Navigating the Startup Landscape: Insights from Dan Goddard, Director at Browne Consulting Group

So today we spoke with Dan Goddard and it was a really interesting conversation about his very long experience in building biotechs in different capacities. Dan is currently at Brown Consulting where he helps startups launch. They basically put in place all of the backend infrastructure like the finance and legal and all of the things, and they are also connectors so that biotechs have the resources they need, which we really resonate with.

Welcome to Building Biotechs, a podcast by Rekryteromics Consulting.

We've helped over 75 biotech, life science and venture capital firms strategize, hire and retain thousands of employees to scale companies that bring life saving drugs to patients.

We speak with those at the forefront of growing biotechs to learn their tactics on building these companies from the ground floor to the C suite.

We're your host, Karina and Allison. All right, well, Dan, thank you so much for coming on the show today. We're so excited to speak with you as always. Let's kick it off with what did you want to be when you were 7? What are you now? And how did you get there?

This is funny actually, because at age 7, I look back on this and I really struggled with the answer because my dad was in the Air Force and there was a time that I wanted to be a pilot and I kind of typed that in as my initial notes for an answer. But what I realized now, looking back at it, is that was only for about a week or so. I've had this problem throughout my whole career of picking one thing, but I want it to be when I grew up. And it's actually plagued me my whole life. I tend to fall in love with every industry and every opportunity. I tried to avoid job shares specifically for that reason because I wouldn't just go around and apply to every job. So if I had to answer the question, I would say it was a pilot for about a month and then it just shifted. I walked by a car dealership and I was like, oh, I wanted to be a race car driver. Went by the auto repair shop and it was like, oh, I want to work on cars. I went to the hospital. I wanted to be a doctor. So I've really had a hard time throughout my career just picking one thing. And honestly, I think that's gravitated me more towards the startup industry because I've never been able to settle on just this one item that I wanted to do. So instead, I've really focused my career on finding that mission right? What do I want to do for the world for society for my community. And that's led me to say, okay, you know what, I want to help people, I want to build medicines, I want to help companies succeed, I want to deliver therapeutics, I want to help people succeed. So working in the startup community, I think that I'm able to kind of swap those hats on and off rather than picking a singular focus and saying, okay, I am this. The flip side of that is that I'm envious. There's people that get a calling, they wake up one day and they know this is where I should be, this is what I should be doing. And that moment's just, you know, 45 years old, it still never happened. Right now at Brown Building, I'm a director of the firm and you know, one of the unique things about is we really have a lot of practice and what that group is, it's a subset within the firm that's focused on standing up early stage buyer companies and that means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. And you'll notice throughout the podcast today that I'm going to dance around talking in absolute because every single startup is a little bit different. You know, I've touched over 100 of them in my career and there are some patterns that you see, but each one is its own unique baby.

Right?

You've got its own identity. So really what the launch team does is we'll come in usually right around the time of incorporation with a pre seat company, stand up the back office functions and that's everything from accounting and finance to HR to procurement systems that they've got a lab. But more than anything, we're really wearing that startup hat. We're connecting them with IT companies, working them with wealth. Right. In some cases we're introducing them to potential investors, we're helping refine their pitches and business models. So we're really touching all aspects of the business. Once they get funded and we get kind of the initial operational setup underway, they transfer within kind of our core team that we call upbound, that really provides a more traditional outsourced financial services model. Right. They get a fractional controller, they're running payrolls, we're doing budgets, we're doing month end reporting and tax and audit. But within the firm now, really, Velocity has been operating for about two years and we've pushed through just about 70 companies.

Yeah, I just think it's so interesting because I know that you have your BA in English, right? And then you have an operations background. I too have a BA in English. I also have an Operations background. And I share the whole thing where it's fun because, you know, I'm always interested in the next thing, the new thing, anything. Seems like a fun job to me. But then I do have the friends who like, you know, born with that passion. They wanted to be a nurse, they wanted to be a dentist. I don't know a million different things. And I'm always like, what's that like to have the whitening moment?

Especially working in a traditional STEM based field. You know, I'm surrounded by accountants and scientists most days. But what I've realized with my English degree is really what I learned that I think was the most valuable skill was communication. Personal. But research is a big part of any liberal arts education, right? It's how do I find this answer? Where do I have to go? How do I dig in and research and pivot and research and evaluate all of this different information to come up with the right answer? So I think that almost gravitates really well towards an operations background. Because in operations, you know, everyone's the gamut of responsibility. It's really hard to quantify an operations job. But what you find is there's a problem in front of you, you've got to figure out how to solve it. And usually solving it takes some level of research. Right? You've got to dig in and be like, well, if we go this way, this is going to happen. If we go the other way, we're going to have a different outcome. So being able to pull all of those resources together I think is the case for English degrees in operation.

