Funding, Partnerships, and Growth: Strategies for Startup Biotech Success with Fractional Chief Business Officer Renee Williams

This week, I sat down with Renee Williams, who is the founder and managing partner at Williams Biotech Consulting. Renee is a fractional chief business officer for small and growing biotech companies. And she had such an interesting career path that led her to this through big pharma, small pharma, and venture capital. And now she enjoys helping biotech startups secure funding and navigate partnership deals. And it's so interesting to talk to her because many biotech founders are not really well schooled in business, and so getting those term sheets can be really scary. How do you navigate JP Morgan and other major conferences? How do you turn on that extrovert energy you need to attract people to your company to come to the table to make deals with you? It was a really cool conversation, and she really opened up about some of the challenges that these small companies face and how she really enjoys just rolling up her sleeves and helping them to find funding. So I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did. Welcome to the Building Biotechs podcast. Over the years, I've helped over 90 biotech, life sciences and venture capital firms strategize and hire thousands of employees to scale companies that impact human health. We speak with those at the forefront of growing biotechs to learn their tactics on building these companies from the ground up. I'm your host, Karina Klingman. I hope you enjoy the show. Renee, thank you so much for being here today. I'm really excited to chat about your experience, but first, I want to know a little bit about my guests. What did you want to be when you were 7? What are you now? And how'd you get there?

So I wanted to be a cowgirl. Like, literally a cowgirl. And it's not because I loved horses or the lifestyle. It's because I liked the clothes. So I can remember it was preschool, kindergarten. They brought a pony to campus and they dressed us up. It was this pleather, like, red pleather chaps with the best that had fringes, and I had a matching red hat. They put on some jewelry and boots and then put us on the horse and took a picture and. And I was just like, yes, I like all of this. And so the next day I was like, mom, I have to have. I made her go buy me a jean jacket with some fringe on it, one of those bolero necklaces, some boots that I wore until there was no heel left on it. I wore those boots, like, every single day. That was my thing, you know, at kindergarten, my thinking was very linear. It's. I put on These clothes, they told me I look like a cowgirl. I love the clothes, so I must want to be a cowgirl girl, like, full stop and fierce. I dress very Western.

I love that more than, you know. So I am a cowgirl and yeah, same. It's like I sat on a horse when I was really little and that was it. And, you know, there's something to reflect on there when you dress the part, even today, don't you feel.

Don't you feel the part sometimes 100, 100%. Even when I'm feeling like the worst is when I try to dress the best. How you look is how you feel or how you feel maybe is how you look. And so I try to, you know, dress for the. The occasion.

Yeah. In my career coaching life, I tell people to dress for the job they want in 10 years, you know.

Yes, it's exactly that.

Well, that's amazing. Now, what are you today and what was your path to get there?

I started my own consulting firm. I serve as a fractional CBO for several companies. You know, the career path to get there is not direct. And I can't even say that this is what I always want it to be. Early on in my career, I realized that it was more about how do I want to feel and what do I want my lifestyle to be. And when I sort of evaluate those things, then I went out and said, okay, what kind of job would allow me to be free? I always wanted to travel cool. What job would allow me to be on a plane and move around? I wanted to feel empowered. I wanted to feel like the decisions I made affected the company on a broader scale. So to me, that meant, oh, I want to be forward facing. And much like that cowgirl outfit, I want to feel posh. I want to be able to wear more than just sweats to work in the lab. And so that sort of feeling, or the idea of feeling a lifestyle, is really what's sort of driven my career. And I think the other portion is that, you know, a lot of what I did was based on experiences, good or bad, and decision points, whether they were voluntary or involuntary. And so then in that moment, you have to say, okay, maybe the plan I had for myself, it's not materializing cool. But this is what is possible. Pivot, pivot and pivot. And so that's really what my career has been from the day that I left undergrad was a series of pivots that landed me here.

I think that is everyone's careers. And people like to imagine they have some straight line career and it's just not. So when you talk to anybody, you're a fractional cbo. What does that mean? Who are your clients? How do you specifically help them?

