Our Business Idea

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Summer of Startups

SoS in Short

We took part in Summer of Startups, a startup incubator by Aalto University. We met a lot of other small startups and people interested in them. We found out how to pitch synthetic biology to people that know nothing about it. It just needed a sympathetic mascot and explaining how a bioreactor is a work place for him.

The program included two different occasions where we pitched our startup idea. There was pitching night, where we competed in pitching with all the other teams. Then there was Demo Day, a massive event with hundreds of people where we presented ourselves and run a booth for the whole evening, getting people excited about us and synthetic biology. We presented ourselves to an audience of hundreds and many of them came by our booth later.

Being a Synthetic Biology Startup

There is no specific definition for a startup, but as Eric Ries puts it: "A startup is a human institution designed to deliver a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty".

So, that's kind of where we were; the first-ever Finnish iGEM team with a vague idea of what to do, but no idea of how to get there.

The Startup Scene

We were around just by the right time. During the early 2010's there has been a big startup bubble in Finland. That means people are really interested in these kinds of teams and lots of "big guys" are swarming around the scene, which in Finland is definitely centered around Espoo, the town where we had our lab, and Starup Sauna, the place for startups in Espoo. The Startup Sauna is situated roughly 700m from our lab! So why not get involved?

When we decided to attend the Summer of Startups programme we actually had no idea what we were signing up for. We thought we would attend some lectures and report back on how we're doing. We were, in a sense, like children in a stock market, naive but full of hope. Being brave is part of a good startup.

Summer of startups lasted 9 weeks and consisted of talks, coaching, assignments, workshops, BBQ and networking events. Did you say networking?

Networking

So, a lot about the startup scene is about believing in what you do and being very talkative. Well, maybe not really, but it is a way to get to know the right people who can help you, and get you funding.

So how do you get nine labrats and nerds to talk with investors and coaches who are mainly concerned about "finding the next big thing" and know nothing about biology, labwork or iGEM?

In the beginning we really took things seriously. We listened to all the coaches and their ideas, but turns out we were kind of the odd ones around there. No one really knew anything about biotech. Software is the thing! And for a particular reason: setting up a software startup requires very little money compared to biotech.

"Starting a biotech startup requires tremendous amounts of money" ...but everyone starts off poor. The point of incubator programmes and certains startups is about getting investors interested in your idea or your team. There are many kinds of investors, but the ones very lucrative for startups are angel investors. These are people who will spot "the next big thing" early and fund them in exchange for a certain amount of their (to-be) shares in their (to-be) company. They take big risks. This way the team can keep focusing on their project. Maybe one of ten companies pays itself back, but in those cases they pay back themselves over ten-fold. That is what angel investing is about. Later a startup can seek for venture capital and do "funding rounds". We were really scared about the money involved, but you shouldn't. Most of the angel nivestors just want you to "continue as you were" and will become a coach for the team.

Getting Coached

The Summer of Startups programme coupled us up with some great coaches. It was really interesting to talk with these people who have founded big industries and have actual experience. It seems however that most of the people have moved from "technical industry" to "marketing industry", because lots of focus was laid on how we look and are understood. People stated that "invention first, market then" is the old way of doing things. Actually it seemed like the idea and team were enough to start with, and this really holds...for most kinds of companies.

Experimenting with different ideas in a quick pace is really effective! Our problem was that our research could not be done fast. So in the end we were actually one of those "old style" startups who do their research first and then think of a market for the product. But we still learned a very important lesson: Being able to convey what is being done is crucial to a startup!

I don't understand. Are you making an application for smartphones?

Many of our discussions started like this: "So what are you guys working on?" "We are developing a genetic switch that can be controlled with light. We want to be able to control gene expression in bacteria" "What? Bacteria?! That sounds horrible!" We started saying "organisms" instead of "bacteria" but the response that followed was something close to: "So what are you actually doing?" We tried to formulate ourself in a different manner: "We are developing small bio-factories inside organisms. We can produce things like medicine!"

But even after weeks of refining our responses still were: "I don't understand. Are you making an application for smartphones?"

Honestly, one has to express oneself really clearly with common-language words in order for laymen to understand. So why is it important that everyone understands what you are doing?

• People will tell their friends who actually understand. "You know, I saw this startup who were engineering bacteria to be controlled with light, you work in the biobusiness, right?..."
• Investors will get excited even though they have no idea what you are doing.
• You will cut down on time in the beginning of talks. People seem to have very limited time, so getting to the point (we need money and advice) fast is crucial.

One of the greatest methods of quickly explaining what you do is Pitching.

Pitching

Pitching is about conveying your idea / enthusiasm / team / knowledge to an audience of 1 or more people. A great example of this is the elevator pitch: a short, structured explanation about your thing and it's potential in 30s-2 minutes. The idea is that if you happen to stumble on someone who could benefit your project in an elevator, you should be able to get their attention before the ride is over!

