Is there a right time for entrepreneurship?

In early December, two female entrepreneurs joined us at the Wellcome Genome Campus as part of the Sex in Science programme to answer the question: “Is there a right time for entrepreneurship?” Julie Barnes, Founding CEO and Chief Scientific Officer of Abcodia and Jelena Aleksic, CEO and Co-Founder of Gene Advisor were hosted by Adrian Ibrahim, Head of Business Development at the Sanger Institute.

Ibrahim first pointed out that there is currently a tax on being different. If you compare career trajectories using online profile data, you find that years more education and hundreds of thousands of extra dollars are needed by some groups to level the playing field. A ‘José’ will need 6 more years of education to rival a ‘Joe’ and female software engineers must often obtain a higher level of degree altogether to get the same job as their male counterparts.

This disadvantage translates across to entrepreneurship, where at events such as TechCrunch New York, male-led start-ups attract five times as much starter funding as women. Men and women are often asked very different questions by investors – men are asked how they plan to ‘win’ against the odds, while women have to account for how they will avoid the pitfalls. In Silicon Valley, the Elephant in the Valley survey showed that women tread a fine line between being seen as too meek and too aggressive, with 84% having been accused of being too aggressive (perhaps understandable if they are constantly being asked how they will avoid failure!)

“Being an entrepreneur is tough – it’s tough to get out there, tough to get funding. These additional barriers are not helping,” warned Ibrahim.

Julie Barnes of Abcodia first headed a company at 49. She has always loved science and spent 15 years at GSK, dealing with the constant change and constraints that go with working for a large company. Barnes moved to an SME at the Babraham Institute site and from there was able to identify a market need and build her own company around it. While some might think of entrepreneurship as the preserve of the youthful ‘garage geniuses’, Hitachi Capital and the Centre for Economics Research tell us otherwise – self-employment for the over-50s has risen more quickly that it has for younger cohorts.

Jelena Aleksic told us that from an early age she has always found herself joining things, such as University societies and ending up leading them. She hadn’t really thought of herself as an entrepreneur even though she had started two companies by the time she did an enterprise course at Cambridge University. “I always thought of entrepreneurs as men who wanted to get really rich!” said Aleksic. She quickly figured out that if you want to take over the world, you need a unique product, preferably one that needs little marketing to get off the ground.

How important is mentoring?

Ibrahim asked our panellists about the importance of mentoring. Barnes said that she regretted not having a formal mentor as she thinks this can be very useful. Instead, she has relied on introductions to move forward, the so-called ‘male trail’. “Networks are crucial,” she advised. Aleksic agreed that networks and mentors can help you to progress faster and get introductions. She feels that women can be over mentored and over sponsored within companies. “If you ask 5 different mentors, they will tell you 5 different things,” she warned. “You need to trust your own decisions and develop your own autonomy too.” Both Barnes and Aleksic are obviously taking the time to pay it forward and help informally mentor new entrepreneurs through talks and presentations. They also believe that we shouldn’t just be hearing from the success stories – there is much to be learnt from failures in business, especially if you can ‘fail well’.

How do you triage ideas?

For many of us, business ideas may sometimes pop into our heads. Right now, facing the task of putting up the Christmas tree at home, I would love to be able buy a big pre-decorated net I could just throw over the tree. But most of those ideas get no further than that – an idea. Entrepreneurs make their living turning those fleeting ideas into reality. So how do they know when they’ve got a winner? For Julie Barnes, it’s all about your value proposition, your Unique Selling Point. “No USP, no business,” she stated baldly. Operating in a very competitive space can limit company growth. Abcodia has focused on an area where the competition is not as fierce, so their relatively long set up time has not incurred too much penalty. “Your business plan never translates directly,” she said. “You need to be flexible and change as you go.”

For Jelena Aleksic, the ideas are the exciting part of the process but you shouldn’t get carried away by the beauty of a concept. Doing your research is the key. Is there demand? Can you get it off the ground? How hard is it to achieve? What’s the competition? Potential users might also get buoyed up by your enthusiasm and skew the results of your research. For her, market research surveys work best when they include a call to action, as this gives you an inherent measure of user interest. No-one even clicked on your survey link? Maybe you need to re-think your product idea.

How important are the kick-off team?

Many companies would say that they are only as good as their staff. So for a start-up, the founding team is particularly important. Barnes confirms there are only so many skills you have as an individual, so you need other people on board to close any skills gaps. Having someone to bounce ideas off is essential, as setting up a business can be a lonely process.  Try to leverage the existing reputation of the partnership members to build credibility for a brand new business. “It’s tough to be the expert scientist and the business leader at the same time,” Barnes admits. She herself has swapped between these roles at Arcodia and found both rewarding.

