helped people do their tax. The buttons had always been green because I thought green was like the GO traffic light - a happy sight for anyone. Then one day our Head of Marketing suggested a new colour, maroon, which I immediately hated. Why would anyone want to click on a maroon button, I thought. But knowing how it is important to be a neutral experimenter**, I entertained his suggestion and conducted an experiment. Half our users would see green buttons and half would see maroon. The division of users was completely random, completely equal and happening in parallel for a significant period of time – thus no other parameters could affect the outcome of the experiment except button colour. When it came time to evaluate the results I gleefully composed my table of findings, fully expecting a smug vindication, but was instead stunned to find that maroon buttons made us more money than green buttons. I was glad I did the experiment. Our buttons are maroon now.
Why is this important? Imagine if we had NOT done the experiment, and without us knowing, our website conversion had actually dropped, causing slightly less sales. With a few mistakes like this, at year end, in light of reduced earnings and shareholders asking “Why?”, we would have shrugged and said “I don’t know”, which is not a very good answer for shareholders. With careful experiments, we DID know, AND we guaranteed that every single change we made to our product was one small step FORWARD. In uncharted water it is comforting to know when you are getting closer to land. Also, when it comes to predicting your revenues for the year ahead, you can point to very accurate data showing why conversion is going up. Shareholders tend to like graphs that go up!
2) You can EASILY keep calm and carry on
A valid reason why there are not so many scientists in the world is because science is hard. Very hard. Like diamonds. That’s because science tends to pursue ever smaller and finer aspects of our reality, and tries to make them either stand to attention and behave, or explain themselves, which they don’t really want to do. They want to remain aloof and mysterious.
Often one can setup an experiment over a period of months, only to receive a negative result, or an experimental failure, or a colleague will point out a flaw in your experiment (ha ha!). This can be devastating, and it’s the main reason why there are always pubs on university campuses. Disappointments can be few and far between, with a lot of anxiety building up over months, or they can be a daily small kick in the nuts. For example, I used to drive in to the lab on a Sunday evening, innoculate my lovely sterile flasks with sweet smelling yeast, then drive home leaving the flasks to grow overnight at 30 degrees. I would arrive in the morning to give my flasks a sniff – that’s how we knew the culture was “good” – only to be greeted by an unwelcome gust of underpants smells. This would mean that E.coli had somehow entered my flasks and that the day of vigorous experiments ahead that I had meticulously planned, was no longer going to happen. Just a typical day...
Entrepreneurship is also emotional. That’s because entrepreneurs are usually passionate people. They give up job security, a regular pay cheque and their parents understanding what they do, just because they want to change the world. With big moves can come big disappointments. Often the surest wins which you are so so SO excited to make happen, can end up doing nothing for your bottom line. For example, my business has partnerships with several large insurance companies, banks and prominent SA brands. One would expect that companies larger than mine would have a large customer base which they know how to market to. This is not the case. In more occasions than I wanted to discover, we found that actually we were better at reaching their own customers than they were, which meant that the partnership did nothing to our revenues despite months of pursuit, pages of legal, and kilometre long email trails.
When you want something so bad, nothing prepares you for taking hits quite like a science degree. I say this with an unsettling, crazy person smile on my face, however the lesson is valid: emotional control is essential when starting a business. Part of coping is not getting too excited until there is ink on paper or money in the bank. Also being vigilant that radiant excitement about a certain deal does not blind you from exploring alternatives. Also assuming anything from a commercial partner is foolish, unless that expectation is defined in a tightly-worded legal contract with an exit clause or penalties for non-performance. This may sound like pessimism, but it is also pragmatism. In Engineering this is called “Murphy’s Law” and it explains why my Dad would always build everything ten times as strong as it needed to be. The lighter side of these setbacks is that you begin to develop a sense of humour. Scientists are very funny people. They also enjoy pubs.
3) You can teach yourself anything
Scientists typically share their findings in a published paper, containing a well detailed section called “Methods” which explains the steps they took. This is to allow scrutiny of their experiment, and allow others to replicate their work. Contentious findings need to be replicated by others before the scientific community will accept the reality proposed by the authors. You can’t just barge in and propose a new reality, how dare you.
