Essays/linkedin/24-05-07 sales are never short

🤝 Something all #scipreneurs learn sooner or later is that sales cycles are never as short as one would like.

A comfortable route for sci-tech is to target other academics, people who have cited our papers and who may have a different background.

The advantage is that, in principle, novelty may drive their purchasing decision, more than certifications, or even usability. A result that provides novel insights brings a scientist closer to success in the next funding call.

They may forgive some rough edges, lack of automation, and lack of a nice user interface. We just need to deliver a system that produces reliable results.

That is our hope.

The reality is that no one has 250k€ in their budget to purchase equipment out of a whim. Even 100k€ falls outside what most scientists can spend without submitting a dedicated grant application.

I have seen many business plans where entrepreneurs are convinced they'll manage to sell a ~250k€ piece of equipment in the next 6 months but they haven't even done a demo yet.

Funding for academics has slow cycles and quite random outputs.

The only way to say you'll sell one instrument in the next 6 months is if you already have at least 5 people who have submitted grant applications.

Staying lean is key to survival.

Being frugal in your decisions can be what makes the difference between staying above water or sinking.

If you can launch your company with one committed customer, you are already ahead 95% of all other scipreneurial startups.

-- 👋 Hi! I'm @Aquiles.

I'm a scientist turned entrepreneur. I share insights on the challenges of #scipreneurship

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