#63: Albert Missbichler, Peter Llewellyn-Davies - This was 2021 - A Year in Review Part 4/7

Part 4 of the Year in Review Recording.

1 hour minutes of inspiring conversations with speakers from previous podcast episodes and business partners of the hosts.

 What was hot in 2021, and what do our speakers expect for 2022?

In this episode, we talk about

• Biotech in Austria
• Culture of Success
• Business Angels, Investment and Market Perspective
• Customer Needs and Entrepreneurship

I hope you enjoy the conversation the same way I did.

Who are the Experts in this episode:

• Albert Missbichler
• Peter Llewellyn-Davies

Video to the Episode: https://youtu.be/IGybV1SsTko

Timestamps:
(00:00) Opening Christian Soschner / Albert Missbichler
(02:00) Peter Llewellyn-Davies Biotech in Austria
(03:22) How was 2021 for Life Science Entrepreneurs?
(05:12) How was 2021 for Biotech Austria?
(06:45) The situation of Life Science Infrastructure in Austria
(08:00) Lab Space in Austria
(09:30) Europe Needs a Culture of Success
(12:25) English Proficiency in Austria
(14:08) Agenda 2022 – Biotech Austria – 3 Main Goals
(16:30) Goal #4: Availability of Capital for Life Science Investments
(18:10) Goal #5: Availability of Funding for Clinical Trials
(19:30) Goal #6: Have Fun
(20:15) Astrid Wollard / Christian Soschner / Matthias Tarasiewicz– Education – Health and Financial Literacy – Beginner’s Mindset
(25:30) Why Beginner’s Mind Matters More Than Ever
(28:18) The Entrepreneurial Spirit in Oxford
(30:05) How Did the Start-Up Scene in Europe Evolve since the 90s?
(32:25) Albert Missbichler – Entrepreneurship & Business Angel in Life Science
(35:00) Fianostics – Diagnostics during Covid
(37:25) From Prototype Stage to Market Entry
(38:35) How Important Is Market and Financing Expertise in the Early Stages of a Company?
(43:04) Entrepreneurship Mindset and Customer Needs
(47:00) Outlook to 2022 – Importance of Meeting in Real Life
(49:20) Direct Contact to Customers in the Digital World
(52:00) Content Marketing Helps to Build Trust Online
(56:30) How Building Business Relationships Changed During the Pandemic

Podcast Links:
Community Partner: https://linktr.ee/lsg2g
Christian Soschner: https://linktr.ee/soschner
Podcast Community: https://lsg2g.substack.com/
LSG2G Twitter: https://twitter.com/LGet2gether
LSG2G Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/life-science-get2gether
Podcast Episodes: https://pod.link/1493847125
Episodes on YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlZfrwd6iXrQ3LIANISUpP22seS2CsCEV
Podcast Website: https://www.lifescienceget2gether.com/

Join Christian Soschner for expert coaching.
50% Off - With 35+ years in deep tech, startups/scaleups, and public companies, Christian offers power video sessions. Elevate strategy, execution, and leadership. Book Now.

Transcript

Christian Soschner 0:00

This is episode number sixty three.

Albert Missbichler 0:05

Exactly. And to be honest, in conference, one part is presentation or whatever, but the most important part is discussion afterwards with the people being around there. Connect with people you simply didn't know in before. And this I think this cannot be replaced by by online meetings. Yeah, but I think it's as soon as you have a project, as soon as you have some sort of agenda, it's fine to go online. You do not need to travel through wherever to go. But at the very beginning to get into contacts, it can be replaced, in my opinion.

Christian Soschner 0:46

Part four of the year in review recording. One hour of breathtaking conversations with speakers from previous podcast episodes and business partners of the hosts. What was hot in 2021 and what do our speakers expect for 2022? As a start into 2022, I will bring the recording live in seven separate episodes. Here is the fourth part with conversations with Peter Lebellin Davis from Biotech Austria and Albert Miss Biegler, an Austrian business angel, and of course Astrid Wollard and Matthias Tarasievich. We were talking about biotech in Austria, culture of success, business angels, investments, and the market perspective, and customer needs and entrepreneurship. I hope you enjoy the conversation the same way as I did. Enjoy the show. It's uh Peter Levelin Davis, and he is president of Biotech Austria. And I'm curious to hear how the year was for his organization and himself. Welcome to the show, Peter. It's good to see you again. Thank you very much, Christian, also for the intro.

