I’ve decided it’s time to experiment with blogging about the biotech venture ecosystem. I’d like to call it a “pilot study”. If it ends up being safe and effective over the next few months, I’ll continue. If not, I’ll terminate the program and stick to my day job.
But why waste time on a blog? I guess there are three reasons.
First, the life science venture community needs more voices in the blogosphere, as others have mentioned. Despite nearly 30% of total venture dollars going into the Life Sciences, we probably represent <1% of the voices in the startup venture cyber-community. That’s a significant under-weighting. Almost very Tech VC franchise out there has at least one good blogger. Take my partner Fred Destin here at Atlas. I have taken the challenge from Fred and others to give it a shot.
Second, by nature I’m a scientist who loves data, and I like sharing data-informed perspectives on life science venture market, like a few of the recent Nature Biotech pieces I’ve written. I think the biotech world needs more analytical robustness and transparency, and a lot less myth and mystery; I will try to add a little rigor to the field.
Third, I’ve just entered the social media world with occasional micro-blogging on Twitter, and I’m fascinated by its ability to connect. And “proper” blogging feels like the natural extension of it. When Mike Gilman, CEO of an Atlas-backed company called Stromedix, was named a Top 10 Twitter user to follow in Boston by Scott Kirsner in mid-December last year, I had him come by the office and teach me to Tweet. In his own words, he’s now a Jedi Master at that stuff and has brought me up to speed on Hootsuite and things like URL shorteners.
So there you have it, a few of my reasons for experimenting with a blog.
What will I blog about? I guess I’d break it down into a few buckets: (a) analysis on the biotech sector, and the venture capital model, returns from specific deals etc…; (b) the evolution of the ecosystem with new business models, companies, and concepts; (c) cool life science findings or papers and how at least one VC looks at it.
If anyone ever reads it, I’d welcome feedback on this blog – whether I should just quit blogging and focus on my day job, comments on my blog posts, or if you have a particular topic you think I should write about.
My blogging expectations aren’t high – if I can do two posts a week, I’ll feel lucky. And certainly not busy enough.
Now off to think up something to write.