bioentrepreneurship seminar at karolinska university - james gupta & omair vaiyani from mycqs

Karolinska Institutet!Entrepreneurship Seminar

Plan •  Background & Introduction •  Stories

–  Part 1: Framing The Problem –  Part 2: Thinking Differently

•  Being a scientist entrepreneur: what are the disadvantages, what are the advantages? Why should people do it in the first place

•  #innovation, #thinking, #entrepreneur, #scientist –  Part 3: Finding and Validating an Idea

•  How we came up with the idea for MyCQs after coming across a problem in our day to day life and looking for a better alternative. #ideation, #brainstorming

–  Part 4: Growing & Scaling your Idea (JG) •  Key Messages •  Q&A / Discussion

@mycqs | @gupta_james | @omairvaiyani

Who Are We?


James Background

•  Medical student, Leeds University •  Studying MSc Health Informatics •  Formerly Chief Technical Officer at JumpIn, a

student taxi booking and sharing app •  Currently Chief Executive Officer at MyCQs •  Director for Doctorpreneurs •  Innovator for Fourmore

•  @gupta_james on Twitter


JumpIn


Omair Background

•  Medical student, Leeds University •  Studying MSc Health Informatics •  Currently Chief Technical Officer at MyCQs •  Advisor for the UK Medical Students’ Assoc •  Technical lead for InnovateHealth UK •  Innovator for Fourmore

•  @omairvaiyani on Twitter


Omair / UKMSA


Medics Handbook

#1 Medical App On Android

4 days aAer release

Omair / InnovateHealth UK


+


GenderedReacEons.com @GenderMedKI

What is MyCQs?


Framing The Problem Story 1

Don’t set out to start a company, aim to solve a problem


“If I had an hour to solve a problem I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions”

- Albert Einstein

Framing The Problem


Framing The Problem


80% of students study by

re-reading chapters of a textbook until they memorise it

MetacogniEve strategies in student learning: Do students pracEse retrieval when they study on their own?, Butler et al 2008.

99% of students study by cramming information in the days leading

up to an exam

The Stats Framing The Problem

Framing The Problem


“Learning is deeper and more durable when it’s effortful. Learning that’s easy is like writing in the

sand, here today and gone tomorrow.

We are poor judges of when we are learning well and when we’re not

When the going is harder and slower and it

doesn’t feel productive, we are drawn to strategies that feel more fruitful, unaware that the gains from these strategies are often temporary”

Framing The Problem


Evidence Based Learning

•  Meaningful learning requires effort, not just time. •  Effective techniques challenge you mentally,

forcing your brain to encode, consolidate and retrieve information in a range of different ways

Framing The Problem

The Problem Revisited

•  Students are defaulting to ‘easy’ study methods

•  Unaware of better alternatives

•  Effective methods require more effort and take longer to see results

Framing The Problem


Encourage students to become ac#ve agents in their own learning, instead of being passive receivers of informaEon.

The Solution Framing The Problem


Developing an Entrepreneurial Mindset Story 2

The importance of acquiring knowledge and culEvaEng creaEvity


Q: Which is more powerful?

And why?

Developing an Entrepreneurial Mindset


How did we figure this out?

Chance? Trial and error?

+ =



“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something.”

- Steve Jobs, Wired 1996



Chance?

Trial and Error?



•  In pure trial and error, you’d have to try millions of different things – Try a different brand of toothpaste? – More toothpaste, less toothpaste? – Warm the toothpaste first? What temperature? – Combine the toothpaste with something else?

•  Expertise in a field greatly narrows the spectrum by excluding things that definitely won’t work


Connecting the Dots

Buffer, The Secret to CreaEvity, Intelligence and ScienEfic Thinking


The human brain is a connector Developing an Entrepreneurial Mindset


We’re wired to see meaning and patterns

(even when they aren’t there!) Liu et al, Seeing Jesus in toast: Neural and behavioral correlates of face pareidolia


Strawberries are soA

Straws are hard



GamificaEon

Mobile technology

Personalised Content

Spaced RepeEEon

Peer learning

Crowdsourcing Social

Networking


MyCQs

“What I cannot create, I do not understand” – Richard Feynman, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1965



A Scientific Degree teaches…

•  Technical knowledge of your domain •  How to critically analyse data and interpret

evidence •  Intellectual discipline

Highly valuable in business



Forbes 100 CEOs

Forbes, DNA Of Fortune 100 CEOs


Low Hanging Fruit & Barriers to Entry



“The future belongs to those who learn more skills and combine them in creative ways”

- Robert Greene, Mastery



Medicine Technology

Enterprise

What we do Developing an Entrepreneurial Mindset


Medicine

Technology Enterprise

cool stuff!!