Fantastic. So when I first started, I called myself, okay, a consultant. Pulling on my background from Lilly in the business development space. The first few sort of clients I had were things like, hey, can you help us landscape or can you look at our science and our deck and sort of tell us where we line up in the world and how we stack up and what do we need and what's missing? It was right in my wheelhouse, but it wasn't necessarily something that I enjoyed doing. I really enjoyed strategy more. And when I stepped back and I'm like, okay, how can I be useful or use more of my skill set to help companies move along? That's I landed on this fractional chief business officer. And so when you are a startup you need to do two things. You need to raise funds, right, usually by our venture capital. And you need to ultimately you're trying to get partnerships with larger pharma to help bring your job to market. Because very few companies are going to turn from a small pharma to one that had their own manufacturing, their own distribution and their own huge marketing teams. Like you really do need to partner. And that was a space that I felt uniquely positioned to help companies with. So that is what I do. I help companies fundraise and I also get their pitch decks in front of pretty much anyone. Anyone that in my opinion that it at least lines up right. Like there could be some usefulness there. Then sure can go get your deck in front of know whatever pharma, pick one or maybe mid cap. And then the other thing I think that I'm pretty good about is eliciting real feedback, not just hey, this is great, okay, you're a little bit early, come talk to us in a few years. But to be able to say, know exactly what is missing and what is your process internally, how do you get to deals, those sorts of things, having that like sort of foundational understanding in the back, perhaps I can ask different questions than you know, the biotech alone. And so really it's about giving them access to, to the people that they need to get access to. Can I guarantee that you're going to get this deal? Absolutely not. But can I guarantee that I can get you in front of the right person? Yeah, that's what I work on doing.

That's really valuable for small companies because they often don't Think about what that Chief Business Officer role could do for them. And they also can't afford it. Right. They're not going to hire somebody full time.

Exactly. And from my perspective, most of my companies are early. Right. They're looking for that seed or that Series A. I don't really want to sign on full time to a company that doesn't also have funds. I much prefer to be able to work with several companies and I pick and choose them carefully so there's not a conflict of interest. If anything, they're synergistic to, to each other. And so maybe when I'm in front of, you know, Pick youk Pharma, I can actually talk about all the companies at once in a way that makes sense and not just, hey, I have these two delivery companies. PickWench. Pick which one you like better when.

You are actually working with these tiny companies. So you said their seed, their early stage. What are your thought processes for sort of taking them through crafting that pitch deck and then thinking about, well, how do we find partners for you?

The companies that come in, they know what their business prop is. They have some amount of deck there. You know, I'll take a look and say, hey, if I was still sitting on the other side of the table, this is my general reaction, like this deck is missing all the controls, I don't feel great about this or there's so much stuff here and it's in an order that doesn't make sense or just that knee jerk reaction. But at the end of the day, every sort of, every pharma is different and every person, that original sort of gatekeeper, they view things differently. And so sometimes, you know, I have enough to be able to say, hey, if you're going to go over to this company, I know that they don't really love platforms and so you better sort of change your narrative to be less about this platform that you built and focus more on the assets or you know, the potential assets are going to come off of it. Versus, hey, if you're going to go over here, I know that they already do this internally so perhaps you should change that pitch up to how you can support, right. The things that they're doing versus trying to necessarily replace. And so it's almost a bit bespoke from company to company and you know, they have this great, you know, wonderful team, great. Let's push that forward because everyone's looking for a company that has great team. Right? But let's say maybe you're a little bit newer and you don't have experience, then let's try to put something else forward. And so it's a lot of iteration.

You've worked for a variety of different organizations where you've picked up all of this knowledge, some big pharma, venture capital. So how have you sort of stitched all of that together into something that really helps your clients to understand that landscape?

The one thing that I've done consistently in all those places is that I didn't know much when I got there. And so I always put myself in positions to learn as much as possible, even if it meant like when I was at Janssen, that was my first introduction to pharma, I would just go sit in the back of the room, even though they were closed meetings, you know, try to be invisible so no one would kick me out. And then just listen to what people say, the questions they ask, why they're asking, you know, what they're doing, what they're using that for, all of that. And I've done that sort of at every step. And then now when I have these clients, I really do try to pull from all of those places and deliver my recommendation or my strategy.

