Gm! Word on the street is Shawn is going pro (pickleball).
[Welcome to Issue Number 29 ofĀ The House Brazeryen, where we break down the latestĀ #startup, #biotech, and #ScientistCEO-related news for you fortnightly, in roughly 5 minutes. Brought to you by Brazen Bio, Brazen Capital, and brainsurgerydropout.]
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CONFESSIONS OF A SCIENTIST-CEO: Postdocs for fun and profit
by Shawn Carbonell, MD, PhD ā Our good pal, Ethan Perlstein, had a hot take about postdocs on twitter last week:
It is true that in order to gain an academic faculty position you are at a major disadvantage if you havenāt completed a postdoc. However, even if you know some system is fucked up (and most systems are) you donāt have to dismiss it outright or try to break it. As Y Combinatorās former CEO said:
A system is a tool you can useā¦ to accomplish any goal you want to.
āMichael Seibel
And this is exactly what I did to launch my biotech startup OncoSynergy:
Thatās right. Six months after quitting neurosurgery residency to start my company and getting no where I started looking for postdoc opportunities where I could not only pay the basic bills, but also obtain free proof-of-concept (POC) data paid for by the PIās grants. Ideally, I wanted to be in the Bay Areaāfor obvious reasons.
In Nature Jobs, I found the perfect postdoc at UCSF focused on exactly on the topic of my interest. Did I tell my PI about my master plan? No. Until I nailed the POC data I didnāt really have anything anyway so that discussion could wait. Indeed, having that discussion would be a good problem to have.
BRAZEN BREAKDOWN
Besides basic pay and āfreeā use of research money, a couple other advantages of the postdoc bootstrapping approach are 1) time to write SBIR/STTR grants [more free money] and 2) depending on where you land, being part of an ecosystem where you can attend entrepreneurship events and network with other future scientist-CEOs.
However, there are down sides. The most significant one is IP. As a university employeeāwhich all university postdocs areāany inventions you make are completely owned by the university. In order to spin out a company, then, you must license back your own invention from the university. This is nontrivial.
Malignancy of tech transfer offices varies by school and country. My experience was one of the worst examples Iāve ever heard of. It took over TWO YEARS to finally get that license for my own invention. The company almost died because of it. The good news is we were able to negotiate favorable royalties and gave up zero equity. Iāll write more about this later.
In the meantime, check out this fantastic primer on spinning out from a university by Y Combinator.
BRZN01: Petri Bio wins NIH Contract
Our good friends at Petri Bio just announced they won a $300K National Cancer Institute (NCI) Concept Award!
Petriās CEO, Shu Li, PhD, along with CSO, Joseph Schinaman, PhD, are building "bugs" to improve health through the microbiome! The potential for this approach to impact many different diseases is enormous and, even better, there is a place for this technology in prevention and longevity.
This particular award is to develop a novel approach for treating pediatric glioma (brain tumor) with probiotic bacteria.
Petri Bio are from the BRZN01 Brazen Incubator batch and subsequently graduated to their own space at our fave incubator space BioLabs LA at The Lundquist Institute.
BRAZEN BREAKDOWN
The BrazenVerse is proud of y'all! Check out the press release HERE!
VC CORNER: Donāt Put All Your Eggs in One Basket
Contributed by Scott Alpizar, PhD ā Itās been a few weeks since Silicon Valley Bank [we will now allow it to be said] collapsed and sent startups scrambling, thinking they were in a major cash crunch. But, as you may remember, the FDIC stepped in and guaranteed everyone would have access to their money. The chaos died down as quickly as it started.
In the immediate aftermath, I saw article after article outlining how startups should react to the crisis to better position themselves to weather this type of storm in the future. While context is needed to know what is directly applicable to your specific startup, I think a fair amount of the advice out there is still helpful.
So, letās look at 3 ways that you can help future proof your startup. Full disclaimer, these are nothing too new! But reiteration never hurtā¦
BRAZEN BREAKDOWN
Diversify. A survey by NFX a few days after the collapse showed that over 70% of startups now have two or more bank accounts, up from just over 40% before. You may not currently have a ton of cash, so this may not be as applicable, but the more cash you have the more exposure you have. If it makes sense for you, and you havenāt already done it, now is a good time!
Watch Your Cash. Even if youāre diversified, youāll want to make sure youāre watching your cash (you should be doing this anyway!). The NFX survey also asked about fundraising confidence, which was low. That is likely a reaction to the current macroeconomic environment, which may also mean that youāll need to hold on to your cash a little longer.
Stay Aware. While youāll need to have some faith in the banking system, itās even more important to stay aware of whatās going on within the industry to get ahead of these types of crises. You should also pay attention to your investorsā situation. If you get caught in an emergency, will they have the funds to support you or be in the same boat?
SVB was a major supporter of the startup community, with nearly half of all startups banking with them. However, having so many deposits in a single sector increased the risk that they took on and likely contributed to how a bank run could happen so quickly. This certainly shows how supportive SVB was willing to be, despite having to know all the risk that they were taking on. Ā
SVB was especially supportive of minority founders. It was a place that these founders could go to access funds after big banks rejected them. Iām not going to dive too deep into whether the lending practices of big banks are discriminatory, but I do hope that this will be something under scrutiny going forward. In a āhe who has the gold makes the rulesā society, we need more of these mid-sized banks. The SVB situation certainly puts them at more risk than before, so be prepared so your startup doesnāt suffer as well!
š BRAZEN SNAX
š§¬ Newly rediscovered Rosalind Franklin letters set the record straight?
šŖ± Cannabis gives C. elegans the fucking munchies too
š« ONO Golden Ticket for one year of lab space in SF Bay (Due May 12)
š¦ Macrophages cannot āseeā SARS-CoV-2 without the ACE2 receptor
š„© Who will be the first āElizabeth Holmes of biotech meatā?
š¤ Thriving life found in the depths 500 kilometers from sunlight
š§« A bio-leather jacket the immune-compromised should avoid
š«£ How do you even know your DEI initiatives work?
ā° TikTokCrak: Earth Day banger
šŖ CARVEOUT
It is rare to discover a podcast episode that is worth listening to more than once: Scooter Braun on 20VC with Harry Stebbings. Impactful convo on what really matters.
šš½ A DOSE OF GRATITUDE
We are grateful for the ever helpful Rami Doueiri, PhDā¦ Lab Director at BioLabs LA.
š BRAZEN MEME
āļø FEEDBACK
Feel free to tweet all thoughts, questions, and insults to us. Bring it. No, really. COMEšš½ATšš½USšš½BROšš½
And letās continue the conversation on LinkedIn: @brazencapital and @brazenbio.