When I attended my first SynBioBeta almost 10 years ago, I was caught off guard.
Coming from an academic environment, I was used to scientific talks focusing on technical methods, incremental findings, and dense data, usually presented by grad students, postdocs, and professors. The spotlight was on science, not commercial potential.
SynBioBeta was completely different. The lights were dramatic. The walk-on music was energizing. The presenters took the stage with polish and charisma. And the TED talk-like format tilted toward applications instead of discovery. These weren’t traditional scientific presentations—they were startup pitches, investor updates, and big-picture visions of how synthetic biology could change the world.
At first, I didn’t know what to make of it. Wasn’t it a little too glossy? A little thin on science?
Then it clicked: The genius of SynBioBeta is all about making academic ideas come to life. It’s where scientists become entrepreneurs by putting the commercial potential of their synbio innovations onstage. It’s where ideas get packaged, positioned, and pitched—because that’s how they get funded, built, and scaled.
I eventually became the Editor-in-Chief of SynBioBeta for a time, helping many of the same students I worked with in academia to hone a new kind of story for investors, partners, and other biotech entrepreneurs. SynBioBeta led me further into industry and the founding of Beakers & Chips, a brand marketing studio for biotech startups, with my friend and colleague, Jack Gold.
It’s perfectly natural for scientific founders to be a bit skeptical about marketing—just as I was skeptical at my first SynBioBeta so long ago. In biotech, it’s simple: science always comes first. But startups don’t fail from bad science—they fail because they never find their market. And as marketers, our job is to help innovators reach those audiences in ways that are more than skin deep.
For example, just as innovation requires a good product-market fit to thrive, brand marketing thrives on story-audience fit. When marketing is done well, it helps innovators articulate exactly who benefits from their innovation and how. If your product has a compelling market, then there's an equally compelling brand story wanting to be told.
That’s what Jack and I call finding your North Star. And like SynBioBeta, it’s a shiny vision and a whole lot more. It’s a gravity field that brings your science, technology, and business strategy together. It aligns your teams and harmonizes your value proposition among partners, investors, and customers. It weaves together your brand design, tone, and strategy, so that every element speaks truth to your purpose and the value you bring.
Jack and I help companies find their North Star. Great companies do this themselves all the time, usually with big in-house teams. We offer a nimble alternative to help startups get on the brand map fast. Here are two examples:
ArkeaBio is pioneering a vaccine to reduce livestock methane. We rebranded ArkeaBio as a premium, “billion-dollar company” ready to do business on the global stage, created messaging that clarifies the tremendous stakes for both business and climate, and we continue to weave ArkeaBio’s unique value proposition across farmers, brands, consumers, and policymakers into a single powerful narrative. Case study
Novel Bio designs and scales plasmid DNA to overcome the DNA bottleneck in drug discovery. We created a story to engage pharma customers, repositioned them from a technology platform to a product and services company, created a bright and differentiated brand tone, and a tagline that reflects the potential magnitude of their impact: “A Better Way To DNA.” Case study
2025 is likely to be another crazy year for biotech. Companies that survive and thrive in times like these will probably have a strong and steady North Star. A clear guiding purpose that pulls them through the rough seas—economic downturns, technological shifts, political uncertainty, internal growing pains.
When it all comes together, honing your North Star is more than marketing—it’s a clear expression of your science, your purpose, and the value you bring, said to the people who need to hear it the most.
Let’s swap ideas — we’re always curious how others are aligning their science and their story. Drop us a note to connect at SynBioBeta. Learn more about our approach at beakersandchips.com.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adip elit. Donec posuere dolor massa, pellentesque aliquam nisl facilisis sed.
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When I attended my first SynBioBeta almost 10 years ago, I was caught off guard.
Coming from an academic environment, I was used to scientific talks focusing on technical methods, incremental findings, and dense data, usually presented by grad students, postdocs, and professors. The spotlight was on science, not commercial potential.
SynBioBeta was completely different. The lights were dramatic. The walk-on music was energizing. The presenters took the stage with polish and charisma. And the TED talk-like format tilted toward applications instead of discovery. These weren’t traditional scientific presentations—they were startup pitches, investor updates, and big-picture visions of how synthetic biology could change the world.
At first, I didn’t know what to make of it. Wasn’t it a little too glossy? A little thin on science?
Then it clicked: The genius of SynBioBeta is all about making academic ideas come to life. It’s where scientists become entrepreneurs by putting the commercial potential of their synbio innovations onstage. It’s where ideas get packaged, positioned, and pitched—because that’s how they get funded, built, and scaled.
I eventually became the Editor-in-Chief of SynBioBeta for a time, helping many of the same students I worked with in academia to hone a new kind of story for investors, partners, and other biotech entrepreneurs. SynBioBeta led me further into industry and the founding of Beakers & Chips, a brand marketing studio for biotech startups, with my friend and colleague, Jack Gold.
It’s perfectly natural for scientific founders to be a bit skeptical about marketing—just as I was skeptical at my first SynBioBeta so long ago. In biotech, it’s simple: science always comes first. But startups don’t fail from bad science—they fail because they never find their market. And as marketers, our job is to help innovators reach those audiences in ways that are more than skin deep.
For example, just as innovation requires a good product-market fit to thrive, brand marketing thrives on story-audience fit. When marketing is done well, it helps innovators articulate exactly who benefits from their innovation and how. If your product has a compelling market, then there's an equally compelling brand story wanting to be told.
That’s what Jack and I call finding your North Star. And like SynBioBeta, it’s a shiny vision and a whole lot more. It’s a gravity field that brings your science, technology, and business strategy together. It aligns your teams and harmonizes your value proposition among partners, investors, and customers. It weaves together your brand design, tone, and strategy, so that every element speaks truth to your purpose and the value you bring.
Jack and I help companies find their North Star. Great companies do this themselves all the time, usually with big in-house teams. We offer a nimble alternative to help startups get on the brand map fast. Here are two examples:
ArkeaBio is pioneering a vaccine to reduce livestock methane. We rebranded ArkeaBio as a premium, “billion-dollar company” ready to do business on the global stage, created messaging that clarifies the tremendous stakes for both business and climate, and we continue to weave ArkeaBio’s unique value proposition across farmers, brands, consumers, and policymakers into a single powerful narrative. Case study
Novel Bio designs and scales plasmid DNA to overcome the DNA bottleneck in drug discovery. We created a story to engage pharma customers, repositioned them from a technology platform to a product and services company, created a bright and differentiated brand tone, and a tagline that reflects the potential magnitude of their impact: “A Better Way To DNA.” Case study
2025 is likely to be another crazy year for biotech. Companies that survive and thrive in times like these will probably have a strong and steady North Star. A clear guiding purpose that pulls them through the rough seas—economic downturns, technological shifts, political uncertainty, internal growing pains.
When it all comes together, honing your North Star is more than marketing—it’s a clear expression of your science, your purpose, and the value you bring, said to the people who need to hear it the most.
Let’s swap ideas — we’re always curious how others are aligning their science and their story. Drop us a note to connect at SynBioBeta. Learn more about our approach at beakersandchips.com.
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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adip elit. Donec posuere dolor massa, pellentesque aliquam nisl facilisis sed.
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