Do you have a "trust but verify" budget?
This week, it’s back to my series of posts on problems that data teams often face at specific points in the lifecycle of a biotech. And this one is going to feel a lot like what I wrote about “catching the bus” but in a slightly different form.
Many data experts get brought into biotech startups by leadership teams that seem to be looking for miracles. And yet, when the experts ask for the budget and resources that these sorts of miracles require - for headcount, for software, for consultants - even their biggest champions’ optimism seems to suddenly switch to skepticism. But it’s not that the budget isn’t there. It’s that the leadership team wants to see evidence that their investments will be worth the cost.
This is particularly acute with the current funding situations. Startups are simultaneously feeling the FOMO of the latest round of AI hype and negotiating their next round of funding from VCs who just want the fastest and cheapest path to the clinic.
It feels like the chicken and the egg: You can’t get the resources you need to solve your organization’s big hairy problems until you demonstrate that you can solve them. But how do you demonstrate that you can solve them without the resources to do it?
Of course, it usually isn’t quite as dire as it feels. Even if you’re a one-person team, there are probably things you can do to start demonstrating the potential of a more data driven strategy. The problem is that in a startup that feels like a speeding train that’s running out of track, this won’t feel like anywhere near enough.
So what do you do when you have a proof-of-concept budget, but a straight-to-production timeline?
Only half of this is a technical problem. The other half is communication and managing upwards: Does your leadership team really want you to do proof-of-concept projects until you demonstrate value, or are they expecting you to work miracles on an inadequate budget?
If it’s the former, what exactly would convince them to invest more resources? Here, it can help to try and be an even bigger skeptic than they are. Set your own standards for what evidence would make you confident that the investment will be worth it. If they see you setting a high bar, they’ll be more likely to trust your conclusions.
If it’s the later… well, you may have bigger problems.
On the technical side, if you’ve been reading this newsletter you know that I tend to advocate for incremental, iterative rollouts of technical tools, coordinated with process changes, regardless of the budget. This requires some creativity but greatly increases your chances of success. Which means it can often get you to the results you’re looking for faster.
Either way, the most important thing is that you set the right expectations with your leadership team for the results and timeline they’re expecting, and what it will cost to get there.
A quick note/ad: I've noticed that many of the software companies who are trying to make Biotech more data driven struggle to communicate what they do to the users who need them the most. So I've started offering services to fill this gap. If you're one of these software companies, send me an email at jesse@merelogic.net to learn more.