I agree, because I think the other thing it taught me is how to communicate with diverse constituents, diverse audience. You change your tone, you really start to think about tone. So I think being able to take a complex idea and yes, do the research, but then distill it down so it makes sense is a huge skill as well. So it kind of ties into that communication function.

Definitely.

Yeah, we, we certainly hear you on the nature of these small startups. They're all so individual. I think at our count right now we're around 89 startups that we've worked with and every single one has, I think, almost like a personality. And that's been so interesting. But then we sort of bucket them into their needs. So while they all have their individual distinct personalities, we also see some trends which I'd love you to comment on a little bit as well.

Well, it actually comes in two buckets. I mean, a lot of brand consulting clients, you've got some relationships with some of the Premier VCs for sure. And in those areas, you know, they're coming to us every time that they spend on a new company. And that also ends again with those, you know, experienced aerial entrepreneurs that are on their third or fourth company and have had a couple of exits. But what we're seeing now is oftentimes we're working either sometimes with a partner or an associate within the VC themselves to do this initial setup phase. So I think there really is a couple of different audiences for our surgeons.

Right.

We've got this first time scientific founder. They need a lot of help usually. And then we've got the serial entrepreneur that tends to be more executional. Right. They know what needs to be done, they've got a clear path. And I think there's a benefit for both in working with a group like Brown. But I would also say that oftentimes it's not just one person.

Right.

It really depends on who's on that founding team. We see a difference if it's a scientist or in some cases we've got a CBO or a COO coming in and the hats that we need to wear are very different. So a big part of what we do on this large team is really filling that white space on the org chart early on. You know, budgeting is a great example of that. We've had CBOs come into us that have beautiful models of where the fund is going to go, what the revenues are going to look like, how the operations plan is going to come together. And in that case, we're really focused on setting up the tactical pieces of it.

Right.

Like, let's get the systems in place to support this vision. We've also had scientific founders come right out of academia where it goes one of two ways. They either want to stay on the bench and stay focused on the science, or they're coming to us and say, you know what? You know a lot about this. Teach me, show me this, let me absorb this, let me learn from you so that I can run with it for a longer period of time.

Do you have a preference? Do you like working with one flavor or another?

I think you actually need both.

Right.

And, and both is really part of a continual learning.

Right.

You know, there's definitely something to be said for working with that third or fourth time CEO serial entrepreneur. They will teach you a few tricks along the way that, you know, even despite 18 years of experience I'm still learning from when one of them walks in the door and they get a chance to set up a company if I don't walk away with a new idea or a new learning, I personally, I've missed an opportunity. So being able to leverage that experience from them and then translate that down to this first time founder I think is a big part of my internal mission as I support the industry.

As you're helping these people who are setting up their companies and like you said, they're coming from varied experience levels, where do you find resistance most often? Are there certain things that you know that you're going to have to bring to the table that they're like, oh, I really don't want to do X, Y, Z, or is that not really a universal type of thing?

It's really more, again, it comes down to that kind of founder makeup.

Right.

The ones that want to learn really want to dive into the financial operations piece of it. They want to dive into what brand because they really want to understand all aspects of it. And I think in a lot of ways it depends on kind of their vision for their role. You know, CEOs and CFOs operate in two very different mindsets. It's definitely part of the CC together, but that CFO really wants to stay focused squarely on the science and doesn't want to be interrupted or distracted by the day of the operations of the company. Whereas someone who's coming in from that academic background, who's more on the CEO track, really wants to embrace the whole industry. Right. They want to embrace everything that has to do with operations. They want to understand finance, they want to understand ops, they want to understand investment climate. They really want to take the bigger picture.

Well, jumping back a little bit, we kind of jumped from, you know, your very early days straight into what you're doing now. But you've had a super interesting career in the interim that I think has given you a lot of insight into all of these different companies as well. Can we back up and touch on some of the things you've kind of done that brought you to Brown Consulting?