So let's go back to Jensen. That was really interesting experience. And we all know that's a huge company. So how do you translate the big company business development mentality to these tiny companies?

At big companies, yes, they might out license things from time to time, but usually that's not the, it's not the energy, it's, we had something, we developed something, we'll put it on the shelf and we'd rather it sit on the shelf for decades versus perhaps letting somebody else win with it. So fundamentally, when you're at the big pharma, it's all about we have the money and we're going to buy, we're going to bring in. And then when you're on the biotech side, it's this idea of sell. But I don't like to say sell because I'm not really selling anyone anything. It's. They already know they have that need. Right. And it's more about can I frame it in a way, can I show them why this particular technology or this specific company is the one that they should use to, to fill that needs. I consider myself more of a framer. And let me just keep coming back and having the conversation again because nothing happens with one, two or even three conversations. And so the mentality is very different. You don't want to be needy, but at the same time they know that you need them, right? You need their capital and you need their resources in order to move forward. So with the first couple companies and maybe even now, I still have a little bit of that big pharma mentality. If I go into to a meeting with someone, I still have that same idea. Well, you know, yes, I need you, but I could also walk away, right? Like I am not going to be a doormat. You're like, you're not going to steamroll me, but let's have these conversations. And so it's a tough spot. Like I can understand from my clients sometimes I'll have somebody be interested and they're like, we just need a deal. Just say yes to everything. And I was like, well, you could do this one deal, it'll probably be the death of your company because you've now given away exclusivity to some huge therapeutic area. You got very little back and you'll never be able to do a deal again in that space. And I get that you need money and you're trying to stay alive, but is this one deal today, is it worth not being able to do any deal right in this space again? And so really just trying to balance the yes, it's not going to be the perfect deal, but you also don't want it to be a company ending deal as well.

That's really interesting. I guess I hadn't really thought about that, but there are a lot of exclusivity deals out there and yeah, you could walk yourself right into a corner.

Yeah, yeah, I had one client and I get it that they were super excited. Another sort of smallish startup came along, was like, hey, we really want to. We saw your data, we like it. We really want to use you to help design a biologic for us against X, Y and Z. We're willing to pay you and let's say it was five figures, right? It wasn't huge. We're willing to pay you five figures for this exclusive thing. And I haven't said on the advisory board there. And so the company comes back and they were like, yes, we finally got a partner. And he's reading it down. Does this sound good? I said, yeah, as long as there's no exclusivity involved, you're good to go. This is an amazing deal. And they were like, yeah, about that. So they want all of oncology. I was like, there's no chance in hell, but you can. But that's it. Oncology is ginormous. Let's say they do this and it works and there's hey, yes, we got our stuff from this company. You know, you're stuck, like you'll never be able to go back. And it's just, in my opinion, I was like, it was too big of a therapeutic area. Now if they can dwindle that down to something very specific, like just not even a solid tumor, like just this target or this, then yeah, that sounds good. And so trying to sort of balance, I get it, traction is good, but not all traction is worth it.

What other pitfalls have you seen in some of these deal negotiations?

Exclusivity is definitely one. I think the other thing I see a lot because I work specifically with newer startups is, is the idea that they get a little bit steamrolled. And so, you know, the first term sheet to come across the table is it usually sucks. And that doesn't matter where you are, right? From the big pharma point of view, it was, we're going to ask for the entire world and we're going to seem like we're going to demand it. And if they're willing to say yes, you know, that was their loss. Now it's not how I like doing deals because at the end of the day, you still need people to execute. And so if they feel like they signed a bad deal, people will stop doing work, right? They'll go find another deal and just forget your deal. And so I was really focused on trying to make sort of equitable spaces. But the thing that I try to say is just because they said it doesn't make it so right? Doesn't mean that you can't negotiate that thing. Sometimes you don't even have to speak to it. You can just stay silent on it. And that is an answer just the same. And so for my new companies, usually that's it. It's not, it's not understanding the space because I've never actually been in pharma and so it's not necessarily understanding how decisions are made. You think that decisions are about your science and to a small part they are, but there's so much more politics and internal strategy. Do they have a program already? Right, because it's hard for you to know these things. Do they already have a program? Are they looking to you to replace that program? Are they looking to you just learn things from you to increase their own program? And there's a lot of things that have to happen for these, you know, these big deals to come across. It's why they take so long. That's why sometimes, you know, 12, 18 months depending on who you're working with. And so it's sort of the same, you know, sort of biggest mistake is not understanding how things are happening on the other side. And it's not that it's a mistake, it's just you don't have experience and if you don't know anyone that was in that space, there's really no way for you to learn. Except for Baptism by Fire. And usually by then your first deal is probably the worst deal that you do. It's a deal so it gets you started. But in terms of terms, it's probably the worst deal that you'll do as a company.