We Pitched A LOT! We had coaching and ranting and lots of "NO, BAD!":s.

Our pitch was revolutionized by Brian, the bacterium. We wanted to keep the word bacterium in our pitch, but the big audience seemed to be really scared of such things. So what do you do? You make an absolutely cute bacterium that cannot be feared: Brian was born.

Once you are able to explain your startup in just two minutes, you actually have a much clearer picture about your project yourself, too!

But how did we get people to follow our idea? We told them a story about Brian, who is an ordinary guy, until we come around. We turn Brian into an superhero! The great thing about pitching is that once you are able to explain your startup in 2 minutes you actually have a much clearer picture of what your core is. Mental magic! Through thorough practice and countless hours of refining our script and slides, we were finally ready for the big thing.

Demo Day

6.8.2014 (that's 8/6/2014 for you Americans). We held our biggest public set. Demo Day is a expo-like event at Startup Sauna with over a thousand visitors during 7 hours. The event starts with some talks and then all the Summer of Startups teams pitch for the whole audience. We pitched ourselves for over 600 people!

During the expo we also held a booth. We had a video showing Mikko sneezing on a agar-plate on loop. We had pictures on a slideshow and. The audience liked our display of bacteria cultures from different everyday objects. The smartphone screen was a hit! We also demonstrated our idea with the on-line simulation.

The overall response was really positive. Everyone loved Brian. We nailed our pitch and people seemed to be really interested in "the guys with the lab coats", because we were really different from the other startups. After almost 12 hours of continuous working we were exhausted but really happy. We have demonstrated synthetic biology for over thousand people!

Everything Led to What?

Well, the Demo Day was the ONE big chance to get actual funding from investors. But we had realized our mottos were very different. We were and are still very entrepeneurial and many of us want to be part of a startup in the future. Our approach was to continue on public funding until we had some sort of prototype, or Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to demonstrate. This was partially because the companies we met, who were actually in the biotech business, told us to come back with an prototype.

Prototype & Patents

So how do you demonstrate your idea works? With a Minimum Viable Product. Something that is the core of your work and demonstrates that your assumptions are not far off.

So how do we demonstrate Brian? We have no knowledge of bioreactors or any applicable processes. We decided to focus on research results. They would hopefully reveal the true potential in our idea.

Simultaneously we started to get advice to keep low profile on our actual inventions. Patents are monsters which every startup will eventually run into. We got advice from visiting lawyers to keep shut and file patents. And for a while this was our thought. But in the end we decided to publish our research for a couple of reasons:

• Our results are not enough to get the system working. Even though we publish our results the additional steps required to build a working system could be, in theory, patented.
• We were running out of time. iGEM was and is our main goal. And having filed a patent would have been a great learning experience. But it would have been very stressful and would'we had us focusing on maybe the worng things.
• We wanted to continue the open idea in bio-startups. Opensource rocks and is profitable if you do it correctly.
• We wanted to keep our research living, even in the hands of others, because it has future potential.

Future Potential

The results are great. To some extent. Please see the Research section. We are really happy with our work, both in and outside the lab. As it seems now we will not be cointinuing actiely with our startup. We do however want to look at it again in a while. Our run was kind of a expirement for iGEM. We did establish a bio-startup for real! Our heads are filled with ideas for future work and we will work together in the future. Guaranteed.

Our biggest aim was to come up with something new. We dislike patens, although we undestand their purpose of heling novel inventions being published. We want to encourage people to start heir own bio-startup. Therefore we present below a business model for bio-startups.

Aalto-Helsinki Bioworks
Business Plan

Contents

• Executive Summary
• Vision, Values and Mission Statement
• Business Strategy
  • a. The Business Model Canvas
  • b. The Timeline
  • c. The Management and Organization Structure
  • d. Financials
• Opportunity Analysis
• Market
• Competition
• Advantages
• Potential Obstacles
• SWOT analysis
  • a. Using Strengths to Take Advantage of Opportunities
  • b. Using Strengths to Avoid Threats
  • c. Overcoming Weaknesses by Taking Advantage of Opportunities
  • d. Minimizing Weaknesses to Avoid threats

Executive Summary

Aalto-Helsinki Bioworks applies the novel techniques of Synthetic Biology to create new solutions for modern industries utilizing bioprocesses of various kinds. We have demonstrated our expertise by developing a genetic switch in E. Coli that can be controlled with blue light, with which the user can change between three different genes of his/her own choice. Having the right genes active at the right time provides major shortcuts in reaction pathways inside bioreactors, leading to faster production, less waste, lower maintenance costs and a wide range of scientific application in both research and development.