Peter Llewellyn-Davies 2:21

Um, yes, it's been a very upheaving year. It's very unusual to be in a position where you've had all the ups and downs that normally you wouldn't expect. But uh biotech is uh is indeed a thrilling business. And as you probably heard from Johannes and his colleagues and everybody else, uh it's probably at the moment one of the most exciting topics to be talking about. So thank you very much for the invitation.

Christian Soschner 2:47

It's good to have you here. It's it was amazing to hear from Johannes and Philip uh how great the life science industry evolved in Vienna over the last two decades. I mean, when I think back myself when I started in uh in the industry in 2006, uh let's put it bluntly and exaggerate a little bit, a handful of companies existed here. And I learned from Johannes that uh we had that exponential growth since then. How do you see um 2021 for life science entrepreneurs?

Peter Llewellyn-Davies 3:20

Well, when I came to Austria in 2017, it was quite interesting, really. I had only really heard of Austrian biotech in respect of Intercell, uh Valneva now, and and a few others. And I didn't really see it as a Viennese type of entity. It was an Austrian-wide, and I've been to a biotech event in Innsbruck. And what amazed me at the time when I came was the strength of the science, i.e., the the institutes and the universities and the students, the amount of students actually coming out of university and looking for challenges. And then I realized that a lot of them went abroad, and I thought to myself, why are they going abroad? I mean, there's so much in this country, it's not just the nicest place to live, but you know, you have a strong infrastructure, you've got uh you've got, you know, you've got you've got the scenery, you've got the schnitzels, um, and you've got everything wonderful here in the wine. And then uh uh and then I realized, oh dear, what's not going right here? Because it could be a really strong country for biotech. So things have improved since then. We've had five exits this year alone. Um, you know, Oregon, Fargo Med, uh, all sites, just to name, and team is just to name four of them. But uh it's it's been an amazing year and it's going to continue this way, I believe it.

Christian Soschner 4:41

Yeah, I'm just smiling because uh the term exit uh in my opinion didn't exist uh 20 years ago. So um there was not much going on. And when I look, when I open now in the internet, uh it feels like on a daily basis we get some success stories here from Austria. Uh Peter, you started biotech Austria a year ago, almost a year ago. So it's uh also an anniversary for biotech Austria, if I remember it right. How was the first year for your team?

Peter Llewellyn-Davies 5:10

Well, well, thank you very much. Because uh when Johannes and myself and and and and a few of the biotech entrepreneurs sat down in 2020, we said, we know, is this an idea we should follow? Should we set up an industry association just for biotech? Uh, because you know, these industry associations exist in in the US, in the UK, in France, and Germany, and in Switzerland, a very, very successful biotech industry. And we said, let's do it. Yeah, let's get this industry associated started. So 30 of us started last year, and now we're 60 a year later. So if we double every year, well, there are I think there are only about 200 companies in in Austria at the moment. But so the goal is to increase the amount of companies as well. An amazing year, um, quite simply because our goal is to not just support our members, but also to make people more aware of biotech in general. And I'm not just talking about the red biotech industry, the white one as well, but just in general, to understand that this is probably at the moment the most needed industry, not just because of the climate control, but also because of health. Look at look at the coronavirus. Biotech was the reason why we are suddenly in the are able at this moment in time at least. Well, it's changing sadly, but to get it under control at least a little bit.

Christian Soschner 6:30

Now it's amazing to hear also, uh, I learned with Johannes and Philip that on the infrastructure side, uh, a lot is going on. How do you see the situation for infrastructure here in Austria for life science entrepreneurs?

Peter Llewellyn-Davies 6:42

So that is really one big issue we have here. So uh one of our first goals is with Lisa Vienna, with ABA, with all sorts of others, the AWS and all sorts of others working together and farming to get entrepreneurs out from universities and start businesses. We want to create the spirit that you have it have in Cambridge in the UK and Oxford and in the US. And you know, there's a lot of money in Austria. Let's just think of all the rich families, but also there's a there's tons of money available to make biotech success here as well. So we need to get the entrepreneurs away from their labs and into uh a company. And we start that perhaps with a simplified founding of a company. It's called the uh the Austrian Limited was one idea, but it's just a simplified uh company. That's one of the big hurdles we're facing at the moment. But secondly, we just haven't got enough lab space. And this was this is really something we have to work on. So anyone who's building, anybody's who who's in who's in um in in the field of of building properties and and investing in that, they should think about lab space because that is a is big business of the future.