Jelena Aleksic believes you need both complementary skills sets and dovetailed personalities. In a partnership, you need the enthusiastic and outgoing person but also an analytical and cautious opposite number. “You should enjoy working with them or it will seem like a very long haul!” she remarked.  As a scientist, you have the advantage of being able to speak the same language as your customers, even if you are not actively making scientific breakthroughs yourself. She has found it fairly easy to stay up to date with the progress that is relevant to her business. “Do what is most natural for you,” she advised. “Make your strengths stronger, rather than persisting with the things you can do if you have to.”

Where is the journey taking you?

Ibrahim asked both entrepreneurs where they think their entrepreneurial journey is taking them. Julia Barnes focused on the end point. For her, it’s about getting the business adopted and translating Abcodia’s cancer detection tests into clinical practice. Making money is fine but she asks herself: “Have I learnt something, become a better person? That’s the safeguard, the rest is gravy.”

For Jelena, the destination of your particular journey depends on your own definitions for success. “Usually you start a project because you want to change something,” she states. “Have you done that? There are always new goals for personal development – new challenges, a bigger company, new skills, an opportunity to ‘level up’. The process doesn’t really end.”

What are the consequences of failure?

Failure can be an uncomfortable topic for aspiring entrepreneurs and it’s probably a key reason why many people don’t give up the day job. For Julie Barnes, just as for success, it depends how you define failure. Companies may run out of money and not be able to pay creditors – that could be seen as a failure to be feared. “Winding up a company because the business idea didn’t work is not necessarily failure,” assured Barnes. “If people were more aware of their legal responsibilities, this might help to mitigate their fear of failure.”

Jelena Aleksic has had to close a company, but found it wasn’t the end of the world. After all, investors back businesses for all sorts of reasons and can claw back some costs from the UK government. “It’s not whether you fail, but how you fail,” she said. “You need to keep everyone informed, be transparent and reach decisions together with investors.” Many entrepreneurs go through this during their careers but don’t often talk about it – perhaps it’s time to be more open.

And finally, IS there a right or wrong time for entrepreneurship?

Yes! And also no…. Julie Barnes thinks that you should start as young as possible, when you first feel equipped to do so. “Have the courage to take the step early,” she urged. “You will learn a lot and then have your whole career ahead of you. Timing is everything – family can make it the right, or the wrong time. It’s a lot of hard work and you need to be very flexible but you can juggle things the way that you want.” As a business leader, you have a lot of control over the way that you work and you can set things up the way you need them to be, which can be much harder within a rigid company structure.

Wrapping up, Jelena Aleksic compared the entrepreneurial spirit to the urge to write a poem. “If there is company inside you, it will make you feel a pull. If you start to feel that pull, then that is the right time for you!”

So what are you waiting for? Now is the time!

Next steps for science education and STEM: the new GCSEs cometh

As a school governor, and a mum to a recent GCSE candidate, I have a keen interest in how science is taught in schools. Working in diversity for an international biosciences lab, I also see the fruition (and occasionally frustration!) of many a high-end science education. But what is it like at the sharp end of science teaching in the UK at the moment? And why do so many girls drop out of science early?

Attending the Westminster Education Forum event on the “Next Steps for science education and STEM skills provision” seemed like a good place to start answering these questions. Sarah Old from Ofqual presented the new science GCSEs, which are starting this academic year. The new GSCEs are exam-only with no assessed practicals – the students do their practicals throughout the year and these are examined indirectly. Maths skills are included (10% biology, 20% chemistry, 30% physics) and there is a combined science, or double-award GCSE scoring on a 17 point scale. It’s still possible to study each subject separately as a single award GSCE (phew!). Fundamentally, the aim of the new curriculum is to narrow the gap from GCSE to A Level and it is still being evaluated with teachers. Extended investigations are no longer required but the most obvious change is that the old A* to G scale has gone, replaced by a scale of 9-1, where higher tier is 4-9 and the foundation is U to 5.

So far, so practical, but what is the feedback from schools? Marianne Cutler from the Association for Science Education reports that less able students are finding the new content very challenging – there is an uplift in expectations across the board, from primary onwards. Expert teachers are fundamental to delivering the new curriculum, both science-trained and well supported by further training and CPD. Technical support is often in short supply in schools and can make the difference on whether a school uses practical work effectively. Every school should have a written policy on why they use practical science, the outcomes expected and the way these are achieved. The ASE offers some great guides in this area: Making Science Relevant, Maths in Science and Good Practical Science.