Yeah, I mean, really my background is, you know, like many English majors, I, I struggled to find a job right out of university, so started the law firm there for about four years doing finance. And what was interesting about that law firm, it would have, you know, I'm dating myself. This was like in the early 2000, one of the partners there was actually working with Daphne Zohar and Peertech Health to do some of the incorporation work and setup. And I still remember the client matter number 22. And eventually I asked the partner I Said, you know, what are all these companies with funny names? What are they up to over there? And he mentioned, he's like, oh, they're going to start building biotech companies. And I was like, oh, you have to introduce me. I still, in this day, I still have a soft spot for Peter Finn, who was the person that kind of opened that door and let me know what they were up to, because it changed the whole course of my life. So I was fortunate that I joined Ktech. Early on. I was called being the first 10 people there, they were on the round, had a fair amount of money in the bank. Really the vision that they had was to raise money and start building biotech companies. So there for seven years, in seven years, we really built out operations of the firm. We started building biotech companies. And seven years later, I had been a part of 12 new ventures. And being in that environment early on was stimulating. You know, if I look back and I think about the education that I got and the people that were teaching me these things along the way, it's a program that a university couldn't even cure. You know, we had Daphne, we had David Steinberg, Bob Langer was the chair of the board. People that came through, like Eddie Martichi, James Mutumba, Meredith Tisching, you know, it was really kind of the who's who of this next generation of biotech. And they've all gone on to do tremendous things in the industry. After about seven years there, I honestly, I got burnt out of biotech. And biotech's a hard industry, right? It takes a lot on wm, particularly working in the venture environment. It's demanding. But I also wanted to pursue some of my other passions. So I got into a company called Nortech. They were actually doing oceanographic instrumentation. And, you know, outside of biotech, you know, the ocean has definitely always been one of my passions. You know, I live by the ocean. Being around the sea, smelling the soap areas, absolutely critical, but spent four years there. They actually, it was interesting, they privately held, they had an owner that was posting jobs for like three or four different positions. They were trying to enter the US market. And I had a chance to meet with the owner and say, you know, I can do all of these jobs. You don't need, you know, four people to do this. You just need one person that really knows how to build. So came in as manager of administration and finance over there. He really showed up. US operation. And I did everything from finance consolidations to global logistics to real estate. It eventually evolved into sourcing and Procurement, you know, feeding things back into the manufacturing over in Norway. Really had a great time doing it. Oceanographers are fascinating, fascinating people. You meet a lot of interesting people in the biotech community and the stories are great, but the oceanographers out there put them to shame. You know, just tremendous stories about times when we were in Antarctica or that time that the boat was leaking off the coast of Palau. You know, these are great people to go for a drink with and hear their story. Around 2011 or so, McKilly Interactive, which was a peertech initiative started by Eddie Martucci, Adam Gazelle and a few others, they were getting ready to close around, so they reached out to me and said, hey, you know, do you want to be part of this team? And we, you know, really launched the next generation of digital therapeutics. So, you know, it was a. It was a crush that I couldn't say no to. Yeah, you know, I had been around the technology early on and I remember the original laptop coming in with Neuro eraser. So joined the team in 2011. And for those that aren't familiar, Akili is a digital therapeutic for, at least initially aimed at kids with adolescent adhd, aimed at repeating the attention focus score now is what they're calling it in lieu of drugs or even in conjunction with traditional therapeutics. So came in as the first nine people there. We loaded up a bunch of stuff from Ktech into a moving van, we dragged it over to Broad street, and for the first two years managed finance and operations there. For the last two, I was actually in the clinical manufacturing group. And it was a really fancy way of saying I was putting software on iPads and I was deploying it up to clinic. Absolutely love that level of patient contact. And it really opened up my eyes to the digital therapeutic space. One of the things that's awesome about digital is as soon as one of these patients turned on the iPad, we were getting data. It was like, Timmy is playing. He's got school on. This bus is coming at 8:15. I'm like, he's taking his medicine right now and we can see how he's doing and we can see what this means. So it was this instantaneous feedback of the impact of what we were doing that was catchy. I'm sure you all are aware the first wave of digital therapeutics companies has had a lot of resistance. Companies like Pear and things like that were had a hard end with the FDA. So I would let go of Akilia 2015, you know, as they were going through kind of their slog with the FDA to get the de novo approval for this kind of first in class device. So it really left biotech. It was my first real experience with failure within biotech, which I think is kind of a natural course of action for anybody who's in this industry for a long time and was let go and was like, oh, you know, what do I want to do now? And I, I was around for a little while. I ended up at a company called Microleague that was doing spinal neuromodulation. Another small outfit out of bu. They had really innovative technology and was funded by naid, NSF and darpa. They had really exposed a lot of the benefits of grant based funding in terms of making an impact on future research. And it was my first exposure to this. I had started in the venture community which was really more or less cooking with gas, right? You know, it was like, hey, you know what, we've got a lot of capital here, let's hit the ground running and let's go quickly. I spent about two years of Microlean and he realized that as cool as the science was and as much as it was not really that venture back put the pedal to the floor and like let's build quickly with more my calling. So entered into discussions with bank consulting called early 2020, you know, would have been around the July time frame and Brian itself was small. At that time we were I think nine people, you know, maybe a couple dozen clients. And we had kind of not really found our identity yet. We had some tech clients, we had some biotech clients, we had some regular kind of commercial accounting clients came in, joined the City Controller and Covid Hit and the first two companies that we worked on were complete Covid Rocket chips. You know, in fact she got IPO in 18 months. The major boom in funding went into the industry in 2020, 2021. We realized that we needed a way to support these companies that were growing so quickly.

