4 ms·

my background is in biotech and i've worked at a small handful of biotech startups in a scientific capacity. here's my advice: unless you have friends who can

my background is in biotech and i've worked at a small handful of biotech startups in a scientific capacity. here's my advice: unless you have friends who can set you up with the right VCs and ensure that they will be willing to overlook your lack of experience and IP, don't bother. you're not going to get up to speed working in the lab on your own in any short amount of time. learning the theoretical stuff that you need to know won't take long, but you probably won't understand how to use the theory to make something novel until you've spent time in the lab. and you won't know how to vet the ideas of people with phds, either. then there's the elephant in the room: risk. biotech is extremely risky because drug development is difficult even under ideal conditions. making "niche drugs" is even more difficult than making drugs for the mainstream because niche diseases won't have as much of the scientific background already researched when you sit down to try to come up with a useful therapy concept. if you want to talk in more depth about the skills which are actually needed to get into the field in a scientific or a business capacity, i've advised someone who reached out to me here on HN about that exact topic in the past, and i'm more than happy to discuss it with you via email. check out my profile if you're interested.

cft 7y ago
But here's the question: maybe you can become a provider of highly optimized big data processing or data visualization software, without deep knowledge in biology?
- cryoshon 7y ago
  you probably can, but it's hard to know what will be in demand without doing a lot of customer interviews with the people who would need your service.
  - cft 7y ago
    Where is the best place to meet the right people? I talked to my friend (PhD) and she explained the process of conversion from Illumina file formats all the way to numpy , but I would love to know more.
    - cryoshon 7y ago
      boston is the best place to meet people in biotech. more specifically, it depends on the kind of data product you're trying to make. there are a plethora of networking events for biotech in the area, and a lot of the local nonprofit institutions will have valuable people for you to meet as well.
unearthed 7y ago
Why are Phds so cheap to hire if their skills are so valueable?
- sansnomme 7y ago
  There is not enough demand (and relatively large amount of supply). Biotech isn't like software where it adds immediate value. There are hoops to jump through (unless you are only doing it to cure a disease affecting yourself). The liability is high if things fail. People have accepted bugs as part of computing, they are not so generous when it comes to civil engineering, and even less so when it comes to the life sciences. And most importantly, too many wannabe researchers and not enough money to go around. To use an analogy, game developers. Plenty of supply because of everyone wants to be game developers. The work is difficult, pay is bad, work-life balance non-existent. Not to mention the economics are brutal. Are individual game developers valuable? Certainly. Are they cheap too? Yes. The problem is structural (big AAA firms as gatekeepers on the high end, tremendous amount of competition on the indie end). The problem with Bio/Med/Pharma is also structural. Med school supply is capped by forces like professional associations (fancier terms for doctor unions/lobbies), hospital supply is also capped by the similar forces, with perhaps some contributions by the pharma industry. As for pharma, I think enough people has complained about it that it's not worth elaborating here. There has never been a shortage in bio talent or consumer demand. The bottleneck is due regulatory and policy reasons. HN treats computing and software like how certain groups treats guns. This is the exception not the norm. Most other industries have tremendous oversight/interference by authorities that the move fast break things method is difficult to apply. In practically any other field, the barrier of entry is artificially high and information is locked-in, not open and shared. Imagine if you create a new Kubernetes load balancer and to get it deployed you need to have it "approved and certified". You pay perhaps 4 figures to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation who is "accredited" by the Association for Computing Machinery to certify software. Sounds ridiculous? This is the way of life for practically everything that is not generic software (embedded automobile/medical/aerospace software is the exception) Need a leftpad library? Be prepared to discuss licensing for "intellectual property". No fixed pricing on page, a salesperson will contact you and negotiate.
- refurb 7y ago

cft 7y ago

But here's the question: maybe you can become a provider of highly optimized big data processing or data visualization software, without deep knowledge in biology?

cryoshon 7y ago
you probably can, but it's hard to know what will be in demand without doing a lot of customer interviews with the people who would need your service.
- cft 7y ago
  Where is the best place to meet the right people? I talked to my friend (PhD) and she explained the process of conversion from Illumina file formats all the way to numpy , but I would love to know more.
  - cryoshon 7y ago
    boston is the best place to meet people in biotech. more specifically, it depends on the kind of data product you're trying to make. there are a plethora of networking events for biotech in the area, and a lot of the local nonprofit institutions will have valuable people for you to meet as well.

unearthed 7y ago

Why are Phds so cheap to hire if their skills are so valueable?

sansnomme 7y ago
There is not enough demand (and relatively large amount of supply). Biotech isn't like software where it adds immediate value. There are hoops to jump through (unless you are only doing it to cure a disease affecting yourself). The liability is high if things fail. People have accepted bugs as part of computing, they are not so generous when it comes to civil engineering, and even less so when it comes to the life sciences. And most importantly, too many wannabe researchers and not enough money to go around. To use an analogy, game developers. Plenty of supply because of everyone wants to be game developers. The work is difficult, pay is bad, work-life balance non-existent. Not to mention the economics are brutal. Are individual game developers valuable? Certainly. Are they cheap too? Yes. The problem is structural (big AAA firms as gatekeepers on the high end, tremendous amount of competition on the indie end). The problem with Bio/Med/Pharma is also structural. Med school supply is capped by forces like professional associations (fancier terms for doctor unions/lobbies), hospital supply is also capped by the similar forces, with perhaps some contributions by the pharma industry. As for pharma, I think enough people has complained about it that it's not worth elaborating here. There has never been a shortage in bio talent or consumer demand. The bottleneck is due regulatory and policy reasons. HN treats computing and software like how certain groups treats guns. This is the exception not the norm. Most other industries have tremendous oversight/interference by authorities that the move fast break things method is difficult to apply. In practically any other field, the barrier of entry is artificially high and information is locked-in, not open and shared. Imagine if you create a new Kubernetes load balancer and to get it deployed you need to have it "approved and certified". You pay perhaps 4 figures to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation who is "accredited" by the Association for Computing Machinery to certify software. Sounds ridiculous? This is the way of life for practically everything that is not generic software (embedded automobile/medical/aerospace software is the exception) Need a leftpad library? Be prepared to discuss licensing for "intellectual property". No fixed pricing on page, a salesperson will contact you and negotiate.
refurb 7y ago