Key Point 1

Being a scien#st is about being analy%cal – gathering

deep knowledge and exper#se in a specific

domain

Being an entrepreneur is about being crea%ve, and combining knowledge from different fields in unique

ways



Q: What do you see? Developing an Entrepreneurial Mindset


Scientists & Entrepreneurs

The Great Divide?



“In order for us to truly create and contribute to the world, we have to be able to connect countless dots, to cross-pollinate ideas from a wealth of disciplines, to combine and recombine these pieces and build new castles”

- Maria Popova Brain Pickings, Networked Knowledge and Combinatorial CreaEvity



Collect as many dots as possible!

Buffer, The Secret to CreaEvity, Intelligence and ScienEfic Thinking



Key Point 2

Everything you learn about shapes the way you experience the world

Don’t s#ck rigidly to one

discipline: let your curiosity wonder and make

connec#ons



Some ideas… •  Programming

–  Lets you create from your bedroom! •  Neuroscience & Psychology

–  How people think •  Biology

–  Nature has been running experiments on what works for millions of years!*

•  Philosophy –  The foundation of all knowledge

•  History –  Ideas throughout time and drawing parallels to modern

life



Create a Stream of Great Content

Twitter •  Use it! •  Follow interesting people from various fields •  Custom, curated newsfeed for your

interests •  ‘At a glance’ Others: Feedly, Pocket etc



Key Points •  Scientists have great domain knowledge of

complex fields ripe for innovation •  They also have good ability to interpret data

critically •  Now you need to focus on letting yourself think

creatively as well as analytically •  This means feeding your mind with knowledge

from other fields – giving yourself a unique filter to experience the world through

•  Once you do this you’ll see things other people don’t



The Startup Cycle Part 3

Start up. Cash in. Sell out. Bro down


The Startup Cycle


Early screening

•  CompeEtor analysis •  Who else is in the market •  How successful are they •  How their idea/service/product differs

•  No compeEtors? •  WHY?! •  Quit while you’re ahead •  Or seize the gap

The Startup Cycle


Lone wolf or The Startup Cycle


Fail fast

Headd, B. Redefining Business Success: DisEnguishing Between Closure and Failure, 2002 # Shane, S. Startup Failure Rates – The Real Numbers, 2008 Phillips & Kirchhoff. Small Business: CriEcal PerspecEves

The Startup Cycle

Disprove inferiority The Startup Cycle


Aim to disrupt The Startup Cycle


“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses”

- Henry Ford


The Startup Cycle

How did we do this? The Startup Cycle

Passive Feedback The Startup Cycle


Ac#ve Feedback Q: How do you study at present?

“Lots of reading from textbooks”

“Repeat until I can write out the whole doc. Do absolutely no

revision for anything the day before an exam.”

“Everything as it helps prevent boredom”

Source: MyCQs Survey of 25 students, August 2014

The Startup Cycle

Market Research

Source: MyCQs Survey of 25 students, August 2014

The Startup Cycle

Compe#tors

•  Found many offering aspects of MyCQs •  Social/Peer-‐to-‐Peer •  Quiz creaEon •  Good User Interface

•  None covered all areas -‐> Gap in the market

The Startup Cycle


Trend analysis

•  Monitor updates •  Adapt to changes

Site update, bounce rate down from 70% to 10%

The Startup Cycle


Trend analysis The Startup Cycle


Remaining ahead of the curve

•  Spaced-‐repeEEon •  Personalized learning

The Startup Cycle


Hype Cycles The Startup Cycle


Scaling your Idea Part 4


So…

•  You’ve come up with an idea that adds value to your life

•  You’ve tested it and are reasonably sure it can add value to other people too

•  How can you develop this idea and spread it to as many people as possible?

Scaling your Idea


Scaling requires money! Scaling your Idea


Instagram Scaling your Idea


Hockey Stick growth Scaling your Idea


Hockey Stick growth

Costs far outweigh revenue

Scaling your Idea


Downloads

When we first launched, 8 downloads a day at £2 Made it free one day…

Scaling your Idea


Downloads Scaling your Idea

13,000 downloads from people all over the world!


Scaling your Idea


User Demographics

45% 18-‐24 – students 27% 25-‐34 – postgraduates, professionals

Scaling your Idea


Viral Growth Scaling your Idea


Where is your business value?

Value Network

Content

Revenue

Partnerships

Team

Brand

SoAware

Scaling your Idea


Currently valued at $40 billion

hsp://www.cnbc.com/id/102243201#

Why?