Christian Soschner 7:52

And we we haven't got enough, just not enough. Um, but in your opinion, is the bottleneck? Why why why is that that way?

Peter Llewellyn-Davies 8:00

Well, people invest in you know in flats and and shopping centers. But the longer the pandemic goes, I think they're beginning to realize that shopping centres aren't really the ideal thing to invest in. Sorry.

Christian Soschner 8:11

But but instead, I think Jeff Bezos would agree to that.

Peter Llewellyn-Davies 8:16

But it would be a good idea to to invest also, and no one has really realized that labs are needed, and and perhaps this is the moment now to say, okay, uh, let's not just talk about you know shopping, because this is going more and more online. Let's talk about the future, let's talk about the entrepreneurs of the next generation. And and and this is science. Science is strong in Austria, and we need to promote this and get it invested.

Christian Soschner 8:40

I completely agree to that. I mean, when I think back 20 years ago, we didn't have much companies, so I understood the the argument the point that there's nothing going on. But as you and Johannes and Philip from Lisa Vienna mentioned, we have we have had exponential growth, and uh probably it's continuing. So there are a lot of entrepreneurs, and probably also the probability of return is much better than investing in uh in shopping centers for real estate investors, and maybe uh maybe this podcast also helps to raise awareness. Uh, I think infrastructure is one important part. And in the podcast episode we did together, you mentioned uh we need a culture of success here in Austria and in Europe. Can we emphasize that a little bit more? I think we can't talk too little about this important topic.

Peter Llewellyn-Davies 9:25

Oh, absolutely. I'm I'm my background is British, although I'm at heart and Austrian. Well, I am now. So um, unless it comes when it comes down to football, perhaps not so much. But anyway, that's beside the point. Um, anyway, so I I personally feel that you know there the spirit of entrepreneurism is there. And we're also in a situation right now that we need a rethink in our in the way we look at entrepreneurism. And just to give you an example, if you if you if you come out of school and you think, okay, what am I going to do now? Well, let's go to you, I'll go to university. What am I going to do now? I'll get a good job. Okay, so we need this, we need to think differently and say, okay, why don't I just found a company? And people are scared about failing. They're scared about failing because failure is uh there's a word for it, obviously, in German, which means it's negative. Failing is negative. We need to change some time and say, no, failing is a part of the learning curve. And if we install, instill this attitude into the younger generation, those who want to found a company, and say, look, it's no problem, just move on. The next step, let's do it. And that that will also create a uh not only a great country, but a great culture for success.

Christian Soschner 10:40

That's true. Astrid, you were smiling. Uh, who wants to add something?

Astrid Woollard 10:44

No, absolutely. I mean, uh, I'm half British actually, yeah. So um, and studied in Oxford, and I need to say, yeah, it is it's been very different to be sort of immersed in a sort of entrepreneurial ecosystem over there where everyone just feels like, oh, what could be the next idea that I'm doing? It's sort of like hundreds of student societies, uh, entrepreneurship at every corner, basically. And it's the opposite. If you don't have an uh sort of burning idea that you want to develop, you're more likely to be a failure than anything else. So it's it's very much the opposite from here. And uh, but I feel it's something that we really need to also um again start somewhere in kindergarten, in schools, you know, to really uh teach, like maybe not uh try really try to um nurture this curiosity that with what you know children are actually born with, you know, to naturally play around and think that, oh, how could I do this and that, to really keep that going and not stay too much on this sort of like, oh, forget your fantasy that will not get you anywhere, but uh really also bring this to schools. Also, I mean it's also in Austria if you look at um the kind of um career events that you have, like the best is doing a great job, you know, in helping people to get together with universities and finding you know ways and how they uh how they could educate. But I have never seen actually a stand that it would stop and speak about entrepreneurship and say, like, okay, here's actually a very different career path. You could actually build your own company, develop your own ideas or anything like that. So there's also something that we really need to develop more over here.

Peter Llewellyn-Davies 12:21

Yeah, and one thing to add on to that. I mean, uh, I don't know if any of you read the Deep Presser this week and saw that English official, sorry, English, English knowledge and proficiency in Europe or in the world. And guess where Austria is? I I didn't think about it at the time. I thought, okay, somewhere in the middle of the UK, I don't know. It's number two behind Holland. I was most surprised about that. Germany somewhere around 12, France is 27, uh, and and and you think, you know, Austria, wow. And this is one of the reasons why this country is going to be really, really successful. We just need to believe in ourselves and make sure our kids get the right education to actually use this. And then the first step is taken. Language proficiency, especially the center, center of Central Europe, right? And you need to be able to speak English here because of all the cultures coming together here, not just talking about Vienna.

