Big Problems, Big Business?
Well, I actually followed up with another post! They say there’s a first time for everything and, given my track record of fizzled-out attempts to sprinkle a bit of wisdom around, it seems like the blogosphere and I are finally clicking. Sidenote: I’ve heard “blogging” might not be the trendiest term for what I’m doing here anymore. But hey, I recently turned 27, and I’ve decided to embrace it and forge my own path. 😎
So what else is new?
Two weeks ago, I was still riding my high from visiting Geneva (and from the nasal spray I was taking for my flu…). As I slowly settle back into the groovy rhythm of the academic year, I realize things have shifted almost seismically from where I was last October. A year ago, I was feverishly working on a grant proposal and persuading my department to greenlight my dissertation project. With the grant money in hand, everything is a bit relaxed this time around and I am able to more deeply focus on my doctorate and — most crucially for this blog — dive head first into the world of academic entrepreneurship.
As I mentioned towards the end of my last post, I have joined a motivational program for young entrepreneurs called Podnikni to!. My Czech friends surely appreciate the pun. Spanning eight weeks, this initiative recruits students from Czech universities and mentors them through the foundational stages of launching a business. The main goal of the program is to show participants that anyone can be an entrepreneur, regardless of background, experience, or their field of studies.
Being an Entrepreneur is Problematic… I think?
The first session of our program sidestepped the customary icebreakers, personal backstories, and light-hearted trivia. An individual inclined to bad puns might say it was nothing personal, just business. We launched directly into the heart of the matter: What, exactly, is entrepreneurship? While I cannot speak for my colleagues, I was myself pleasantly stumped by this question. Although I have entrepreneurs in my family, it was hard to find a common thread between their businesses. I was only sure of one thing — being an entrepreneur is pretty different from being an employee. While I was staring at the whiteboard trying to come up with an apt definition to dazzle my fellow students, our mentor Martin spared me the embarrassment:
Entrepreneurship is about solving other people’s problems and getting paid for it.
… Truth be told, I wasn’t all too happy with this definition at the time. In my notes, I wrote a distinctly sarcastic: Is that it?! It struck me as far too broad, simplistic, and well… unscientific. If that was it, basically anyone could become an entrepreneur! But as I mulled it over the past fifteen days, I do think that was rather the point. Anyone can do it. Heck, maybe some of us are nearly there already. Moreover, to my own astonishment the core functions of entrepreneurship — finding solutions to problems and getting paid for doing so — kinda sound like doing science, don’t they? (Except maybe for the whole getting paid part. But I should be the last one to complain.)
I began to wonder if launching a business is this straightforward, why dedicate seven more evenings discussing it with my peers? I can easily identify numerous issues all around me, so I’ve got the problem identification part nailed down, right? Perhaps I qualify for an accelerated course? However, as I soon learned, merely pinpointing a problem is not enough. If we want a business to be successful, other people must (a) find the problem important too, (b) be willing to pay us for solving it.
In that sense, doing science and doing business really do have a common core. Just the same way I was applying for funding a year ago, entrepreneurs invest endless hours researching ways to provide solutions to pressing problems — solutions that potential customers deem valuable enough to pay for. The issue in both cases is not really the problem itself, it’s gravity or magnitude. However large and important a problem might seem, what matters most is how people holding the purse strings perceive it — whether they are grant agencies, or customers.
Scientists and businesspeople alike get accused of dealing in minutia. Whether you are researching the diurnal feeding patterns in domestic fowls, or manufacturing single use cups, cutlery, and cartons, there will always be someone ready to scoff at your efforts. And that’s ok. Feedback, whether positive or negative, is how we grow. We should not hesitate to talk to others about our ideas and when constructive criticism comes our way, we ought to see it as an opportunity for improvement. Even if the criticism is not constructive, as long as we find an audience ready to read, learn, and act, or a customer willing to pay for our ingenious products, we can endure the slings and arrows.
Having said that; what problem can I solve and get paid for it?
What Bothers Me the Most
To transform a business idea into reality, we were introduced to the lean canvas tool. Being quite familiar with the business model canvas from my short trip to Switzerland and faintly remembering something similar from a management course I took two and a half years ago, I felt very comfortable taking the assignment home.
However, before starting on the canvas, I had to put my business idea into clearer terms. The first step was to find a problem to solve, so I asked myself: what bothers me the most? For a while now, I have been profoundly uneasy about one thing: can we really trust science? This might come off as a shocking sentiment from someone whose building a career in science. But whether you’ve read the fantastic book Science Fictions, or followed recent scandals surrounding Dan Ariely or the (ex-)president of Stanford, you may feel uneasy about the way science is done too.
What ties most scientific scandals together, and what ultimately deepens popular distrust of science, is the lack of rigor in the way research is carried out. It is my experience that when submitting a research project, we are most often asked for deliverables in the form of end products — a finished article, a conference poster, and the like. At most, some institutions (typically publishers) also request the research data. But all of this can be faked. At least in the humanities and social sciences, the research process documentation is seldom checked. In an ideal world, the whole process would be concisely summarized as part of the research article, often in a dreadfully boring methodology section, and peer reviewed. But is that enough?
Even if there was some unfortunate soul with enough time on their hands to go through your research notes line by line, many departments do not have specific requirements for researchers to keep notes in a standardized fashion. While we could tackle this problem through ethics courses, methodological training, and more university bureaucracy, I think there might be a simpler, automated solution.
It’s Like Git, but for Science, Bro!
If you have ever dabbled in computer programming, you know that coders use something called git, a version control system which allows users to track, manage, and collaborate on software projects. While I know there are definitely scientists who use git to manage their research, it is still not widespread enough in all corners of academia. While in the so-called “hard” sciences it might be more common, I suspect humanities scholars and social scientists have barely heard of it. Git is still too techy, to coder specific to be adopted by researchers at large. Yet its functions are exactly what the doctor ordered. Not only does it allow us to track our project very accurately, it also gives us the opportunity to prove consistent incremental work is being carried out. In other words, with git, it is exponentially harder to wing it and make up research notes post factum.
My business idea, that I will develop within the coming weeks, is for a version control system that would be specifically designed for research purposes. Using the system, the researcher uploads their research notes to a repository. Inside the app, the notes get tagged with indelible metadata documenting the author, timestamp, length of the document etc. And while the contents remain encrypted from unauthorized users, the text is processed by the application and summarized, so that it is auditable without compromising the contents itself. This processing would be done locally to ensure maximum confidentiality.
After this local processing, all of the metadata (including the textual summary) is uploaded to a cloud server, where it cannot be manipulated further. This serves to protect the integrity of the data. With notes and metadata now linked to a researcher’s identity (via institutional logins and such), verifying the work becomes much more straightforward. Instead of sifting through research notes, accurate summaries are readily available for project supervisors, university research boards, or funding agencies.
Regardless of the specific note-taking software utilized by the researcher, we extract actionable metadata and make it available to those overseeing the research project, advancing the assurance of its quality.
It’s a Start, Anyway
It took me a while, but I got there in the end. I’ve got a problem, a solution, and a potential market. The good and bad thing is that this is only the beginning. As I am writing this, I’ve got six more weeks of entrepreneurship training left. And come to think of it, about a decade of coding before I have a usable product. I am still not sure whether anyone would use this kind of software, or whether they would be willing to pay for it. But I am very glad I have the opportunity to pursue this. It is about the journey, after all.
If you’ve read so far, I have one more chore for you. Tell me, would you be interested in my product? I am very much looking forward to your feedback!
