- [Dr. Ansel] We've defined ourselves
as people who do really basic discovery,
but we apply it to human disease,
and particularly one specific health challenge,
and that's asthma.
And I think that gives us a niche
that other groups don't have.
We are at the forefront of that area,
and if you can define your own area,
then you are the leader in that area
and you should get the opportunities
and the funding to be able to push that forward.
(light music)
- Welcome to Strategy for Scientists.
This is a podcast for scientists interested in learning
about business strategy through stories.
I'm Kevin Hartman with Strategy for Scientists
at the University of California San Francisco, UCSF.
We just heard Dr. Mark Ansel describing
the importance of finding his lab's niche.
Mark is a professor of microbiology and immunology at UCSF.
His lab is located in and supported by
the Sandler Asthma Basic Research Center.
Mark is also the director of the Biomedical Sciences
graduate program at UCSF.
Today we will discuss with Mark
various business concepts as they relate
to building a lab, including branding,
marketing, and opportunity costs.
For a business, defining a brand tells your customer
what value to expect from your product,
but it has inward importance, as well.
A brand conveys your mission, and thereby
dictates where you should dedicate your focus.
So, does the concept of branding
apply in an academic setting?
- [Mark] That's super important for a lab.
We don't usually call it a brand.
We are definitely branding ourselves,
that's what you do, try to find your niche.
When it comes to projects that feeds back
into what we're talking about,
staying close to something that you're really good at,
and known for, especially early on,
I think that you should be in a position
to run with something that you're great at
and you have to stay focused.
One thing that's important to me,
to be successful and happy in what I'm doing,
and that impacts the success of the lab in a big way,
is that you have to stay close
to what got you here in the first place.
And remember the core mission of what you're doing.
And so I think that that's probably not unlike
a small business, too.
In the end, if there isn't something
that really defines what you do best
and what really drives your lab,
and you don't stay true to that,
I think it's hard to remain successful.
- [Kevin] Alright, so defining your brand or your niche
clearly has value directing the focus of a lab.
But what is the actual process of setting your brand?
- [Mark] I didn't just do this alone.
When I first got enough of a team together,
it's something that we did at one of our retreats,
is we went through an exercise of trying to decide
who we were, what is the lab about,
who are the potential competitors
or collaborators out there, who are the labs
that we think of as doing the kinds of things
that we do and what sets us apart.
And if you go through that exercise,
you realize what capabilities you have
and it also forces you to think about
what people expect of you.
- [Kevin] The process that Mark is describing
of sitting down and determining the context
of your organization and its competitors
is an essential aspect of business strategy.
The workshops and online lectures
that accompany this podcast series
will delve into some of the frameworks used
to organize this process, such as SWOT analysis.
SWOT analysis helps you understand
your owns Strengths, Weaknesses, as well as
what Opportunities and Threats are facing your organization.
This allows you to set strategies
that best take advantage of those opportunities
and avoid threats.
In practice, one of the largest strategic decisions
you have to make is how to allocate limited resources.
For business, resources may be divided
across products or business units.
For an academic lab, the decision
is typically how to select projects.
Let us hear how Mark makes that decision.
- [Mark] Yeah, that's been a learning process for me.
And it's a really important consideration.
So, how do I make that decision?
First of all, whether you pivot or not
really comes down to the nature of the opportunity.
And I consider the value of the science
and how exciting and important the work might be.
And that's really just using my instincts and experience
to know whether you're really finding something
that's really exciting and new and important and impactful,
or if it's just an interesting little side light
that, you know, you can't do everything,
so you have to make decisions to leave
some of those things behind.
The second thing is to know whether other people
are excited about it, cause that's gonna impact
whether you can raise funds to work on those things,
whether you can get your staff and personnel
to get excited and invested in it,
and so I try to consider those things
when I make decisions.
And then you have to decide, of course,
whether you can actually do it.
And I learned the hard way that you can't always
go after everything that is exciting and impactful
without help.
- [Kevin] Mark's last point touches on the concept
of valuation.
He is discounting the value of a project
which he measures in terms of his own
and others' excitement, by the uncertainty
he will be able to realize success,
presumably in terms of a publication.
In a business valuation, an investor might consider,
for example, two drugs at different stages
in the development pipeline.
The future value of each would be discounted
based on the respective risks of making it to market.