Christian Soschner 13:14

I completely agree. I mean, this was a huge debate uh around the podcast. People often ask me uh why English? Why not German? You are in Austria. And my answer is always I mean, if I want to address the world, I need to learn and practice English constantly. It's 1.5 billion people on the internet in the world speak English and they're all on the internet these days. When I limit myself to German, I have a market of roughly 100-120 million in the world. So any company that wants to go out on the global market needs at least English and uh ideally also other languages. I completely agree with that, Peter. Peter, when we talk about the future, let's uh switch from 2021 to 2022. What's on the future agenda of biotech Austria? What are the three most important parts that you want to change?

Peter Llewellyn-Davies 14:05

Oh, that's a that's a good question. I haven't thought about the answer yet. You're gonna have to test my expontinate. So, okay, well, well, number one is to make the awareness of biotechnology uh a big thing. We're making this a big thing. And I think number two is to get together with all the excellent institutes and universities, but also the associations and clusters, make sure we all work together to create uh an environment for the next step. And number three, and perhaps this is also number one, is to make the Austrian government aware that innovation isn't getting big pharmaceutical companies to buy and uh make uh enormous sites for manufacturing drugs, but to get to think of the next generation and invest in the next generation. And as I said a few minutes ago, and this is one of our goals, we're going to try and you know lobby and support the industry in that respect and make sure people understand, uh particularly politicians, that if we don't do that, people leave Austria, get their education here for free, for free, not like in the UK on the US, for free, and then they'll leave and go somewhere where they can make some money. They'll go to the US or the UK, they won't stay here. If we're lucky, they'll come back, like Christoph Huber, who left who left Austria to found Biotech uh uh in 2018, and he's into he went to Tubingen because they offered him some money there, and the German system is a lot better than it is here, and uh he he lives in Austria again because he is Austrian, but I think there are other examples as well. We just need to make sure people come back or stay here, they can get their experience elsewhere. So, just those three points I think are the main awareness ones we're talking about this year, the next year.

Christian Soschner 15:52

I I agree to that. I mean, um when I look back to um to 2006, um, there was practically no money, no investment money for biotech and for life science after the initial seed stage, and the usual way was leaving Austria, going to Germany, the United Kingdom, and then uh tapping into the US market. And I think there is still a lot of room for improvement for policymakers uh to make Austria more attractive for capital investments, especially in life science and in biotech. I still think we don't have enough capital in that area. How do you see that?

Peter Llewellyn-Davies 16:27

Yeah, absolutely. So now you're talking about points four, five, and six. So it's a long list. Yeah, it is a long list, to be honest. But uh so within that, as you quite rightly say, we need to get people because they are made aware of biotech, they begin to believe that it's a good idea to invest in biotech. So obviously getting investors from the US and other countries as well to invest in Austria is great. But why don't we get the guys who invest in IT and in shopping centers to invest in biotech? There are billions in Austria, Austrian entrepreneurs, you know the big families. I don't need to name them here, um, but the big families here, if we manage to set up a system that these families say, okay, I'm going to invest in Austrian biotech as well. I'm going to put some money in there. And we're not talking about billions, we're just talking about hundreds of millions, which isn't a lot for them, because you know, a dividend, half a dividend of the Austrian telecom is 100 million. Even that would help our industry. So this is something we're working on as well. Goal number four, absolutely right. Investors in biotech.

Christian Soschner 17:33

Yeah, and especially in the early stages, you can do really a lot with 100 million or 200 million. And uh five years ago, I heard the example from uh the Ministry of Finance uh that uh foundations have a lot of uh capital. And uh if they would be motivated and if they were possible to invest only 1%, you have this 100 to 200 million that come becomes available very quickly, very easily. Um, and this can do a lot in the translational research uh area, for example.

