AMA - Shak Lakhani, Startup Founder at Y-Combinator
For this blog post, I’ve decided to reach out to Waterloo entrepreneur currently going through the Y Combinator program. He will do an AMA (Ask Me Anything). This will provide the class with an inside look at both Waterloo’s and The silicon valley’s ecosystems.
How this will work
I’ll pass on all the questions asked by the class to Shak and post his answers at the end of each week. This will continue within reason (to respect his time) until reading week.
Introducing Shak
Shak Lakhani is a co-founder of Avro Life Science, a biotech Startup developing skin patches for generic drug delivery. Shak leads R&D, clinical strategy, partnerships and fundraising at Avro. He has 5 years of research experience under Rhodes Scholars and the Canada Research Chair for Nanotechnology Engineering. His research has been published in leading journals including Nature Materials and Bio fabrication.
He and his team previously worked out of the velocity garage in Kitchener and have since moved down to Y Combinator.
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http://www.avrolifesci.com/
How this will work
I’ll pass on all the questions asked by the class to Shak and post his answers at the end of each week. This will continue within reason (to respect his time) until reading week.
Introducing Shak
Shak Lakhani is a co-founder of Avro Life Science, a biotech Startup developing skin patches for generic drug delivery. Shak leads R&D, clinical strategy, partnerships and fundraising at Avro. He has 5 years of research experience under Rhodes Scholars and the Canada Research Chair for Nanotechnology Engineering. His research has been published in leading journals including Nature Materials and Bio fabrication.
He and his team previously worked out of the velocity garage in Kitchener and have since moved down to Y Combinator.
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http://www.avrolifesci.com/
Hi Xavier, great post! I think it's amazing that your taking a blog assignment from lecture and enacting it in real life. I think it's extremely proactive of you and really plays towards the idea of 'innovation' that we have brought up in class. It would be great if you could keep us updated with Shak Lakhani's AMA!
ReplyDeleteHey!
ReplyDeleteWould love to know more about how he got started! What resources did he use? What obstacles did he face when getting started? How is his company and products innovating in this market?
Thanks Xavier!
Great question. I should have his answer in the coming days.
Delete"It Started as more of a joke than anything else. In first year, my friends and I wanted to work on something cool outside of school to stack our resumes etc, but we didn’t want to take part in the standard engineering design teams where we would likely be relegated to grunt work. We started holding “startup Sundays” where we would hang out in a student residence and pitch stupid ideas at each other until we came up with a couple that actually seemed legitimate. We eventually settled on allergy patches after a while, since my co-founder and I had both suffered from allergies as children, and personally identified with the problems at hand, and I had technical background in working with drug delivery technologies from research internships I had completed during my high school summers and part time during the school years. In terms of getting started, the velocity community was quite helpful in terms of getting access to lab space, developing a basic business plan, and actually learning what is required to “have” a company, in terms of tech development, patent protection, go to market strategy, sales, distribution, identifying a real problem and competitive advantages, etc etc. We applied to the Velocity Science program, and were accepted after demonstrating sufficient technical and business background. Apart from that, a lot of getting started is just talking to people who’ve been there and done that before!
DeleteIn terms of innovating in the market, we’re developing skin patches for generic drug delivery, focusing on the therapeutics for children and the elderly, where there are issues with the biological ability to swallow pills, and compliance in taking medication. In the past, to deliver a drug trans-dermally, a “lock and key” model was required, consisting of a combination of a drug and a polymer, or material that holds the drug. However, for each drug, a new customized polymer was required in order to ensure that it is “inert” or non-reactive with the drug being delivered, such that the drug still has its intended therapeutic effect. We’ve actually developed a “one-size-fits-all” polymer for trans-dermal drug delivery, so on one hand, it allows us to deliver a number of drugs that haven’t trans-dermally delivered in the past, but also allows us to reduce the R&D costs and burden on large pharmaceutical companies, and to use our polymer/material as a starting point for trans-dermal delivery of any small molecule drug. "
- Shak
Hello there!
