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Take the cash
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Become an anthropologist
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Break bread with potential candidates
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Make sure your team knows the value they bring
Who is Fereydoun?
Fereydoun’s decades-long career in biotech and finance has taken him around the globe, allowing him to live, work and play worldwide. With each new responsibility, he made it a priority to understand and embrace the culture of every country he worked in, as he strongly believes that studying the culture of each region where you plan to work is a key ingredient for success. With this approach, he achieved a number of challenging objectives. Coming from a commercial background, Fereydoun has also managed R&D organizations and spent many years as President and CEO of EMD Serono, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Gurnet Point Capital and recently served as Chairman & CEO of Stallergenes Greer.
Here he shares briefly why you should worry less about dilution, why cultural context is key, his prerequisites before hiring, and the value of spending time with your team.
Many startups have to think about raising capital every 1-2 years, and that can be a huge distraction from your company creation and product development time. This is a key reason why startups are often pressured to partner with new investors / sell / IPO early – to show single asset / technology platform validation and bring in fresh capital.
In this too often adopted scenario the founder, exec team, and Board spend more time searching for and attracting new capital and quality investors. This distracts them from focusing on the breakthrough product(s) development process including regulatory pathway, manufacturing and ultimately commercialization.
So, if you find yourself in a lucky position to have more funds available than your initial target raise amount, then take in more capital early on (especially in this market) and worry less about dilution. This will enable you to stay singularly focused on the company and the product development, diminishing distraction risk, augmenting speed, and maintaining positive momentum for a longer period of time before being again distracted by a new round of capital raise or exit.
More and more big pharma and biotech companies wait for an asset or technology to be de-risked before taking the decision to acquire. No matter how much breakthrough your platform promises in a given therapeutic area, they have the ability and the financial strength to wait and assess the right timing even if they have to pay ridiculous multiples later on.
01
Take the cash and worry less about dilution
If you find yourself in a lucky position to have more funds available...take in more capital early on and worry less about dilution.
02
Become an anthropologist
Whether you want to establish your company internationally, partner with local players, or sell to a foreign entity, it’s highly advisable to understand the history, culture and norms of each country you are targeting. The most successful leaders and managers are anthropologists who look at a bigger picture of how someone’s culture may play into their wants, needs, and style of negotiation. I learned this the hard way.
Early on in my career, I was responsible for establishing a presence in Israel, a country that has unfortunately seen many wars with a population trained at a tender age to be focused, outcome oriented, and committed. On my end, I didn’t think about what that meant from a business negotiation perspective. I found myself in a room with off duty Israel defense forces officers employed by the largest Pharma Co negotiating to terminate a relationship and establish ourselves independently. Needless to say that my initial objectives in terms of financial impact, timelines, and market disruption were never met! It took much longer at a much higher cost. It turned out to be one among the many learnings I still apply today and that is to study carefully the history, culture and norms of those you want to partner or negotiate with.
You don’t need a master’s degree in history to achieve this. Ask anyone you interface with “What book would you recommend I read to better understand your culture?” The key is to be open to each country’s culture and recognize that it will play a BIG part in your business endeavors and success (or not)!
Be open to each country’s culture and recognize that it will play a BIG part in your business endeavors and success.
When hiring, consider spending time with a potential candidate outside of the formal interview process. I understand the difficulty this approach could bring post COVID and to present remote working schemes. Nevertheless, any executive I’ve hired, I have had lunch or dinner (at their home preferably), met their family, and gotten a better understanding of them as a person and the values they cherish. When you hire someone, you are making a big bet:
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Financially, in terms of total compensation and benefits (including equity)
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Culturally, you’re betting this person will positively impact your organization
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Reputationally, he or she is the business card of your business in terms of competence and humanity
So, break bread with your potential hires and look deeply into the values the person could bring to your team prior to your hiring. Don’t rush!
03
Break bread with potential candidates
04
Make sure your team knows the value they bring
Good leaders create amazing teams by getting in the trenches where the teams operate. Listen to your employees' ideas and perspectives, and show them by taking concrete decisions reflecting their good ideas.
It is extremely rare to see accomplished, motivated, genuine people driven solely by monetary schemes. Good leaders remind people why they are where they are, the purpose they have coming to work everyday, and the aspirational vision of what success could look like.
Sit down and spend the time – that’s how you create success!
Good leaders remind people why they are where they are, the purpose they have coming to work everyday, and the aspirational vision of what success could look like
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