Right.

You know, biotech companies were springing up. Every couple of weeks there was a new one and they all needed help. So that's when we really pivoted and built out this launch team with the idea that, you know, they needed the support early on and we also as a firm needed time to actually grow. So you know, fast forward now we're a team of just over 60 and supporting just over a hundred clients. So it's really been fun for me because I had the opportunity to really be a startup within a startup, right? You know, I'm getting a chance to grow Brown and See the growth and see people's careers progress and really garner this interest in the biotech community. But instead of just helping 15 companies now, now we're reaching over 100, which is awesome.

That is incredibly cool. Thank you for walking us through that whole journey. The growth of Brown Consulting is incredibly impressive, especially because this past year hasn't been particularly kind.

Definitely. And you know, I think one of the hardest challenges we face with firms is really coming in so early. You know, I mentioned we work with a lot pre and corporate, we're in that seed round. But what we've seen is we've been fortunate where we've been lucky to be a part of some pretty stellar stories. Right. You know, I mentioned those two that went right to IPL but are still functioning. They're publicly stated. You know, one of them is dosing clients in a phase two trial now. So that in and of itself really enables a lot of our growth because early on they might need, you know, a few hours to get things off the ground. If they really get cooking into an A round, a B round or getting ready to go public, the demands go up and barn as donors of them, they really support that activity.

Yeah, I wish we could say the same, I'll be honest. We also experienced that sort of tremendous growth during that, you know, heyday of VC funding through the pandemic. But we are on the hiring side, whereas I think on the finance side too, especially in your practice, I think people are really, they're dependent on, you know, okay, well how do we make it through these tighter times? How can you support us in being lean, being nimble, whereas in the hiring side they're just not doing that. They're just not doing the hiring piece.

Well, it's been also interesting for me too. I mean, having been in this industry for a long time, I've been through, you know, I mean I was up here Tech in 08 and 09.

Right.

And you know, if we think where we are now kind of desolate and bad, you know, the 08 and 09 were an entirely different. But what's interesting about it is particularly if you talk to a lot of the period, the. Those were some of the best years for vc, believe it or not.

Right.

When things are moving fast and furious, they make a lot of investment coming. Always maintain that higher level of scrutiny for those investments. But more than anything, especially with the ones that really support these companies is it's hard to support a full portfolio, a full stack. If you talk to the venture funds, a lot of them 08 and 09 were great years because they made smarter investments, but also those investments got all of their attention. They were coddled, they were cuddled, they were nurtured and allowed to grow because they were a bigger priority. So I think what we're seeing in the industry is almost not a return to normalcy. It's been one of the challenges for the firm chief. But people that are new in this industry that came in in 2020 think that that was the pattern, that was the trend, and that's how this industry was going to continue. But I think now, not that it's crashing next to reality, but we're coming back into the mean of kind of responsible investing.

I agree. It's a bit of a correction year for sure. And we work with a lot of candidates who are really feeling this deeply because they're trying to get jobs. So I went to graduate school specifically in 2008, because I looked at the market and I thought, I'm just going to go back to school. This isn't. This isn't the year to get the job. And then I came out as biotech was really, really, in 2013, was, you know, really doing. Honestly, the. The 2010s were really quite strong for biotech, and that was a good time to found my company. Definitely the upswing there. And so now we've got graduates again now coming out into this job market, and they almost feel despair. So it's really good to hear from our guests that this is cyclical. This is something we've seen before. This is not the end of biotech, which I think a lot of people are talking about. But by no means this is a correction.

No. And I think you could honestly make a case that in some ways, you know, I'll keep coming back to being mission focused, but the rounds that we're seeing now in the companies that are getting funded and the data and the progression that they're making, I think is a faster path to patients.

Right.

I think during 2020, it would basically cover all of the stats on the bingo card and hope that something sticks. And now what we see is literally a more focused industry. All the additional support, being able to pull in those primary resources, I think will ultimately get those therapies to patients faster.