That's so funny you say that. I was interviewing somebody else on this podcast and they're in a great incubator space and first time founders and they were saying they basically took their term sheet into this incubator space with all these other startup founders and they were like showing this term sheet around, is this good?

Anybody know?

And that's so scary. You know, these are scientific founders and they weren't trained to actually be able to negotiate those things.

Exactly. So one of my clients right now, she has a potential offer on the table. Hey, we really want your technology. Why don't you send us a term sheet? Even that is a little bit weird. But, you know, so she comes back, she was like, hey, they're interested in a term sheet and it's not for what our actual value prop is, it's for something else. But it's still, this could be good. Hey, what should I do? And I looked at it, I was like, man, I've never worked this far upstream before. Pretty much any deal I've done has been very clear. A molecule is going to come off of this, a target is going to come off of this, some kind of drug is going to come off of this. But hers was a little bit further upstream that I was like, all right, let me just get on the horn. Let me go through my own network and see who's done a deal like this. Tell me, you know, what things to, not just what things to consider, but roughly give me a comparable.

I'm curious if we could talk about the different types of arrangements that can bring funding and financing into companies that you find to be working in this market. What is working, what is good?

Yeah, so that's the key, right? In this market, the market is improving. So, you know, from a venture capital point of view, they're starting to put their money to work again because for a while everyone was just sitting on it, just Waiting for money to be less expensive, if you will. And so I'm going to answer that question from two parts. So if you were trying to bring in capital from like a venture or a PE point of view, the thing that I think startups need to understand is why people invest. What does a return mean to them? Quite often you hear we have the best science and nobody's investing in us like our science is rock solid. But yet here's this other company whose stuff seems kind of sketchy, but they're just getting all the money and all the interest. Everybody's about a return. But if you look from a venture capital point of view, how do they get a return? They don't need your drug to go all the way to humans, right? They don't need it to go to market to a return. What they need is a very strong team who can keep moving it forward, who can drive up the valuation and then find a way to exit, whether that exit is through an M and A or selling it to a larger company or ipoing. Right? Which is why team is so important there. Now, if you're going and trying to partner with, let's say a pharma or maybe even get cvc, right? So corporate venture capital investment, then the way you're going to go at that is it's different because what is their return? Why would you invest as a pharma? Well, ultimately you do want a drug, right? So now you're looking at the science a little bit differently. You still want a good team because you need someone that you're going to partner with. But how you feel about the science itself and its ability to make it to humans probably is a bit more of a driving factor, right? Maybe it's number two on the list, team in science versus venture. Like it's number three on the list. Team, market, fit and then science. And so when you're trying to approach someone, you should be having two very different mindsets for them and speaking to the thing that they need to hear. And so my approach and my answers are never the same for everything across the board. But sometimes I think it's a little bit harder for biotechs to understand, like why they aren't getting the traction that they want. Right. Why are they not getting this? So some of the things that I've been trying to do with my companies is this okay, if VC is not going to bring in funds for you and, and you're having a hard time getting traction with pharma, everyone says they want more data, how Are you going to do it? Especially if you don't have money, you need to start working parallel. And so, hey, here's a company over here who I know needs X and you're a company who has X, but you need Y and they have Y. You need to start figuring out how you can do sort of a net zero interactions together to get the things that you need to build your packages to then become more appealing, to look more attractive to those places. And so that's sort of what I've been focusing on in these times to keep people moving forward, maybe not in the way that they imagined, right? Maybe you don't have dollars in the bank, which is what you want to see, but if you could still build these packages and make a more of a robust presentation of yourself, you're going to get there right as the capital starts, starts to flow again.

