Over the last 20 years I have been a scientist, entrepreneur, consultant and investor. The journey from the lab bench to business has been exciting and here I write about what I learned.
Founder mindset
Introduction Research is all about the search for knowledge and insight. Many PhD students in the natural sciences believe that they need an MBA or years of experience in industry to successfully start a company. But in my opinion, this is not true: scientists inherently bring a variety of skills
Founder mindset
In 2010, I decided not to pursue an academic career, but to become an entrepreneur. And I hope that more academics, PhD students and postdocs will at least seriously consider this career path. However, this blog post is not intended to be a blunt call to action for prospective science
In 2018, I decided to call my blog "Try Fail Learn Repeat". Back then, the use of terms such as "F***-up Nights", "Fail fast" and similar terms was still largely limited to the startup ecosystem and was only slowly finding its way into
Startup & entrepreneurship
One thing I've missed in my 10+ years of building Labforward is having enough time to reflect. I started this blog in 2018 to condense and structure a few experiences while writing. However, there was so much to do in 2019 and 2020 that blogging took a back
Books for founders
Did you already make the resolution to more read in 2019, but still have no idea what to read? Here my reading list of non-fiction books for 2019. Maybe it contains some interesting reads for you as well. I usually chose pretty spontaneously what I wanted to read next. But
Books for founders
The best way to understand Cal Newport’s concept of “Deep Work”, is to what “shallow work” looks like. Shallow work is characterized by checking your email and social media all the time, clicking through news websites, days full of meetings, being responsive to every request. In short: It is
Team & organization
Finding the right co-founder for a start-up is hard enough. The functioning of a partnership depends essentially on with how much equity the co-founder is involved in it. Because after all, it is the ownership of equity that matters to a founder. When we founded labfolder, we were three co-founders.
Product & technology
Most people are still sceptical about Blockchain, and to them, the talk about the "Blockchain Revolution" or "the new Internet" is just a means to further hype cryptocurrencies. However, laboratories, research and development, pharma, chemistry and biotech should look into the topic, because the technology of
Business model & financing
Investor Materials #1: To get in touch with investors is easy, providing them with the right material at the right time and keeping the conversation going is hard. To get in touch with VCs, you do not need large network. Your network will grow over time. What does not grow
Business model & financing
Investor material #2: The Pitch Deck is the first thing most investors see of your company. Let me point out right away: With beautiful slides alone you’re not going to win anyone, it will only cost only time and effort when you have great slides but nothing underneath, so
Founder mindset
About my motivation to write. Why I’m doing I'm doing it now and about the topics that I’m (probably) going to write about. First of all, a confession: I've always written things. My diary - sometimes more, sometimes less intense; Short stories, but not