The Roller-Coaster of Start-Ups
Jennifer Barnes is a strong business professional who learned the hard way that you can’t succeed until you fail. Here, she shares some of her key reflections about her experience failing.
My first start-up experience included an externally tested and solid market plan, innovation awards, and an investor that wanted to give us millions. I should have felt amazing, but I was uneasy. Something in the product development wasn’t feeling right to me. Although a scientist by training, as the CEO, my role was not to be the technical expert.
I was torn — it would be easy to accept the results the team was providing, take the investment and keep going. We were on the roller coaster of start-ups and technical progress was slow but positive, interest was still high, and we were climbing to the top of the hill. I felt equal parts of exhilaration and fear.
But my uneasy feeling would not go away. I eventually decided to hire an external expert to stress test the science. In hindsight, it turned out to be one of my best decisions. To put things simply, our science failed, remaining funds were returned to the investor and we closed the company two weeks later. I got off the roller coaster feeling pretty shaken and quite honestly, ill.
I went away to lick my wounds and I spent time reflecting. Here are a few (of my many) reflections and learnings:
- Trust your gut. I had a feeling I couldn’t shake, and it was there early on. Our science was ground-breaking and innovative and just plain sexy. It came out of an academic setting and was recognized as a world-leading invention. It was easy to be charmed by all it promised. But I had worked with cool science before, and I worried it would struggle to scale into a commercial product. I came from the highly regulated diagnostic medical device world. I knew it needed to be produced with extremely high reproducibility. And that is what killed it in the end. It was not reproducible enough to make the commercial prototype viable. I made a solid decision, but I realize now I waited too long to stress test it, and should have brought in the external parties earlier. We were over 12 months in and had some investment. I can name lots of reasons why it took that long to uncover the issues, but actually, I should have just trusted my gut. My intuition. Because you can’t be an effective decision maker without full conviction. And intuitive decision making comes with experience. It is as important as traditional analytical decision making. Trust your gut.
- I am proud we closed the company. Say what? Trust me, I did not feel proud at all at first. Closing the company immediately had many negative implications. But it was also absolutely the right and responsible thing to do. It didn’t take long to feel proud of making the tough call and hard decision. To return funds. To return the IP to the University to ensure it may have a chance to be visited after further research. To be truthful and upfront about the issues with investors. I didn’t feel great but I didn’t feel bad. I started getting so much positive feedback from people I told. Investors commended me for being brave and not just ploughing on and wasting funds. People understood and were supportive. Fast forward 2 months and those same investors I had to tell their funds would not be giving a return on investment recommended me for a CEO role of another start-up. The experience has given me better tools and a better chance at succeeding this time around. And the investment community appreciates that.
- Be you. When I reflect on my first startup experience and question why I hesitated to trust my gut- it was the overwhelming duty I felt to do right by everyone; co-founders, inventors, investors and staff. Some of the dreaded imposter syndrome did exist. Who was I to tell the chief scientific officer or the investor I disagreed? But ultimately, I felt an overwhelming duty to myself too, you can only do what feels right to you, what you can live with. For me that was ultimately to fail, reflect, get back up, dust myself off, cover those extra grey hairs, and start round two. I always did love roller coasters.
Jen Barnes started her career as a molecular biologist focusing on medical diagnostics. She joined Roche in a scientific role but soon learned she had a passion and aptitude for the business side. She spent over a decade at Roche and when she left was responsible for two product divisions and teams. Her experience in both the science and business realms made her adept in the commercialisation of life science and medical opportunities and she made the leap to working with early-stage companies in business development and CEO roles.
She now runs JUNOFEM, a company that has created the world’s first wearable smart device that can teach effective techniques to address pelvic floor disorders. The femfit® is on track to go to market in 2021 and she is starting to capital raise to support the commercialisation of this revolutionary medical device.
With 20 years providing business strategy she is passionate about helping companies succeed.
