shrls

Last Thursday (May 13^th), the Chairman of InSITE, Paul Tumpowsky, gave a talk at the New York Academy of Sciences’ “Scientific Mindset in the Business World” event. There were roughly 60 scientists (Masters/PhDs in medicine and research) in the audience with a handful of InSITE fellows sprinkled throughout. The purpose of the talk was to bridge and explore the connection between science and business. The word count in the presentation was minimal but I was sitting at the edge of my chair for the next clever picture to illustrate his point.

Paul’s Presentation

Paul’s presentation was focused on the lessons of being an entrepreneur. He started by talking about the importance of building a strong/diverse team, which is one of the reasons that he’s giving the presentation (more on that later). He emphasized the value of achieving the balance between having micro and macro perspective as a scientist. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the complexity and details, but taking a step back to look at the bigger picture will make you a better scientist.

For the rest of the evening, Paul talked about the key to starting a successful business – execution. The world is littered with good ideas that are executed poorly. Not only do you need to have a good idea, but you need to get the right team and the funding to execute on it. And most importantly, you need to make sure that there is a market out there that wants your product. He talked at length about the risk versus reward concept of being an entrepreneur. There’s no doubt that you’re taking a major risk by being an entrepreneur and the pressure is very different than working for a large corporation – but the reward, both financially and personally, can make it worthwhile. He ended this part of the presentation with a picture of ET to illustrate that it’s okay to be different from those around you.

Interest Expressed

Most of us in the business world have heard these lessons before, but the Scientists in the room were engaged and hanging on Paul’s every word. To practice what he’s preaching about building diverse teams, Paul talked about InSITE and how the fellowship wants to expand beyond the current Business School and Law School students.

He couldn’t get through the overview without a dozen hands waving in the air with questions. The fellows there, Katherine Chung (InSITE President), Rich Powell (former InSITE President), Mike Katz, Alex Shellhammer, Sean Weinstock, Lee Drucker, and myself (Shirley Xu) were on hand to mingle and answer more questions after the presentation. Each of us were surrounded by these smart and inquisitive students who wanted to know more about how they can be more involved with startups and InSITE.

There’s a lot of discussion in the media about the lack of technology startup heroes for aspiring entrepreneurs to look up to in NYC. These guys have even fewer. One thing that we kept hearing was that despite the presence of outstanding research and science institutions in NYC (NYU, Columbia, Cornell, etc.), there are very few successful startups in science/medicine here in NYC. A ton of research is done in and around these institutions, but the companies end up leaving and going somewhere else to start businesses for many reasons. The capital for these projects is in Boston, Research Triangle, and California. NYC isn’t exactly the best place to build entrepreneurial research facilities due to costs combined with the uncertainty of regulation.

This event showed us that there’s no lack of interest in entrepreneurship from the science community. They need to be provided with opportunities and inspiration to explore those interests. Next year, we hope to include a few fellows from non-Business/Law Schools in NYC to bridge the gap between science/engineering and business/law. It is a much needed connection.

Shirley Xu
May 18, 2010