I wanted to dive a little bit deeper into your experience with the differences, I'll say, between venture funding and government funding, because what we are hearing from some folks is that they are trying to think about government funding to supplement or to get them through things. But as we all Know, that's a really slow funding process. And then to your point, there's not as much money, things don't move as quite as quickly. So can you tell us a little bit about that? Do you work with any clients that currently that do use government funding or is it completely vc?

Yeah, I mean, we're completely VC focused right now. Really. With Brown, we really try to set the standard. When we have had clients that have come in that are either have existing government funding or pursuing that government funding, we actually partner up. You know, there's a couple of great firms in the Massachusetts area that focus squarely on federal funding companies.

Okay.

And it's not so much that the accounting is different per se, but there's a lot of nuances in dealing with the parties and interacting with these agencies that I think is almost best to the specialist. And you know, you see as companies put together that team to support their operations, they shouldn't have to settle away. It's one person wearing many hats and sometimes not the best answer. You really need that right key for the right lock. So as a firm, when we've seen clients come in with federal funding, we identify that partner, we're able to work with them closely. Where Brown is basically handling the gap pieces of the fundamental picture. Right. We're dealing with fiscal audits, we're dealing with tax. But saying, you know what for your interactions with nih, this is the person that you want to have at the table to help guide your decision making process as you go through that.

Okay, that's great. So you could still be the point of contact. Like if we had a client working, you know, who needed your services, but they also were toying with that government funding idea, you wouldn't turn them away. You just pair them with a specialist.

No 100%. And you know, often a lot of the work that we do as a firm is really part of a team. You know, it's, it's rare we get our own core responsibilities that we're handling, but we're interacting, you know, in a matrix way across the whole organization.

Right.

And it's everything from scientific advisors to investors to founders. In some cases we've got, you know, dedicated HR that we're working with that's filling recruitment or picking out benefit programs or looking at, you know, overall total rewards systems for a client. So Brown is not really a do it all solution. We can do it all and we can do a lot of it. But oftentimes what we try to do is really surround these founders with the right people at the table so that they get the absolute best answer.

Dan, have you seen more of a shift towards companies, and maybe particularly these early, early stage companies relying on fractional or consulting help than in, you know, your previous experience in the early days of maybe pure tech, where people pulling more things in house? Or do you think the balance has always remained sort of outsource what you can and keep the other stuff internal? I just feel like there's been a wellspring of people popping up who are a fractional provider of some capacity.

I honestly, I wish bar existed. When I was at Cryptic, you know, part of my role there was to spin out these companies and turn them into standalone. We actually were going the traditional route. We were hiring people and training them and really, you know, enabling them. Like, here's your first finance on Hudshire. Let's kind of take this company out of the net in terms of using the resources. I think we are seeing a push for that, you know, for those in the accounting industry. You know, like, there's an accounting shortage right now. You know, some of the classes that have come through, people aren't necessarily going into accounting as much. So I think that that places an additional demand on fractional services. But I also think that there's been a realization in the industry where, where you start and where you end up are two different things.

Right.

And that we actually see the same thing. Even in consulting practices, it's really hard to pick one person or one consultant that's going to take you from inception through ipo. It's almost like you have to tag in and tag out those right resources as the company grows. And that's a big part of the reason that Brownie built out this launch team. You know, what you need for the first three to six months is very different than what you needed for a crossover round going into ipo. So we always ask clients, like, why settle? Why pick one resume? Why settle on the internal hire until that picture is completely clear and you know exactly what you need? So I think pulling in fractional resources really helps supplement that effort because you're not just getting one person, you're getting the knowledge of the whole team. In Brown's case, that's a team of over 60, and we've done visibility into over a hundred clients. Why wouldn't you leverage that?

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 is, 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.

You've brought up a few times that you know, the mission is really important and these companies have to have a core mission. Is that something that you ever advise on or what advice do you have for companies that are maybe trying to figure out what their mission is and can come up with like a really great mission statement that they can use as sort of a guiding star?

I mean, this is something that's been, you know, adamant. It's always something that stuck with me throughout my career. You know, maybe it's easier. Like the earliest mission of peertech was giving life to science.

Right.

And it sounds like a tagline, but that was really what we did, right. You know, every decision that was made, every step along the way, every hard moment, that's what we pivoted back to. You know, I think back to the companies that I've touched, even at Achille. Right. You know, the mission was perfectly clear. Like we made every decision like the patient was at the table. And I think some companies do it well. If you look across the board, like Biogen has a great one, right? Like Biogen, like their whole mission is to discover develop innovative therapeutics that improve the lives of patients. It doesn't get much clearer than that. So I think mission that are perfectly crystal clear, short and concise. Like if it's more than 10 words, you've missed the mark. But they provide that North Star and a purpose for a company on what is an arduous journey.

