Too cold to shoot outdoors?
Every now and then I shoot short videos with (I hope!) useful content. I like to shoot outside. I live in upstate New York. It can get chilly.
This one is about the fourth Value Signal - the company founder. Maybe that's you?
The Overworked Owner in Boom Times
Life sciences services companies are experiencing an unprecedented boom. Revenues during 2020 were up 15-20% during a pandemic, and more is expected in 2021.
Covid-19 directly contributed to some companies who were directly supplying research, manufacturing, or supply chain needs. But the pandemic had an even greater indirect contribution: it validated the critical importance of the distributed R&D ecosystem that has developed in the last 35-40 years.
If you participate in...
Two Business Units in One
Analyzing the performance of individual business segments can be tough, especially if - like most owners - you're used to thinking of the business as a whole.
A contract R&D lab had a federal and state registration that allowed them to work with Scheduled Drugs in categories 2-5. They worked with clients developing controlled substances in classes like painkillers and stimulants, and these projects contributed about 10-12% of their gross revenues.
Based on the...
Is It All You? Using Value Signals
The Right Team
Are You Using Your Comparative Advantage?
David Ricardo (that’s him in the picture) was a member of the British Parliament in 1817 when he developed a concept that is inherently counterintuitive: that countries engage in international trade for goods, even when a country can and does produce all the needed goods more efficiently, at less cost than their trading partners.
Even if you can make everything yourself, it still benefits you economically to sell some goods and buy others. In effect, specializing...
You’re the Expert, not the Accountant. What Financial Data Should You Watch?
A friend of mine was hired as the first outside CEO of a 30 year old family run business. When he took over he asked reasonable questions about inventory turnover, returns on key accounts, asset value, and so on. They didn’t have any information and referred my friend to the accountant. It turns out that for years the only numbers the family tracked were year-end revenue and profit, and these were reported with the tax filings: five months after every...
Create a Sales Process
Watched the video? Let's set up a call to discuss how you can get started.
Running a scientific company is difficult.
Unlike a home business, your overhead is high because you need trained technicians, expensive instruments, and a dedicated place to put them.
As an Expert in your field, you probably knew a few people who became your customers when you started up.
So you had some revenue quickly, and you’ve been able to find some more - otherwise you’d be out of...
Should You Promote or Fire Yourself?
In the popular business book “The E-Myth Revisited”, Michael Gerber says that every business owner is really three people: the Technician, the Manager, and the Entrepreneur.
I often use the term “Expert” to define the scientists I work with who have deep technical knowledge, the quintessential Technicians – who founded the business to deliver value to customers that only they can deliver.
Are you buried in the Technician role?
...
Where is the Road Map?
Where is the road map for a scientist to build a profitable business, build a team and scale up without burning out?
Your scientific training is a great foundation for building on your expertise, developing a contract services, supply, or consulting business. You have the valuable skills of analysis, information sourcing, research, problem solving and the mind-set of objectivity and skepticism.
This means instant credibility and the ability to quickly gauge the credibility of others.
You...