Hey there, just a quick break. I wanted to let you know that if you're listening to this podcast because you are exploring careers in biotech, which it turns out quite a few of our listeners actually are, you might be interested in the Biotech Career Coach podcast. It is brought to you by our sister company, the Collaboratory Career Hub, which is our career development community. If you would like actionable tips on job seeking and career development, that is the place for you. It is a companion podcast to our Career Coach column that we write monthly in Biospace. But we go a little more in depth and sometimes we have special workshops and all of that good stuff. So if that sounds interesting, click the link in the show notes or search for the Biotech Career Coach on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts back to the show. So do you ever run into biotech founders that don't want to move in the direction that you know, they need to go to get those interim stages of moving forward.

Percent There are different types of CEOs, right? There's a CEOs who, who are in it for almost power, right? I want to lead, I want to make decisions, I want to bring this thing forward. And my sort of self worth at this point is directly connected to this thing. And a lot of times those are founders who are also technical founders, right? This was their research project somewhere and brought it forward. And so they're very much invested. And then they're the CEOs that maybe were brought in outside to lead this company. They have much more of a pragmatic approach because it's a little less, you know, this is not my baby, but this is my remit. And this is the thing that I need to bring forward. And so usually those types of founders are also focused on generating returns. Right? Those are the kind of founders that probably your venture capitalists like as, as well. And so, you know, I'm not interested in fighting with anyone. I'm not interested in trying to, you know, sort of run up against a brick wall all the time. There's plenty of companies out here that need help. And so, you know, I, I try to pick and choose carefully. Can I work with this person as a CEO? Are they going to, you know, take my advice? Not all the time. It's a conversation, but, you know, I'm looking for companies that are interested in moving their companies forward and making a monetary return, not companies that are saying, I am the CEO and I made all decisions and I have the power and thus, let's go.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I have the same conversations with my potential clients because talent acquisition, you know, that team building piece, you really have to find the right team to your point, and there's a give and take there. And the marketability of the company also depends on the team. So I think a lot about that.

100%. Yeah, team is really important. And I didn't really understand at the time, especially when it came to venture capital, of why team was so much more important than the technology itself until, you know, recent years. And I was like, okay, I get it now.

What swayed your thinking there? Was there an experience or something that.

Happened just being in the space? So one of the things I think I've done well from sort of early on is I just always put myself in the space to, to learn. And so even if it's not formal learning, maybe it's not one of those venture capital course I went to, I go to conferences, I listen to people have conversations and how they speak. Then I just ask questions. I'm really not afraid to ask questions, even if it sounds dumb. I was like, hey, you know, for my own education, why is it this, why is it that? And then you start to put all the pieces together and you're like, okay, now I get it. And now I can take that and help inform my clients about why I say, I think you should do this or you shouldn't do this or this is not going to be the best return on your effort.

We're coming up on our annual JP Morgan extravaganza that I feel like is almost a rite of passage for small companies. How do you help your clients navigate that? What are the goals there for that.

Because really, you know, really are my clients actually going to the J.P. morgan conference instead? They're trying to have meetings outside of the conference. And so essentially my goal is how many meetings can we get, how many calendars can we get on people that we've talked to say starting last year. So I started last year, I started my company right at JP Morgan. That was my first sort of coming out. So okay, who did we talk to then? Have we updated our data since then? Can we get meetings on the table? And I think that's really where I come into play because again, it's about access. And so if you're new and especially if you've come from. I have several AI companies as a client. A lot of those have come from your metas, your Google's, these spaces that they have zero contacts in pharma. And so really that's how I spend my time. And it's an exhausting few days. It's an exhilarating few days. But between lining them up with meetings and if I can't get them meetings, then okay, these are all the after hour functions that I'm going to go to. Who is it that we want to see? Because I'm going to find them in the room and be sure, you know, I do a soft pitch here, why we're standing so they're late nights and it looks like a socializing but really it's just a lot. It's working. Just trying get those follow up conversations.