Right.

It's not easy to build a biotech. So when we see clients that come in that are maybe not so clear on that mission or if they ask our feedback on it, we'll advise on that. But what we find is, especially when we're coming in so early that it's rare to have that mission on day one, that's really one of those foundational building blocks for culture. By the time you get two or three people, you really start to get this snowball effect of what a company's mission and culture will be.

Can you talk a little bit about founding a company today and building a biotech today versus a little while ago? What things materially have changed that you use, whether it's technologies or tools, you know, what are you seeing really it's.

Been interesting and again this is from a long time in the industry is that I think the build versus buy type scenario and we touched a little bit on like fractional services I think is a relatively, it's a positive change for the industry, no doubt, but it's a new thing. You know, back in the day like you had to build it, right. There were very few resources available. It's not like you could go in and pick out a procurement system. It wasn't as simple as calling up a vendor or even finding practical services. The other thing that I think is interesting, we were starting to see more again a positive thing for the industry is that back in the day there were only a handful of biotech PCs.

Right.

You could do a lot of over a three month period and pitch every single one of them. If you struck out, you struck out, it was game over. Now we're seeing all of these funds and some of them even disease specific where there's enough people for you to go to pitch and to be around and to get that support and get that feedback. But I think it really helps founders refine what the company mission is about, what that pitch is about and even the business model and the indications that they're going after. You know, I think the one shot companies where they've got one molecule or one therapeutic, maybe not so much but I think where it's really relevant is when you get into platform companies.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And with technology we have to ask about AI. How is that touching if at all your practice and what you're thinking? I know with accounting there is some buzz around AI. Just you mentioned accounting accountants earlier in the shortage.

There is, I mean more than anything we are seeing quite a, quite a volume of incoming AI based clients.

Right.

And they're doing everything with AI from molecule design and drug development, things like that. That's a firm. I would almost say we're a little bit resistant to it.

Right.

There's a challenge for us in really understanding that handholding, personalized response. And I think AI does a great thing in a lot of industries but it's never going to replace that one on one connection that we have early on. There are cool tools coming out. And I think it's going to be something that as a whole industry we're going to have to keep apprised of. But honestly for me personally, I was a little taken back with the implications of AI over the summer. Machines can get it wrong, you know, and I mean we even had, you know, pretty high profile layoffs from Google over the summer saying, you know what, like we, we can, we can make this machine make a bad decision and they can look at the data set, it can impart bias. So I think being able to responsibly use AI is something that, you know, not only for the accounting industry, but it's going to be a big question I think over the next 10 years as the whole country world moves forward with this new technology.

We talk a lot about AI in that context within hiring because these data sets are trained, it's AI is trained on data and if the data is biased, it gives biased answers. And so that really has been a challenge with some of the early AI tools used in hiring. And so, you know, we, we're very aware of that. But I wanted to talk a little bit about the importance of actually building diverse companies. Why is that so important? How do you facilitate that as well?

I mean it really is it. We could do a whole podcast on this with a panel and probably talk for, you know, a three day symposium about this. But I think it's absolutely critical. You know, I mean one of the things that really blew my mind about it, I think it's coming to a head now even as we talk about these new CAS 9 there roughly 50% of minorities in this country don't believe that they're going to benefit from breakthrough therapies because of our existing healthcare system. That's a huge number, right. And it's hard to get this impetus to go out and build the biotech if you don't believe that yourself or your community or those around you are going to get any benefit from that. So I think that's something that we really need to evaluate a society, society and it's going to be telling to see what happens with these new therapies. I think one of them, the cost per treatment was roughly $3 million per sickle cell wall. How are we going to come down as a country on this healthcare system? Is this actually going to make its way to these communities that potentially may not be able to afford this drug or might be suffering under inadequate health care coverage to begin with? And then you've got the actual mechanics so changing this, which I think is slowly starting to happen. There's a lot of work still need to be done. But if you think back really, Obama pushed through stem diversification and prioritization back in 2011. 2012 was really when it started to get traction. So 10 years later we're starting to see this new group of founders that have started to reap some of the benefits of that program. But I think there's some real obstacles. One of the obstacles that we undertake came up with a conversation from David McFarland who I'm on the board at EF with is traditionally they haven't seen these communities, haven't seen venture as a means to an end, as a means to procure wealth or generational wealth through their families. They've always gravitated to more traditional real estate type investment tangible goods as a way to facilitate this generational wealth within these communities. And a lot of that is the, the distance between them and where biotech is happening.

Right.

