synbio london 040214

The Lean LaunchPad for BiotechSteve Blank@sgblank

www.steveblank.com

21 Years Executing the Plan

Actual Photo of What Happened When My Plan Had

First Contact With Customers

Is this all there is?

It Resulted in a Few Hypotheses

Startups Are Not Smaller Versions of Large Companies


Large Companies Execute Known Business Models


Startups Search for Unknown Business Models

What’s A Startup?

A temporary organization designed to search

for a repeatable and scalable business model

Startups Fail Because They Confuse Search with Execute

Startups need their own tools, different from those used

in existing companies

And a Question

Can We Build a Process to Search?

Before we Execute

1. Startups are a series of untested hypotheses2. You can test these hypotheses with the same

scientific method you use in the lab, but…3. There are no facts inside your building, so get the

hell outside

3 Big Ideas

Customer Development Process

This was Formalized in a

So I Wrote A “Book”

And Then A Class

MBA 295: Customer Development

Eric Ries Extends the Model

• Took my class at U.C. Berkeley • Co-founded IMVU, I sat on his board

– 1st implementation of Customer Development– Paired it with an Agile Development Model

• Called it the Lean Startup

Which Turned Into A Better Model

+Agile Development

Alex Osterwalder - Business Model

• Business Model Generation• Defines what the “search” is about

Which Turned Into an Even Better Model

+

+

We now know how to make startups fail less

We now know how to make startups fail less

Lean Startup

And that Turned into Another Book

Lean Startup = 3 parts

Business Model Canvas

Part 1

Lean Startup

Part 1

Part 2

Customer Development

+

Lean Startup

Part 1

Agile Engineering

+

+

Part 2

Agile Engineering

Part 3

And Then Into Another Class

Engr 245: The Lean LaunchPad

Lean Startup


Lean Startup


Customer Development Agile Engineering+ +

Evidence-based Curriculum (NSF I-Corps/Lean LaunchPad)

Lean Startup




Hypotheses

Lean Startup




Hypotheses Experiments

Lean Startup




Hypotheses Experiments Data

Lean Startup





Mentors

Then It Turned Into Another Class

A Scientific Method For Entrepreneurship

LaunchPad Central Software

Lean Startup






DataDataData

Lean Startup





Weekly Progress


DataDataData

Lean Startup





Weekly Progress Experiment Scorecard

+


DataDataData

Lean Startup





Weekly Progress Experiment Scorecard

Data, Experiments, Trajectory, IRL

+ =

Cohort Leaderboard

Customer Interviews

Hypotheses to Test

Weekly Canvas Updates

Trained the Trainers

Added two More Schools

Taught by Takashi Tsutsumi @ Hosei

Co-taught with Murray Low @ Columbia Bob Dorf Co-taught with: Jon Feiber @ MDV

Taught by Jim Hornthal

And Four More SchoolsAdd 5-day version of the class

5-day Version

59

Put the class online150,000 students

Train 9 More Universities

Lean LaunchPad Educators Class

• Train educators each quarter

Lean Startup



64

QuestionWill this Work for Biotech?

Lean LaunchPad for Life Sciences

• Therapeutics• Diagnostics• Devices• Digital Health

66

Insight Commercialization in the 21st Century

National Science Foundation Commercialization Problem Prior to I-Corps

• Disparate centers– All thought their culture was different

– All had their own commercialization program

– No best practices

– No common training/education

– No common platform

– All had technology-centric focus

• No centralized leadership

68

Insight Technology Evidence but no Commercialization Evidence

69

Current Thinking about Translational Medicine

Research Performing InstitutionsTechnology

(diagnostic, device, therapeutic)

Solicit &Select

Develop Technology

Obtain AdditionalCapital

Research InstitutionsTechnology


Solicit & Select

Existing Company

New Company

Technology Development Process

RegulatoryIntellectual

Property

BusinessDevelopment

Project Management

Medical, Scientific, and Business Review

Licensing and Exit

Accepted

independent financing

Product Development

Additional Capital

Current Thinking about Translational Medicine

Mentors

71

InsightAdd a Formal Path for

Commercialization Evidence

physical space & equipment

seed $’s

MentorshipWorkshops/Webinars

Technology ProgressClinical Trials, etc.

CommercializationProgress

Accelerating Commercialization: – Requires Parallel Paths

Answers to Hypotheses are Outside The Lab

• You may be the smartest person in your lab• But you are not smarter than the collective

intelligence of your potential customers, partners, payers and regulators

• You can’t learn this by reading papers or listening to lectures

Need a process for hypotheses testing

74

InsightCommercialization Evidence

Require Outward Focus



Solicit & Select

Add Evidence-based Commercialization


Accepted

Additional Capital

Inward-facing



Solicit & Select



Accepted

Additional Capital

Reimburse-men

Partners

Customers (users, payers, etc.)