Aalto-Helsinki Bioworks business plan and idea are based on technologies and solutions under Open Source license. We aim to offer chargeable tailoring, consultation and development services based on the free information that everyone has access to, but only our team of experts knows how to master. Developing a close, mutually beneficial relationship with all our customers is the basis of our successful business.

In the field of computer software, numerous companies, such as Red Hat and Arduino have been successful in their business having based their strategy on open source thinking. In short, this means that the source code of the program itself is freely available for everyone to use and improve. The improvements done by the users must be made available for the entire community. The revenue based around Open Source technology is created by offering consultation and implementation services.

We have concluded that the same business opportunities can be found in modern technology and science, especially in synthetic biology. Further business opportunities can be found in selling hardware and helping at customizing the systems to meet the clients’ specific needs. Our strategy involves long-term, well-maintained customer relationships, supportive and interactive community, and building on our customer base using feedback and referrals.

Synthetic biology is a fast growing field in modern scientific research. Combined with the accelerated growth of the energy market, there is a new market opportunity in biofuels. Biofuels alone have a global market of 70 billion euros and the market is estimated to have an annual growth rate of 8% to 18% by 2020. In addition to biofuels, synthetic biology has potential markets in high value biological compounds (such as pharmaceuticals) and other industrial bioprocesses involving capacious bioreactors.

These industries and their research and development sections utilize different organisms, like bacteria and algae, to reach the end product. However, bacteria perform only a single function in the process and the control over them is extremely limited, as discussed in the introduction of our Research-section. Because of the continuous need for maintenance and the need to have different organisms designed for each stage of production, bioprocesses of industrial scale are expensive to both design and maintain.

Aalto-Helsinki Bioworks’ executive team consists of talented university students with numerous fields of expertise, ranging from synthetic biology to mathematics and computer science. Our team has a strong background in both research and product development, and we aim to combine the theoretical viewpoints with engineering to create the best possible solutions for companies utilizing modern bioreactor technology. In addition, we have assembled a board of advisors to provide scientific and management expertise. This includes professors and researchers from Aalto University, University of Helsinki, VTT and Aalto Entrepreneurship Society.

At first, Aalto-Helsinki Bioworks can be sustained with public money and the support of universities. At current stage, our research does not require considerable capital investments to proceed, since we have the rights to use Aalto University’s research laboratories. We are looking for funding to cover expenses from finishing the research and development of our first technology and for its commercialization. In additon, we need funding for renting workspace and direct material costs. We are looking for connections with research teams in synthetic biology, bioprocessing technology and medicine production. We are also looking for companies and research groups to pilot our genetic switch. The pilot customers can be from any field utilizing bioreactors in their production, for example medical industry and biofuel industry, or any companies or research groups who could have use for our genetic switch.

Vision, Values and Mission Statement

Aalto-Helsinki Bioworks is the first iGEM team from Finland. It is also one of the two undergraduate teams participating in the Entrepreneurship track in the iGEM 2014 competition. In summer 2014, we graduated from Aalto Entrepreneurship Society’s Summer of Startups incubator programme. Our team consists of nine talented students from Aalto University and University of Helsinki.

Using our interdisciplinary expertise, we aim to build a company that provides new solutions and technologies using synthetic biology. This covers a vast variety of different approaches, from very special tailored solutions to generic, universal and integratable platforms.

The key values of our work are the benefits of licensing our technologies and research under an Open Source licence. We believe in BioBrick Foundation’s approach of standardizing biological parts and keeping all research open, transparent and free to use by other researchers.

Aalto-Helsinki Bioworks’ vision of Open Source Biology is defined as follows

1. The technologies and solutions using synthetic biology must be freely distributable.
2. The information required in order to use these technologies must be available for free.
3. The distribution of derived products must be allowed.
4. Individuals or groups must all have equal rights.
5. Usage or purposes of technology or solution must not be limited.
6. Every user has the same rights.
7. License must not depend on a wider solution environment. The rights to the technology must remain the same even if it is taken away from its context of distribution.
8. The license may not limit other technologies or solutions. The technology or solution must also be distributable with technologies or solutions not licensed under Open Source Biology license.
9. The contents of the licence must not depend on technical realisation. The rights must not contain any conditions concerning the distribution or usage of the information needed in order to use the technology or solution.
10. The derivatives of technologies or solutions may not expand the rights defined in this license. More limiting licenses are allowed.

Following this philosophy means that our solutions and technologies are free to use by the scientific community and industrial operatives. This way the whole world may profit from new scientific discoveries and at the same time, new improvements and modifications to our technologies by other parties are also at our disposal. Making our work Open Source, we can help creating a world wide community of improving, updating and sharing existing biological technologies, while at the same time building profitable business around them. In other words, we want to bring Open Source thinking to the business side of synthetic biology community in order to boost the fast development of this relatively young branch of science.

Business Strategy

Opportunity Analysis

Market

Competition

Our Advantages

Potential Obstacles

SWOT Analysis