And if we think about biotech hub, you've got San Francisco, we've got San Diego, we've got Boston. All of those have unique minority communities. But if we really think about the hotbeds for diversification, it's not base communities. They're far from biotech. So I think the tech industry is probably a little bit ahead of biotech in that regard because it's bringing up a multiple location. But there's a lot of great work being done to change that. A great example of it is Pillar. Pillar's founder led biotech tour that they're working on is a great opportunity to change that. It used to be back in the days that the B.C. would put in a management team to run a biotech and take it over to finish line. And I think in many ways that perpetuated the lack of diversification. They wanted people that had been there and done that and traditionally historically that's. If we get more to this founder led biotech initiative and people that are on the bench that are doing the work want to take these companies further and drive forward this innovation. I think we do see more diversification happening, but there's also great work being done like Boston Impact Initiative. Boston Impact Initiative. And the work that they're doing is not necessarily crowdfunding, but they're teaching people that Venture can benefit their community. And the essential benefit of the community is I think you see higher network individuals start to realize that there is an opportunity outside of traditional tangible investments where they can create win win situations. Right? They can create this generational wealth, but they're also providing a substantial benefit for society by delivering therapeutics.

You do not necessarily have a traditional background for someone who would have gone into biotech. Right. And especially finance and biotech. Right. Like we talked about, you have an English degree.

Yeah.

And this is something that we talk about when we're looking at hiring and working with our clients. You don't want people from the same labs. You don't need people who all have the same experience. Right. So I think even some of the educational stipulations that we've put on bringing people into the biotech fold and like who fits the model is really changing because we're seeing people understand that diversity of thought is so important. And you don't get that if everyone comes from the same lab, the same area.

I think there's an actual eminent danger with that lack of diversity where you get into a group, think of saying, you know what, this is the way that it's always been done. You need those contrasting viewpoints and that friction created by multiple backgrounds, multiple experiences, even in some cases multiple geographies.

Right.

And to take that full circle, if you go back to kind of that mission, if you really are focused on the patient, it's rare that that patient population that you're working on is completely homogenous.

Right.

So I think if we had to take kind of the full picture of it, this comes back to the mission. If you really keep the patient front of mind and everything that you do in a biotech, which I think all of them should, the makeup of that biotech should reflect that same level of diversity.

Right.

You get multiple backgrounds, disease is impartial. It doesn't care whether you've got an English degree or whether you've got a finance degree or a STEM degree. So if that's the front of mind as you're making these decisions, it's natural that your organization will kind of mirror that population.

I think a follow on benefit of that is that if your organization mimics what the patient population actually would be, the diverse patient population, your internal employees are also going to advocate for clinical trials that are more appropriate. So one thing that we talk a lot about with other guests and just own panels and all the things are the lack of diversity in clinical trials as well. And I think this comes back to your earlier point that people have to opt in for clinical trials and they won't do that if they don't feel that they're going to get a benefit if they don't trust the system. And so then seeing researchers that are Working on these drugs that look like them, that are from different backgrounds, that engenders more trust. So it's this whole waterfall effect.

Definitely. And that's part of the reason, even to this day, I'm still so passionate about digital therapeutics, is the idea that you could decentralize these trials. Because even in these communities, it's great that they could, you know, if they have the resources or the healthcare advocates to get them into these trials, that's one thing. But they still have to get there.

Right.

You know, some of them aren't in a position where they can fly across country, relocate and operate their lives to participate in these trials. The idea that we can decentralize some of this stuff and make it available where the patient is, is tremendous.

I think that is a fascinating take. Thank you so much for breaking that down for us. Dan, what's some information that you would tell anyone who's coming into this space or that you share with your client as you're getting off the ground that you think helps them build successfully?

I mean, really, that they're. This is the collective, right? Biotech as an industry aligned towards a common goal. And we talked a little bit about mission. Really, there's a patient at the end of everything that we do. So the idea that there's competition in this space, you know, if you're targeting the same indication or targeting similar targets within, you know, the biomechanics of what you're working on, these aren't your enemies.

Right.

These aren't your competitors.

Right.

It's collectively as humanity, we're working towards delivering therapeutic. And yeah, you're not going to divulge trade secrets, but there's plenty of them at the table for multiple people to bring their experience, their ideas, their theories to the table with the idea that ultimately, hopefully one of these works, you know, And I think we're saying now, even like with, you know, with the new thoughtwork that they're doing, they're funding more than one company, and they're funding more than one company for a reason. It's as many shots on goals we can get towards these hard indications. Ultimately, humanity that benefits from this. If one hit's great. If two hit, even better. If three hit, that's a home run.