Anyway, these methods are useful when you are extending the work of others, but not entirely useful when you are being a true pioneer. Often in that case you would have to conduct a literature review to explore the experimental space and synthesize multiple points of view into an experimental method for your unique goals. The other option is to ask your professor for help, but good luck trying to find your professor, or get him/her to answer your questions without telling long-winded stories about car rallying escapades, academic bitch fights, and/or sexual conquests (I heard all of these). Needless to say, one becomes really good at reading, researching, synthesizing – figuring it out all by yourself.
In business there is no Methods section. Unless you buy a franchise, you are basically winging it – using your best knowledge and learnings from prior experiences to see how they fare here and now. There is a lot of autonomy involved, so you have to be confident enough to follow through on your ideas. Often you will sit down and ask yourself “Ok, so now what?”. This is when I would open up Google and enter a bizarre or very stupid-sounding search query like “what is inbound marketing” and then simply read everything possible on the topic. Read as much as you can, even venturing to Page 2 and 3 of search results (gasp!). I was comfortable not knowing, and then asking dumb questions to get answers, and piecing together my own understanding. I was never trained in computer programming, yet Google taught me PHP, Javascript, HTML, Node, Python, Puppeteer, CSS, AWS, Marketing, Sales, Labour law, Contract law, how to make a pitch deck, how to raise funding, how to write clickbaity email subject lines, Google Analytics, and a whole host of other topics. Science teaches you that it’s OK not to know, as long as you try, and then measure it. The opposite is called being a consultant, where you claim to know everything, don’t get involved in the nuts and bolts, then bill for it before the results come in. I’m thinking of getting into consulting.
4) You can handle delayed gratification
Scientists are not generally public figures or celebrities. If I asked you to name five scientists (who are still alive), you would probably struggle, unless they were your colleagues. Bill Nye the Science Guy doesn’t count. Scientists often work alone or in small groups, for long periods of time, going relatively unnoticed. Their only moments of glory are when an experiment succeeds, they publish some exciting new findings, or get recognised for their contribution – which does not happen daily. The vast majority of their career is spent in relative isolation behind a computer or lab bench, peering at confusing results and/or asking for money. If you are looking for a career filled with acclaim, festivity, applause, champagne pops and back pats, science is not for you. Science teaches tenacity better than any MBA.
The same is true for entrepreneurship. Aside from the overnight successes, unicorn raises and college whizz-kids which make it into the papers, the vast majority of entrepreneurs are silently getting on with building good businesses. The big win is selling your business for a fortune, but this comes after many years in the boxing ring. There is not much praise coming from the top either, because well, you are the top. Good news is more likely to come in the form of monthly reports showing a bar graph of comparatively better performance than expected (dry), or your server having a heart attack because of high web traffic (fun). If you are somebody who needs to be told that you are doing great, on the right track, and making good decisions on a regular basis, then entrepreneurship may not be the right career for you, or if you choose to do it, do it with a very supportive team that sets and celebrates regular milestones. Thanks to my time spent in scientific research, I was hardened enough not to expect quick wins, so I was able to survive the long haul, never gave up, and kept my business growing.
5) Other reasons why scientists make great business people
There are several reasons why a science degree can prepare you for business, and it’s why science and engineering degrees are often springboards for moving into business. Here are some qualities that scientists may have learned (should have learned) during their degrees:
- Attention to detail
- Keeping great records
- Statistics / number-crunching / processing data
- Dealing with uncertainty
- Following a plan
- Ability to stay focussed
- Perseverance and dedication
- Good collaboration and team-work skills
- Experience dealing with difficult people (academics…)
I hope this post gives you optimism if you are considering a move from science into entrepreneurship. I found the move really quite fun because I got to do experiments in my business and get interesting results that challenged me.
Deep down I think all businesses are basically explorations – exploring the product space, pricing, partners, customer, market etc. If you are good at keeping an open mind, doing experiments and collecting feedback, you will find your way to success. Life does experiments (we call this “evolution”) and life ALWAYS finds a way. You can too!
* At my core I like making things, and making things with DNA/cells/life is a lot more expensive, time-consuming, waste-creating and nebulous than making things with nice, predictable, auditable and fully controllable computer code.
** Actually I wasn’t nearly as magnanimous. I just thought an experiment would be the best way to shut him up and prove that he was wrong, letting me move on with my life!