
Ask HN: Starting a Science-Focused Startup - ablekh
I certainly have my own thoughts on the topic (based on my experience). However, I would like to hear opinions, experiences, best practices and lessons learned from other people, especially those who have gone through starting and&#x2F;or working at science-focused startups.<p>Brief background. I&#x27;ve been planning to start a science-focused startup for quite a long time. I think that I&#x27;ve reached the point when it is feasible for me (still need more time to crystallize and clearly formulate important aspects to myself). The eventual product would be delivered a SaaS platform with baked-in secret sauce as unique selling proposition and a core strategy focused on differentiation as a competitive advantage (I know the competition pretty well). Potential customers will include teams or organizations in academia (universities), industry (mostly commercial companies) and government (national labs). The platform&#x27;s core users would be researchers and engineers in a specific, but very large and diverse, domain (the latter presents both challenges and opportunities).<p>Please share your thoughts on the following specific areas of interest:<p>- hiring &#x2F; team formation;<p>- funding (I want to go - at least initially - the SBIR&#x2F;STTR route [I have experience of working on proposals, including for NSF] or, if that fails, bootstrapping; I&#x27;m not a fan of rapid&#x2F;hyper&#x2F;blitz-scaling and, as a consequence, VC funding, unless it&#x27;s absolutely necessary);<p>- co-founder relations, company culture (e.g., full transparency a la Buffer or not);<p>- advisor relations;<p>- IP (e.g., trade secrets vs. patents - I&#x27;m leaning toward preferring the former);<p>- technology stacks &#x2F; cloud &#x2F; platform architecture (e.g., multi-tenant vs. multi-instance, APIs - REST vs. GraphQL, Kubernetes);<p>- platform adoption (I want to growth organically, with a minimal sales team);<p>- strategy (business models, competition, marketing, pricing).<p>Your feedback will be much appreciated!
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RichSadowsky
Although not specifically focused on science-based startup, I cover some good
stuff here (I know you've seen this already). Beyond this I would like to
reach out and discuss this more directly with you. While working at Affectiva
where I was the 7th employee I cowrote an SBIR we submitted to the NSF and
were awarded the grant. It was the one and only SBIR I've ever wrote. It
helped a lot that I had Professor/Dr. Rosalind Picard, PhD from MIT and Rana
el Kaliouby, MIT Media Lab researcher and now CEO of Affectiva as coauthors!
I'm a serial early stage startup guy typically taking either CTO or chief
architect/head of engineering-type roles. I've also managed patent program for
both small startups and for Symantec in the 1990s where I was a charter member
of the patent committee. Of course they are just one method of intellectual
property protection and seem to be falling out of favor in many startups. More
comments through a more direct, and perhaps less public channel
[https://www.quora.com/What-do-the-companies-that-retain-
thei...](https://www.quora.com/What-do-the-companies-that-retain-their-
employees-and-keep-them-happy-and-loyal-do-differently-than-other-
corporations/answer/Rich-
Sadowsky?__nsrc__=4&__snid3__=4039819175&comment_id=88116208&comment_type=2)

perhaps writing to me at my personal email rsadowsky@gmail.com is a good way
to set up a way to talk more

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ablekh
Rich, thank you for taking time to comment. It is somewhat generic (others:
feel free to offer more specific insights), however, it is totally
understandable. I very much appreciate your interest. Will continue our
conversation via e-mail.