Words of wisdom. I love that. So, Dan, where do you see yourself in 10 years?

It's been interesting, you know, for the last year or so, I've been working with EF in this nonprofit space and really helping, you know, founders enter this new journey. And it's been a Tremendously rewarding experience, I think. Really I mentioned earlier when we talked about jobs, I still haven't decided. I fall in love with every job that comes through the door. But I think I can probably envision myself staying part of the biotech community. So I probably see myself really trying to advocate for leveling the playing field. And I think one of the unique things I've done is we see these premier biotech startups and we see the network and the wealth and the experience and the people that they bring to the table to give these companies the best shot on goal. So I think over the next 10 years I want to continue to make it my mission to enable that same type of de risking for first time founders coming to the table.

Right?

Make these resources available and connect them with the right people so they think it's always going to be risky. We can't completely de risk it and guarantee their success to the degree that we can align and continue to connect the dots between founders and even between founders of companies that may have worked on an indication and their science had not panned out. To be able to connect those dots and say you also talk to each other because they tried this and they got this file, but then they had a roadblock. So for me personally, I think I want to continue to connect the dot and more than anything, I want to keep having fun. I've had a pretty wide yard for the first 18 years of my career. I've ended up in places where I never thought I would be in the financial services firm as a director, especially with an English degree like we talked about. So I think I want to keep an open mind on it and really play an active role in shaping my own teaching. But a lot of it will depend on the circumstances and climate and the environment. The world continues to change.

I think whatever you do, it won't be boring.

I think we know that. It seems like you have a knack.

For finding interesting and adventurous companies, so look forward to seeing where you go. We have an ever growing list of book recommendations from podcast guest and it is, it's honestly one of my favorite things because every week I kind of look through and I think, hmm, what should I order off Amazon this week? So if you could suggest a book to anyone, what would it be? And it can be on any topic, fiction, nonfiction or agnostic. We just like to know what you like to read.

This is a hard question for an English major to pick one. I would say in the non fiction field, the book probably the most meaningful thing that I had read recently was Think Again by Adam Grant. I don't know if you all are familiar with that book, but especially for people that may have been in the industry for a long time, I think one of the risks we run as consultants used to fall into one way of thinking this work last time, it's always going to be like this. So being able to continually challenge yourself and refine those opinions and ask yourself, okay, well, how did I get to this conclusion? I think is a lifestyle that it can be taken for granted. It's absolutely essential in the fiction world. As an English major, I'm in love with prose. Everybody's got different ideas of prose and it's not necessarily about the stories. I've always been a fan of Carol, so you can reread on the Road. I don't know if you're familiar with the story of how on the Road was written, but it was a drug fueled outrage on a school school where he left himself one of them for a week and just wrote this novel counting his experience. And there's a lot of trash in it, right? As you read through it, you can get to 200 pages of not necessarily gibberish, but things that aren't tight and complex. And then suddenly there's a diamond of absolutely perfect twirl. And every time that you kind of redo this, it's almost like kind of going needle in a haystack or like sifting for gold. You find the traditional nugget where it's like, wow, that's what he meant. That's beautiful. And at its peak, the toast compares to nothing. It compares to Shakespeare. You know, it's this upper echelon stuff, but you've got to weed through all of this stuff around it to get there.

Awesome. Those are great suggestions. Thank you.

Where can people find you to connect and follow your very interesting career and what happens in the future for you?

Yeah, I mean LinkedIn is probably the best place to find me. I'm very active on there. I'm sure probably all of you are going to see likes and comments and posts professionally. You know, brownconsulting.com is the best place to find me. You know, if you're reaching out for resources or just want to have a conversation about it. But really what I would tell the community is my doors are open. You know, I listed in my profile that I'm an advocate for startups and that's everything from clean tech startups to software startups. You know, earlier this week I met with some companies at the Japan desk at the CIC that are in clean tech and robotics. I'm still trying to open doors for the companies so that they can go on this founder journey.

That's amazing. We'll link all of that in the show notes and we will also add Brown Consulting to our list of startup resources that we have for any startups to grab from our website.

Awesome. Well Dan, thank you so much. It was a pleasure chatting with you.

Building Biotechs is brought to you by Recruitomics Consulting. You can find Building Biotechs than Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or anywhere else podcasts are found. Make sure to click subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes and join our mailing list for a weekly dose of biotech news and a podcast overview. And if you need to install a recruitment engine that saves time and money for your growing company, reach out for a free strategy session. I'm always happy to share my expertise and show you techniques to simplify your hiring process and maximize returns. On behalf of the team here at Recruitomics Consulting, thanks for listening.