Scientific businesses are rarely the result of bathtub moments. It’s a nice idea – a flash of genius, a splash of venture capital and Bob’s your newly-wealthy uncle – but it’s just not the way that it goes. It’s slower, more complicated and, where big ideas are concerned, can require teams of management experts rather than one or two bright scientists.

Professor Bart Clarysse, head of the entrepreneurship hub at Imperial College London’s Tanaka Business School, says that there are two types of technology business. “The first is you setting up a company based on your unique knowledge,” he says. “You then sell your technical or scientific knowledge as a service.” This approach, known as bootstrapping, is the traditional entrepreneurial model; it lets you maintain complete control of your ideas and means that you don’t need to make any big outlays. “Maybe 99 per cent of technology opportunities are of this kind. It’s a very normal way of doing entrepreneurship. You will control everything and you will know your clients because they will come from your network.”

The second type of enterprise is a venture-capital backed business. Here, rather than selling your skills, you develop an idea or product with the explicit goal of selling to a larger company or issuing an IPO after eight to twelve years. “In these cases, 90 per cent of the company is about business nous, not science,” Professor Clarysse says. “This means that as a scientist you need to partner up with people who understand the business model, so you will not be running the company, only playing a part.”

This illustrates another career path for entrepreneurial scientists – that of serial chief executive, says Fiona Reid, the executive director of the Oxford Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Saïd Business School. These are people who specialise in managing scientific businesses from start-up until they have, say, £500,000 in funding. “There is a massive shortage of people who have both scientific knowledge and business experience,” she says. There are two main ways of getting this: an MBA, which is a relatively short, intensive way of doing it, or several years working in start-up businesses. “If you work for a company of three or four people you will be involved in all aspects, from the science to marketing and legal.

This will give you a good idea of how to turn an idea into something that people are willing to write a cheque for. If you are good at this you will be very much in demand, because there are not enough people around who can manage and take these early-stage companies forward.”

Philip Birch, a geoscientist with an MBA, is one who has followed this path; he’s just taken on his third start-up. His advice is to make sure that the idea you’re selling is market-ready. “Otherwise you will have to spend your venture capital finishing the development,” he says. “It’s tough enough to get these companies to market without having to go back to the laboratory.” He also suggests raising as much money as possible in each funding round – three big rounds is much better than five small ones.

David Langer, a co-founder of GroupSpaces, an internet firm, started out with a bootstrap business before seeking funding. GroupSpaces paid for itself with advertising for six months before he sought venture capital. This impressed investors, he says: “That people were willing to pay for it was a really good proof of concept.”

And Justin Fry, who co-founded Seamless Display, which makes high-resolution computer displays for geophyisicists, suggests approaching other scientists who have successfully launched businesses. “See what they would do differently and what they would not do at all,” he says. Practical advice, such as the name of a patent attorney, is also useful. “I have been surprised at how willing people are to give you their time for nothing. People like to help young entrepreneurs.”

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