The math is a little too complicated to get into here,
but you can check out the finance module of this series.
So far, we've heard how Mark identified projects
that fit within his niche.
Before we explore how he goes about marketing
his product to a customer, we should be more explicit
about who the customer is and what is the value
that he delivers to them.
- [Kevin] I think the real customer is the public.
The advancement of knowledge is the number one thing,
and the United States public invests a lot in that
and there's widespread belief that it's an important
human activity to go and understand how a world works.
But they also want to see that it's going to change
their lives and particularly in my field,
they'd like to know that what we're doing
is gonna have an impact on human health at some point.
And so you have to make sure that you're able to articulate
how your work is going to be important
to individuals in the public.
- [Kevin] Mark's lab, like many others, is structured
in an analog of a business-to-business-to-consumer model.
Mark receives his funding from public agencies,
which in turn are funded by the public.
So, with that in mind, he has to frame the way
he presents his science.
- [Mark] Well, when it comes to outside organizations
that can provide a lot of funding,
the way you talk about things is a little bit different.
And that can be challenging for scientists,
because you try to be very rigorous and very conservative
in the way you describe things,
but when you go out to talk about the promise of your work,
you have to talk to these organizations
with the best case scenario in mind,
and yet be fair and careful in explaining
what the pitfalls are.
But it's really important to be able to see
into the future and envision where you could go
and communicate that well to people,
because if you don't, and it seems like
you're just doing small things
that are incremental in nature,
then you just won't get as many opportunities
to go after your best ideas.
- [Kevin] Mark already discussed how he balanced
the lab's resources across different projects.
But there are also opportunity costs
that he must balance for himself as an individual.
- [Mark] The position of a professor
is not just to be a lab head.
First and foremost, a scientist,
and that's what I love to do most,
and that's where I'd like to put all of my attention.
But obviously, there are other things
that I care about that are part of my job
and so that's one of the challenges
of running a lab, is that you're not really
full-time director of the lab,
you have all of these other responsibilities
that are important and also require your attention.
In a small organization like a lab,
you have to have total buy-in from the people
that work with you.
And so it's my job not just to organize the work
and decide what things should be done
and set people to task on it, but to inspire them
to be excited about it, to put their own thought into it.
If I'm the only one coming up with ideas,
we won't be nearly as successful as we could be.
And so when it comes to the people that work with me,
I'm reaching not just to manage the projects
and manage the work, but to get everybody
to feel like they're really working in a team
with a common goal and they'll be able to see
how they will all individually benefit
from our collective success.
- [Kevin] This brings up the fact
that there is simply too much for a single person to do.
Ultimately, you have to build your team.
So we asked Mark for any advice in that process.
- [Mark] In terms of the people,
I've just been very conservative.
I don't bring anyone to the team
that I don't think is absolutely fantastic,
and I don't care whether they're gonna be a tech
or a post-doc or a student, I just want fantastic people
on the team.
I've lost out on some really fantastic scientists,
I just wasn't sure that they were right for my team.
And I'm very aware that if I don't keep
something in reserve so that if a great opportunity
comes along to bring someone in to the team,
then I could miss out on the biggest opportunity
that the lab may have.
So, really, try to learn some things
about how to evaluate talent, bring in only people
that you feel really positive about,
and who will work in a small team well,
and make your lab a productive and fun place to be.
That's going to bring more talent into your lab,
and that's how you're gonna ultimately be productive.
- [Kevin] The adage Hire slow, fire fast,
is often repeated to entrepreneurs.
It's not meant in the literal sense,
that you should drag your feet
in onboarding new talent or be cavalier
in dismissing people who you remove from your team.
Rather, carefully consider each new addition
and remedy mistakes quickly.
For a small team, this is particularly important
to allow for better use of the resources
and maintaining a productive team dynamic.
(light music)
We thank Mark for his valuable insight
into the strategic decisions he's made so far
in establishing his lab.
Thank you for listening to Strategy for Scientists.
If you're interesting in learning more,
check out the online lectures co-produced by iBiology
and the UCSF Office of Career and Professional Development.
We would like to thank the Burroughs Wellcome Fund
and the NIH Institute of General Medical Sciences
for grant funding.
Thanks also to the PRX Podcast Garage
for the studio space in helping us get started
with this production.
Tune in here for more stories
about scientists using strategy.
(light music)