The modern mythos of 20th century American industry includes many stories of businesses being founded in a garage. As the stories go, a few plucky founders will construct a widget in their garage and, with prototype in hand, look for a way to get the product to customers. Famously, Apple computer and Hewlett Packard were founded in this manner.
What you don’t often hear about is the extent to which the founders might have performed a market study to ascertain the potential demand in the market. Possibly because the frequency of this ground work is near zero. Certainly the founders had some sense that like-minded folk would want copies of their products. In other words, if you build it, at least a few will come.
Similarly, one doesn’t hear so much about the rate of failure either. How many storage lockers are crammed with the remains of a failed business plan? Probably more than a few.
What every technological entrepreneur eventually has to come to grips with is this- who are the customers and how can you get the message of new capability to them? Seth Godin has some interesting ideas about this. Godin suggests that in todays information saturated market place, the critical customers are the innovators and the early adopters.
So here is the big question- Why don’t we hear more about chemists launching businesses out of a garage? Better yet, how might the chemical industry be different if more chemists did start a chemical business in this celebrated manner? Most might agree that the culture of entrepreurialism that Wozniak, Jobs, Packard, Hewlett, and Gates picked up and ran with dramatically accelerated the growth of the electronics industry. But fewer might agree on what clues these founders took as their cue to risk everything. How does a fledgeling chemical entrepreneur know if the idea, process, or material of interest is worthy of risking the family nest egg?
On the next posting, we’ll talk about some of the factors that a chemical entrepreneur might face in getting started.
Lamentations on Chemistry 
Aldrich began in a garage (N. Farwell Avenue, Milwaukee’s East Side). Aldrichimica Acta 34 (2) (2001). The good Dr. Bader was eventually ousted by his Board. If you try to buy the last few bottles in inventory of an Aldrich product, prepare for an awesome increase in price vs. catalog. That’s good business! Try Acros.
Market studies predicted the HP-35 was an grievously overpriced dud. Bill Hewlett did it anyway. GE ordered 20,000 at a gulp.
Yeah, Bader is one of the better examples of a successful entrepreneur. He claims that his poor experience with Eastman prompted him to start up a business. There are other examples as well.
As you’ve alluded to before, pretty hard to do chem without fume hood/waste disposal/ zoning permission/EPA stuff/State Environment stuff/ chemical storage permission/ fire code – uhhh is your garage Class A, B or C? Also must get H1-B visa for Chinese chemist.
So there’s no reason for you to continue on this line of reasoning, unless you really want to rub it in (which is possible).
Gaussling, I’d have to agree with Class Act. The start-up costs associated with chemistry research are astronomical — especially when compared to the computer / electronics world. (This discrepancy might have been less true in the 1970s / 80s due to expensive semiconductors and lax EHS regulations, but I’d imagine it to have held then too.)
My presumption is that you are talking about legal ventures for chemists as the examples of illegal Crystal Meth Labs might be considered kitchen/garage “start-ups”. Even there a chemistry degree is not a prerequisite.
I look forward to how you will elaborate on such issues but personally think most of us probably have gotten so spoiled by available modern instrumentation it would be hard to do anything significant with out HPLCs, FTIRs, NMRs and other equipment directly on hand. One can work with Uni’s or contract labs or even purchase used items but it does take substantial capital.
I’d have to agree with some of the other commenters. Being a chemist by training who now works in software, the fundamental difference is that the Brins, Pages and Gateses of this world do not have to deal in/with physical matter but rather with virtual goods. And it is that virtualisation that changes the game – music and movies can be virtualised….hence the success of products like iTunes and the death of record stores selling physical objects (CDs etc). News can be virtualised….hence the slow death of paper newspapers. Virtualisation of this sort completely changes the economics of what is feasible (infrastructure costs, distibution etc…) and really…that explains why, these days, chemical businesses cannot be started in a garage anymore…….unless of course you deal in chemical information systems….:-).
The IT world is an anomaly – all you need is knowledge for the most part (no degrees, cheap equipment, programs and language cheap and available) to start your own business. Chemistry usually requires lots of knowledge and proof of knowledge in degrees, specialized equipment and margin of safety (people are more afraid of chemicals than they should be, but even if they were completely rational, there has to be some margin for error). I don’t know if IP is an issue as well (whether much of the interesting chemical or programming landscape is covered already by patents). The prevention of drug manufacturing can limit access to material and paraphenalia, as well.
I don’t have my PhD, but I imagine that the large input in education tends both to select for and make people less entreprenurial, because they have spent so much to get where they are (in time and money) and don’t want to waste it, plus the desire to have a family and do other things delayed by school. There might be too much effort spent in particularity and not enough on general principles to see what goes on in interesting places (or maybe that’s just me).
I disagree with Class Act. You can always try to do things the hard way. Instead of thinking in tonne lots being subdivided into 100 grams items, think in gram lots produced in a second on an automated line. When it gets to a 100 grams, ship it. There is no significant inventory to trigger off the regulators.
I disagree with Hap. Neither one is more difficult. The very equipment you use in computer work can be used to automate chemical syntheses. There is all kinds of chemistry not covered by patents. The key is finding a customer for the computer work or for the chemistry work. And businesses will pay big time for a desktop plant synthesizing some key chemical that they need. And for the business they have gotten rid of a significant inventory to trigger off the regulators.
Jay Woods although I agree finding customers willing to buy product is a key I don’t think technology has advanced far enough to reliably do desktop automated syntheses, particularly with felixibility to make a wide range of products, as you advocate. There are some chemical/pharma plants that do have high degrees on automation and computer control but typically applied to well establsihed or very straight forward chemistries. There are a few technologies that have been reduced to bench scale automation such as DNA and Peptide Synthesizers but that is due to repeative nature of the assembly that can be applied. Combinatorial chemistry efforts for generating drug libraries a few years ago did introduce a number examples of less manual production however showed how difficult it can be attempt to use computers/robotics to conduct reactions. Most electronics do not handle environments with chemicals so need special materials/protection and still have waste streams to deal with.
That said your comments does point to opportunities to move in that direction and know “chemistry on a chip” has been proposed/demonstrated. Perhaps a capable Chemical Entrepreneur will be able to ovecome the issues I mention and we will have such devices in the future. There have been many a time when I have struggled with a synthesis that I wished I had the Star Trek Replicator that could make any compound on demand.
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