LAUSR

W finishing our PhD studies, we decided to found a company, Abcombi Biosciences, with the intent of commercializing a vaccine we had developed for combatting pneumococcal disease. Because our technology was developed in a university laboratory, three of the four founding members of our startup team were academics—only one of us possessed direct industrial experience. Although this established our academic credentials, we quickly discovered that our lack of broad business acumen meant that our initial commercialization plans were ill-conceived and failed to take into account many of the challenges in commercializing a discovery-stage technology. After realizing that our core team was not equipped for the challenge ahead, we started over. This article is our attempt to help other aspiring scientist–entrepreneurs from making the same mistakes. It provides reflections and advice (Table 1) from our ongoing journey as graduate students turned entrepreneurs. As with many other aspiring small businesses, we learned the hard way, through trial and error. We provide below the framework and strategies most appropriate to students interested in navigating the intricate interplay of technological and commercial development in biotech, which often act at different scales—from intellectual novelty to economic feasibility. As this information would have been highly beneficial to us at Abcombi’s founding, we hope this article will prove useful to others seeking to start their life science ventures.