Academic to Entrepreneur: Why and how to leave academia behind

William Gunn, Ph.D. Head of Academic Outreach Mendeley twitter: @mrgunn

How many of you currently plan to look for a tenure-track faculty

position when you finish?

80% will choose something else

My story

The advice I got

• Good: Pick a stable, well-funded lab where people graduate on time

• Good: Diversify project risk

• Bad: Keep your head down, work hard, and it’ll all work out

Seek advice from the people who can give it

Looking for light at the end of the tunnel

A challenger appears!

I was part of something!

It was a little isolating

Csikszentmihalyi, M. Flow: The psychology of optimal experience.

(1991)

Ease transition by diversifying risk

A desire to make things better

Early Adopter

Lesson: Fail Faster

Look beyond the surface

Achievements

• OA policy advocacy successes

• a tool that doesn’t suck

..and aggregates research data in the cloud

Mendeley extracts research data..

Mendeley helps researchers work smarter

..helps researchers work smarter

..makes science more collaborative

and transparent ..is creating the world’s largest open research

database

Tools of scientific discovery

Mendeley..

Nothing traditional about it

The career development office can’t help with the nontraditional stuff

BLOG!

Stay

• What do you want to do?

• Will you find "Flow"?

• Realistic impression?

• Supportive network?

• Are you young?

Go

• Frustrated by lack of impact?

• Like to write?

• Want to influence policy?

• Are you too charismatic?

tinynazispiders.spreadshirt.co.uk

Network!

Not just standing around talking to people

Do interesting things

Such as blog

FINDING OPPORTUNITIES

http://blogs.nature.com/soapboxscience/tag/transitions

Reaching Out!

In your department

• Be a speaker, symposia, conference organizer or session chair

• Your local Biotech Club

• MassBio

• Your local Post-doc Association

Professional organizations

MAKING THE TRANSITION

• Goals

• Mindset

• Time management

Grants vs. Sales

Time pressure

Teamwork vs. solo research

www.mendeley.com