Scaling your Idea


Currently valued at $40 billion

Why?

Scaling your Idea

Value Network

Content

Revenue

Partnerships

Team

Brand

SoAware


“If we can get you a car in five minutes, we can get you anything in five minutes”

- Travis Kalanick, CEO of Uber

Scaling your Idea


Investment

Funders & Founders, How Funding Works

Scaling your Idea

Main Types of Investment •  Friends & Family

–  Easy to get in the beginning –  May cause tensions

•  Angel Investors –  Add experience you may not have –  Can help open doors and make connections

•  Venture Capitalists –  Expect high returns –  Step in clauses

•  Crowdfunding –  Emerging model –  Can be very good for some businesses


MyCQs Investment

•  £5,000 (50,000 SEK) in grants so far – University – Education Technology charity

•  Bootstrapping has let us get unusually far by ourselves

•  Skipping angel investors, looking for VC investment ~£250,000 (2.5M SEK)

•  BUT…


“How will you balance running a business with your degree?”


Continuity Plan

Phase 1 • Feb-‐Sept 2015

Phase 2 • Sept 2015 – June 2017

Phase 3 • June 2017 – 2019


Summary


Part 1: Framing the Problem

•  Framing the problem accurately is vital for finding a solution

•  Conduct surveys, look for existing data online

•  Read around your subject •  Qualitative AND quantitative both helpful


Part 2: Developing an Entrepreneurial Mindset

•  Your scientific background is immensely valuable in business

•  Cultivate your creativity by learning about a range of different fields

•  Allow your mind to make connections in unique ways


Part 3: Finding and Validating Your Idea

•  Fail fast: test your riskiest assumptions first and modify your business plan as appropriate

•  Constantly test various aspects of your product and monitor the results

•  Stay ahead of the curve!


Part 4: Growing your Business

•  Bootstrapping can be a great way to retain control of your business

•  You don’t need to think about monetisation right from the start, but do start to test different models out and consider where your business value comes from

•  Start to plan investment early: can take 6-12 months to secure

•  Choose investment that suits your business


Final Words

•  Hard work, but a lot of fun! •  You get to be your own boss, have freedom

to do what you want •  But a lot of responsibility!!

•  Scientist-Entrepreneurs is a growing movement!

Helpful Resources


Organisations

•  Doctorpreneurs (doctorpreneurs.com) – Resources, support and events for medics &

scientists interested in enterprise •  Fourmore (fourmore.eu)

– Mobile hackathon / think tank that takes people from a wide range of backgrounds and puts them in a team to work on healthcare problems

•  Kairos Society (kairossociety.org) –  International network of young entrepreneurs

interested in healthcare, education and clean technology.


Websites

•  Buffer Blog (blog.bufferapp.com) – Buffer is a social media management startup, they

publish a lot of amazing blog posts on creativity, entreprenership etc, well worth a read!

•  GrowthHackers (growthhackers.com) – Community articles on startups, growth, enterprise

etc •  Reddit Startups (reddit.com/r/startups)

– Active community of entrepreneurs •  VentureBeat (www.venturebeat.com)

– Great, well respected authority on enterprise related topics


Books Enterprise & Startups •  The Lean Startup, Eric Ries •  Mastery, Robert Greene

Healthcare •  The Innovator’s Prescription, Clayton Christensen •  The Checklist Manifesto, Atul Gawande •  The Rise and Fall of Modern Medicine, James Le Fanu Neuroscience & Psychology •  Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning, Peter Brown •  Blink, Malcolm Gladwell


Podcasts

•  The Joe Rogan Podcast – Not business related but a huge range of guests

from fields such as neuroscience, history, cognitive psychology etc giving overviews of their work in a very accessible way

•  Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History – Key events and movements in history brought to

life and their relevance to modern day examined by a self-proclaimed ‘amateur historian’

•  Entrepreneurs Only by Experience Ambition – Relatively new podcast consisting of interviews with

entrepreneurs in different fields.


Articles

•  Finding Your Niche (James Gupta) •  What researchers who want to be

entrepreneurs need to know •  The Biomedical Dropout Club •  Why I encourage students to create

startups •  The Secret to Creativity, Intelligence and

Scientific Thinking: Being able to make connections



Cliché, but True!

Slides bit.ly/ki_careers_mycqs

MyCQs

mycqs.com !@mycqs

QuesEons, Comments?

Follow James on Twiser @gupta_james or email him

[email protected]

Follow Omair on Twiser @omairvaiyani or email him

[email protected]

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