ReplyDeleteI would love to know more about what being a part of Y Combinator entails, as I feel as though the actual mechanics of the startup/incubator relationship are still a little foggy for me.
Additionally, is an incubator the go-to option for all startups, or are there others that would be more suited to "going it alone", so to speak?
Lastly, at what point are startups deemed ready to graduate from the program?
Thanks so much.
Hi Meaghan,
DeleteI just passed on your question and should have answer by the end of the week.
Y-Combinator is formally termed as an accelerator program, though I would say that it is absolutely unparalleled in its ability to provide valuable insight, access to a powerful network, and enable investment. The program itself requires moving to Mountain View for 3 months, and attending weekly group dinners, office hours with assigned partners, and various networking events. The program culminates with a “Demo Day” where over the course of 2 days, all of the 120+ startups in the batch pitch to some of Silicon Valley’s best investors. It’s almost as competitive for an investor to get into Demo Day as it is for a startup to get into YC!
DeleteI’d say that YC is fairly hands-off in terms of how they ask you to work, etc, but they do a great job of providing you with mentors, advice, and contacts to bounce ideas off of, in order to maximize your business’ value. You work out of home, or a rented office space, and YC doesn’t provide any of that, but they help you set lofty goals to raise significant investment on Demo Day. It’s not unheard of for a company to raise millions of dollars within a couple of weeks.
As for incubators, they’re certainly helpful, but by no means the only option for a company. They’re great in the early stages, especially if your company requires startup capital, for hardware or lab related work etc, and can be useful in terms of business advice, depending on who runs it. I find that the most important part is actually the general attitude of the working space or incubator that you’re in – if you’re working out of a space where lot’s of cool stuff is happening on a daily basis, and companies are moving fast and get things done, it makes you get stuff faster almost by association. I’d say a lot of great companies go-it-alone, and it is often easier to build a strong company culture when you aren’t in a co-working space of any sort, and have your own closed doors.
As for YC, you have to graduate at the end of the 3 months! It’s pretty much the gold standard of accelerator programs, and by the time they’ve graduated, many companies have launched, or have a product ready for market, or in the case of companies like mine, have made significant progress and partnerships on the tech that shows its value.
- Shak
To get the Ball rolling I initially asked Shak the following question.What do you think it takes to get hired in today's economy? Do you think a candidates personal branding ( on social media) is an important quality?
ReplyDeleteHere's his answer
I’d argue that nowadays, a degree is nearly worthless unfortunately, unless it comes from a top academic institution (Ivy League Tier). Personal branding can make a small difference However it’s very more common for people to “talk the talk” without being able to “walk the walk”. For this reason, personal branding loses a lot of it’s value in the eyes of hiring managers. Rather than branding yourself too generally you should understand the specific needs of a position and back how you bring that value with evidence.
Having hired a number of co-ops, and now full-times, I would say that “culture fit” is also extremely important. Managers want to hire people who they’ll want to work with, this opinion is mostly formed in person, because personal branding has often become very generic with the same buzz words being used by every candidate. A candidate’s attitude can be determined in person and many of the hardest working individuals don’t have time to always post about how they are hard working on social media. Seeing an overly groomed profile worries me that branding will take time away from their core responsibilities.
The best companies will cut through BS, which is to say, the majority of personal branding strategies. Because everyone uses the same techniques it makes the candidate seem like they’re unable to be think critically and creatively.
The role your social media should play is to not discredit you in the final stages of the interview.We recently had a candidate that killed his interviews, but could be seen engaging in debatable activities on Instagram and Facebook. As such, we decided to go with a very close second choice.
Hi everyone,
ReplyDeleteDespite not receiving any additional questions on this thread, I wanted to share an update. Demo day just ended at Y-combinator, those of you who read chaos monkeys will know how big of a date this is. Leading into demo day quite a few investors had an eye on Shak’s company, thanks to his efforts and a timely TechCrunch article.
Following Demo day Avro life sciences was recognized by Tech Crunch one of the 8 most innovative companies out of the program. Specific numbers can’t be shared however Avro life sciences has managed to secure funding at a market cap far beyond the average numbers discussed in chaos moneys.