BioCoder #7

Chapter 5. Biotech Startup Advice: How to Reduce Costs, Save Time, and Increase Happiness

Tom Ruginis

Running an Efficient Lab

You’ve been funded, and now it’s time to build a company. Yay! You might be starting with $25,000, $100,000, or $1.2 million. Whatever it is, you’ll be spending 12–30% on lab supplies and equipment. Do you want to manage this complicated process? A startup called HappiLabs created the Virtual Lab Manager to help.

We specialize in the management of purchasing and finances for scientific research labs. Many biotech founders with a science background come from academia, where there is an absence of finance education. How are scientists expected to manage large amounts of money with no training? Accounting, negotiating prices, and purchasing is handled by the university or seasoned lab manager, which makes life easy.

Welcome to startup land...where you’re on your own. Your team is now responsible for purchasing, negotiating, accounting, and building a relationship with suppliers for plates, PCR tubes, reagents, antibodies, media, pipette tips, and the list goes on.

Your startup will create accounts with at least 15 suppliers, and someone will be responsible for interacting with sales and customer service reps. Twenty-two minutes here and 8 minutes there, company time will be lost as you obtain pricing information, place orders, and follow up on shipping estimates (ETAs). Expect every order to consume at least 35 minutes of your time, broken up over two to ...