Why study STEM?

According to Yvonne Baker of the National STEM Learning Centre and Project Enthuse, we desperately need more students to study STEM. This is partly because there is a world shortage of science and engineering graduates, but also because science is beneficial to the way everyone handles a complex modern life. Science courses can be of particular benefit to disadvantaged students, as they can provide access to higher paid jobs in the future.

The Ofsted 2013/2014 report said that “The best science teachers set out to maintain curiosity in their pupils.” Schools however see their key challenges as recruitment and retention, how to deliver practical science, offering technical and vocational routes into science and careers awareness and advice. Teachers often form an important source of careers advice for STEM-interested students, but are they equipped for this through their CPD? Are careers advisors clued-up on jobs in science, especially in a rapidly changing technical world?

The crisis in physics teaching

In the UK, around 500 schools have no specialist physics teachers, a deficit which often maps across onto schools in socially deprived areas. Biologists are recruited at twice the rate of physics and chemistry teachers, even though 700 new physics teachers a year are needed to counter retirement. After 6 years, only 30% of physics teachers are still in the profession, often citing workload as their reason for leaving. Charles Tracey of the Institute of Physics told us that physics teachers leave sooner if they are ‘forced’ to teach other sciences but CPD can be a strong retention tool. Many science teachers of course are encouraged, or even required to teach across the science spectrum, irrespective of their degree. With only 4000 physics graduates in the UK each year, there is a need to recruit physics teachers from more numerous engineering graduates, and to provide CPD for non-physics graduates.

In this context, Charlotte Avery of the Girls School Association pointed us towards the Physics Partners scheme, that supports NQTs and non-specialists to teach physics. She informed us that more girls do science in a single sex school, but this tends to be in areas such as medicine and biosciences. Often, it is parents that need to be convinced that physics, chemistry and engineering are worth pursuing as career tracks for girls. The ratio of boys to girls studying A Level physics is often as high as 4:1. Resource packs such as the WISE campaign “People Like Me” can help to make the case for science beyond biosciences.

Elaine Skates of the Council for Learning Outside the Classroom also called for a greater role for outdoor learning as an integral part of STEM education. The Ofsted report 2008/2009 said that “Outdoor learning is more memorable, more in depth and promotes better resilience.” To be effective, outdoor learning needs to be frequent, continuous and progressive. Teachers looking for inspiration can find out more at the Learning Away and Countryside Classroom websites and find local visit venues holding the Learning Outside the Classroom quality badge.

What does the future hold?

The PISA reports from the OECD tell us that around 35% of current jobs are at risk from automation. The Royal Society’s Rosalind Mist pointed us towards their report on machine learning. “Schools need to achieve that sweet spot between enquiry-based learning and teacher-led learning,” urged Mist. To do well in STEM subjects, students of course need science ability – but also strong capability in English and metacritical skills. Attainment gaps in English can also hit science skills, which may particularly affect disadvantaged students. There is an increasing role in business and academia for data science, but here the ratio of girls to boys is even lower. Typically, just 10% of students studying Computer Science at A Level are girls.

Cerys Griffith of BBC Learning is using the BBC micro:bit to tackle this issue directly. The micro:bit is a tiny programmable computer, designed to make learning and teaching easy. The Microbit Foundation gave out 1 million free micro:bits to Year 7 students, using brands that specifically appealed to girls. The Institute of Mechanical Engineers is also doing its bit through its Women’s Roadshow, in collaboration with Siemens.

The final word of the day went to Prof Winston at Imperial College, which hosts the Wohl Reach Out Lab, a state-of-the-art educational facility dedicated to hands-on activities aimed at engaging school children in STEM.

Prof Winston pointed out that we have been talking about the need for practical science, CPD, inspirational teachers and more money in schools for 20 years. Exam results do not improve literacy and thinking. Aspiration is incredibly important and at the moment resources are very South East oriented. In addition, teachers and headteachers often do not feel particularly valued and disaffection in the profession is growing. Science courses, especially at A Level, are being dropped in state schools for cost reasons, which does not happen in independent schools. Prof Winston called for more robust evaluation of education, going beyond teacher surveys to fully fledged comparative studies. A great grounding in science at primary school is fundamental for setting the pattern for a career in STEM.

“Primary age is so important, it’s when your brain is most plastic,” says Prof Winson. “As a scientist, your toughest audience is always the 8-9 year olds.”

As a mum to a 10 year old myself, I agree!