Commercialization Development

Process

Value Propositio

n

Distribution Channels

Add a parallel Commercialization

Process

Inward-facing Outward-facing

Research Performing InstitutionsTechnology


Solicit & Select



Accepted

Additional Capital Customers

Value Proposition

Channels

PartnersReimburse-

ment

Intellectual Property

Commercialization

Magnamosis

• Create a magnetic compression anastomosis with improved outcomes

• Team:– Michael Harrison, MD, Pediatric Surgeon– Elisabeth Leeflang, MD, General Surgery Resident– Michael Danty, MS, Business Development– Dillon Kwiat, BS, Medical Device Engineer

80

InsightWe Know How To Build

these Programs

The Tactics

• Organize P.I.’s into Commercialization Teams

• Offer a 10-week training program

• Get them out of the building

Framework = Business Model Canvas

Customers

Revenue

Partners

Activities

Resources

Costs

Channel

Get/Keep/Grow

Product /Service

Experiential

• Getting out of the building – 10-15 hours/weekly

• Formal methodology for customer interaction

• Focus on MVP and Pivots

Teams Present Results Weekly

Update Business Model Canvas Weekly

Use Canvas As a Weekly Scorecard

Week 2

Week 1

Week 3

87

Insight100% Visibility on Progress

LaunchPad Central

InsightPredication of Team Trajectory

88

• 17 out of 233 teams were identified as high performer teams from 10 NSF I-Corps 2012-13 cohorts

Evidence-Based Entrepreneurship

Signal: Customer Interviews

High Performers:• Interview ~ 2X more customers on average• Peak customer interviews during week 4

Average Customer Interviews Per Week

Week Week

Inte

rvie

ws

Increased Focus On Testing Customer Segment Hypotheses

High Performance Teams demonstrate significant cadence by mid-point (week 4)

• The highest number of hypotheses invalidation occurs in week 4

• The highest number of customer interviews occur in week 4

• High performance teams maintain a relentless pace of customer interviews reaching 50% of 100 interviews goal by week 4

Average Customer Interviews by WeekWeeks

Inte

rvie

ws

Average Mentor Interactions

Enga

gem

ents

Weeks

Mentor Engagement

Top Performers:• Engage with mentors often compared to average teams

Average Faculty Interactions

Enga

gem

ents

Weeks

Instructor Engagement

Top Performers:• Engage with instructors early and often compared to average teams

95

InsightsNational Science Foundation

Innovation Corps

I-Corps – Insights

• It’s not just about the science– Technology and commercialization progress require

separate processes– PI’s can’t figure out commercialization sitting in their labs– Technology mentorship is part of the process but it’s

insufficient– You can’t outsource commercialization to a proxy

(consultants, market researchers, etc.)

Outward-Facing Commercialization & Translational Medicine

• Getting out of the building is a big idea

• It accelerates speed of translation

• It makes our national research enormously more efficient

NSF Commercialization SolutionI-Corps

• One commercialization program– Common Platform– Centralized Leadership

• Best practices– Disruptive idea – Lean/Evidence-based– Common training/education– Consistent evaluation criteria

• Nodes not centers– Linkages between nodes

NSF I-Corps Results

• Early evidence of success in SBIR Phase I funding

– 18% of teams who did not take the class

– 60% of teams who did take the class

NSF Program Outcomes

• Scientists & Engineers trained as Entrepreneurs

– pass on their knowledge to students

• Network of Mentors/Advisors

• Increased impact of NSF-funded basic research

Evidence-Based Entrepreneurship

• What we now know

– Commercialization must be a parallel track

– Effort must be experiential (No Proxies)

– New metrics allow for rational discussion

– IT Platform provides tracking capacity:

Continuous improvement

Not About Picking the Winners

• Enable lots of low cost experiments

• Kill the Losers

• Double down on the ones that show progress

103

InsightWill it Work for SynBio?

Early Stage Therapeutic Myths

The Idea is KeyBetter ideas create value

Funding GapEarly Stage

Investment as a market failure

Data Quality Findings in preclinical

research are often not reproducible

[email protected]







[email protected]

The real gap is the expertise to move early stage research toward industrial relevance


[email protected]



Data addressing keydevelopment criteria


[email protected]





Clear path to modifying a disease


[email protected]





Clear path to modifying a disease



Operational plan justifying investment

109

SummaryWill it Work for SynBio?

110

SummaryWill it Work for SynBio?

Yes

“God is not on the side of the big arsenals, but on the side of those who shoot best.”

Voltaire

112

Thanks

More info at www.steveblank.com

The Lean LaunchPad for BiotechSteve Blank

@sgblank

www.steveblank.com

synbio london 040214

Education

agile development model

scalable business model

parts business model

customer development

unknown business models

existing companies

temporary organization

series of untested hypotheses