Yeah, I don't envy your job. That is as an introvert. It's an exhausting sounding couple of days and I know a lot of business folks that live for it and they love it, but you're going to be fully on for days on end.

You know, it's interesting that you say introvert. I was just having this conversation after Bio Investor because it was kind of similar. I picked up a client two days before bioinvestor so there was no time to actually book meetings. Instead I had to do everything on the fly. Everything was just trying to hustle up. And afterwards, you know, some folks were like, hey, let's go to dinner. And then they wanted to do the after dinner. And I was like, I cannot. I am so emotionally drained. I am just tired, I need to go crash. And they're like, what are you talking about? I am an introvert at heart who plays in this sort of forward facing extrovert world. And so to be on all the time for multiple clients at every chance, it does actually suck so much energy out of me. I love what I do, but I also love this little quiet time when I go home and to get to go to sleep. And so I think that there's a place for both. It's just about how you manage that energy. Because it's not how, like an extrovert would say, being out in that space reinvigorates me. Right. And for me, I was like, oh no, it drains every ounce of energy I have. I love it. But I also need to go home and I go to sleep or recharge myself in quiet before we come back.

I have so much respect for you and all the other folks that pound the pavement at these huge conferences that extrovert energy that you bring. To summarize, like the big win for a baby company at these conferences like JP Morgan, it's going to be who you meet and those seeds of connections that you're making that you then can grow over the year. But that's sort of the meeting ground. And then it's cultivate.

Cultivate, exactly. And taking every opportunity to get genuine feedback. Right? Not just that, okay, yeah, this is good, come back, blah, blah, blah. But to get genuine feedback. Because sometimes it's very hard to tell, depending on where people are from, what culture they're from, you know, what state they grew up in, is whether they'll say, I'm sorry, I'm just not interested, or okay, that's nice. Yeah, circle back. And really that is their no. And trying to learn, you know, the nuances of this is a not right now versus this is a never. And trying to really follow up with the ones that are just not right now and sort of pushing back to say, but no, give me more specifics. That's really the only way that you're going to grow. Which is why you have to, in my opinion, those CEOs that are very much invested and whatever happens to this company is a direct reflection of me. It's difficult. You're going to have to detach a little bit. And when you get negative feedback, just be like, okay, great. That's a stepping stone for me to improve in this space and move on versus it is a personal blow to my entire, you know, to my entire ego and existence. You really do have to decouple the two as you reach out to larger companies. Even whether if they say no, you know, not interested in meeting at JP Morgan, one reasonable follow up question is, you know, big companies use JP Morgan in different ways. They might be there just to reconnect with people that they already have. Conversations with. To try to pull it forward and not necessarily find new substrate. Or it could be quite the other. It could be like, well, we're not interested in talking to people that we already talked to because we know how to find them. It's only new substrate. And so as you're trying to connect and reach out and say, hey, can we, can we meet you there? If someone says no, even trying to find out why, is it a no? Just because it's not great for that conference, or is it a no across the board? And if you're going to go and maybe they say no, we don't have actual meeting slots anymore. Great, can I meet you for coffee? Can I do this? Can I do that? Have a spot. You know, if you're a small company, you don't have money, you don't have the room to book these rooms at the hotel and all of that, but you could very easily find your local coffee spot. You know, find a chair, hold it down and say, hey, great, can we get a cup of coffee? It's just, it's right here. Or, you know, I belong to a club in the city. When I can't find room, I go use the club. And I was like, hey, great, let me introduce you to this club. And by the way, let's have this conversation here. So do go to the after parties. And it's not literally just to party, right? It's not for the snacks and the drinks, but you're actually looking at hunting for the kind of people or the companies that you want to talk to. Go find them, have those conversations, get your cards exchanged. There's an after thing. Even if you're tired and the introvert and you wants to go home. No, you go to that next thing, right? Until you have the ability to have the conversations that you want and then follow up.

Yeah, you kick that introvert's butt and you drag them out of the house.

Yeah, yeah, bring her some caffeine, right? Maybe a more comfortable pair of shoes or a change of clothes in the evening. And then you just keep going, keep going. So you can't do it anymore.

I love that. What a fun discussion. So what do you hope to be doing in the next 10 years? What are your big goals?

I imagine myself doing this for. For a bit longer. I'm really interested in closing deals and helping people raise and sort of building up a nice portfolio in that space. So one of my stretch goals, which comes back a little bit to where I'd begun, is I actually really want to build A boarding school in the Bay Area that is focused on stem, finance and entrepreneurship. The kind of things that I wish that I even had. I even knew the words way back when. You know where I sit now. I think like, all of this has only been in the last decade where I learned this word and I learned that this, you know, this build exists and this is how you do it. It's just, it wasn't anything that I ever saw in my community. I never knew anyone that did these sorts of things, but really wanting to tie those things together. I was super focused on being a scientist. I thought a scientist was the end all, be all. I only ever studied science. And then as I moved on, I was like, damn it, I wish I would have taken a business class. I wish I would have done this. I wish I would have had these other things to supplement. And I only did them later on in life. But I like the idea of boarding school and felt somewhat small and to be able to sort of cultivate students that are well rounded in the spaces that. That generate capital in this world and generalize for wealth and things that. That just sort of let people be free. Because again, that's my buzzword, is how can I live a free life? And so I feel like I just want to enable that other places. And I also feel that science is one of the few maybe in computers that you have the ability to sort of overcome whatever socioeconomic levels that you started with. There are a few things that I think allows you to move outside of that. Right. If you're great at programming. I don't think people care where you came from. Are you that person? And to sort of get it done. And I find that science is a bit of the same.

That's a really cool goal. Do you have a book recommendation for my reading list?

I do. It's called the Three Minute Rule by Brandt the Kitch. It's got a maybe like Polish last name, but it's called the Three Minute Rule. And the thing that I like best about it is it's about pitching. Now, granted, he's in the TV world and so he's talking about creating pitches for big TV executives. And, you know, you only have three minutes to capture his attention. But throughout the book he realizes, like, oh, I can take the same framework. And then he's done it in the construction world and he's done in the science world. He's done it across the board. But what I liked about that book was the framework of how to take all this information, these big ideas and Distill it down into very distinct parts. Your first four lines is about setting up the background so people know exactly what you're talking about. Right. The next section is about the proof of that thing and the last two sentences is about closing the deal. And I think that it's very applicable to biotechs and this idea of pitching because you really can't say a lot of words right? You can't really go through your whole thought process and blah, blah, blah, blah, because you lose people's attention very quickly. But I thought that this was a really cool way to kind of keep iterating your pitch in a way that's based in, we'll say psychology. Like this. People need to know this first and then they want this, and then they want this. And so it's a book that I go back to from time to time when let's say there's a new idea or I'm trying to figure out, okay, how am I going to pitch this to someone? I kind of go back and work through the exercise and then say, okay, I think that these are the nine things. I think that's what it comes down to. You're ultimately only going to make nine statements that capture everything I need to convey to get someone's attention and then I can say all the rest of the things later.

Yeah, I'll look that up, we'll put it in the show. Notes for people to click through. That sounds really good and very applicable. I'm even thinking for my career development group, even just pitching yourself, right? Is that, can that be translated there as well?

100. I think 100%. Because I just, like I said, I like how they, it sets up. Like people need to first know what it is before you sell them on it. So your first three lines, only information. Not information with conclusions, not just information. This is my name, this is where I'm from, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then whatever, like the middle part is, hey, whatever it is that you're selling, like state those five facts or whatever it is, then a little bit of proof and then hopefully, you know, I just, I think it's cool and I've been using it.

That's amazing. I'll definitely check it out. Thank you. And where can people get in touch with you if they want to learn more?

You can go to my LinkedIn, you can email me. I don't have any other social media, unfortunately. I'm not like a tweeter or a Facebooker or any of those, any of those things. But I check my LinkedIn regularly. And my emails? Absolutely. Reach out.

We'll put those in the show notes too so people can click right through. This was really fun. I learned a lot. Thank you so much for telling us all about the science science behind what you do.

Thank you for the invitation.

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