Peter Llewellyn-Davies 18:04

Yeah, yeah. And then we talk about number five. Sorry, is uh uh if you go ahead. If you look at if you look at a development of a drug, I'm just talking about the the red biotech seal field, which is uh development of drugs. This takes usually 10 to 15 years. Uh believe me, BioNTech didn't get their vaccine because they were so brilliant and they just invented it in January 2020. No, they developed this for cancer, right? And it had been in development for 10 years already. So they were ready to go and they just switched the indication. So the clinical trials themselves they cost tens of millions of euros. And now let's look at a pyron or invirus as we're incorporated in the future. If we want to set up a clinical trial, we won't get any money from any Austrian government. We have to go out and get the investors because the FFG, there's no criticism, they're great. The FFG only has funding for startups and preclinical investments. Once you get into clinical trials, what you need to do to prove that the drug works, you need the money and you don't get it here. So what you do, you go abroad. Is that the right idea?

Christian Soschner 19:12

Yeah, it was a bit as the Glefa program uh was stopped a couple of years ago. I mean, this was targeted from the FFG on clinical trials, and for somehow reason it didn't move forward. Um, since we were talking about 0.5 already, I can't make up the 0.6. What is the 0.6 on your list? Have fun. Have fun. This is always a great thing, Peter. This is also the right spirits to move into the next year. I think uh have fun, do what you love, be passionate. These were, I remember your words from our podcast episodes. And this is sound advice. Peter, I wish you and your teams all the best for the future and a Merry Christmas.

Peter Llewellyn-Davies 19:47

Thank you very much. And everybody here, thank you very much for these absolutely interesting insights. Uh, Matthias, thank you for sharing these articles. Really appreciate it, guys. This is a great country. Let's make this successful. Thank you very much. Let's do so.

Christian Soschner 20:01

Have a great time. Astrid Matthias, what topic do you want to talk about next?

Astrid Woollard 20:12

I feel there have been so many topics that we have already spoken to about today. It's sort of like fascinating, you know, how we always go between, you know, sectors and investment. And but I think the overarching theme today was really sort of education. Like, I don't know, health with the series, financial literacy, then I don't know, like online ready literacy or something like that. And really wonder, you know, how we can actually sort of take this as uh a sort of spark to really foster change here.

Speaker 5 20:47

That's one aspect that I like a lot, uh, Christian from your description is um this idea of um having uh an open mindset, or like I think I believe you call it the data mind, which is um I think important also to let uh new things into your system and to be able to learn and to understand um there is enough to learn if there is a lot of things to improve. Like I think what you find very interesting and what you have to do in publishing question, because also I think from the debate that you have to do with the with the feature invited is like interesting because I think a lot of people understand and can learn from data, can learn from experience and improved with also the topic. Um if if understanding that you can typically which is um in a way for cycling innovation kind of um looking at the different in the in in the American form of culture where um So um I can get the sort of um if it's really entertained um of your um would need and I guess you call the point of an NVM tool to available capital to investment opportunities and also a lot of um hip and uh like not for um like capital is not that that readily available um in in in Indiana yet if we compare to Berlin or like to to other types of uh to other types of context if um it's risk is really also um clear to the investors with traditional idea of okay I'm investing in a high risk situation um I guess we could need uh much more for uh people that understand that um it can be fun to to deploy risk capital. So I hope also that that this is also driving um a bit of um uh yeah investment thoughts um in the future because especially in research I see a lot um of um in in IT this is at least a feature I'm observing closely uh um there's a huge um gap in what people understand as research so usually in in um very um business centric um um context research is usually um seen as um solving some instant needs and I guess this is like not um how we should see research we see research much more as a kind of a um a way of how to the risk the future and how to actually prepare also in terms of this kind of different literacy that you need these days. So if it's I think it's like um making sure that the the team gets stronger or you're prepared for for the very uncertain market such as the cryptocurrency market or you know technological risks uh if should the web tool ever break down or all these type of things so so I guess a proper research strategy and a proper um understanding of um of of uh of of how to build up this literacy would would help us and this is of course starting with um sentences and approaches like that to to have this this open mindset and digital mindset about yeah I think totally I mean also the the future is sort of interdisciplinary in that respect because there is not just one sort of uh field that can live on its own.

Astrid Woollard 24:22

I think the IST Austrian Klosternorburg is doing that actually quite successfully where it really brings that together researchers from several fields and none of them can really or like to be pinpointed to one specific area so to say because they say like no they identify actually with computer sciences and with biology and whatever. And I think that's also the way to go and this is something that we also need to push in our minds more to think less about you know a particular sector but really think about more the transferable skills that we can actually use in many different sectors and how this could be also applied. Or for example how we could also use I mean gladly you know also in a biotech there is more and more data science approaches that really help to sort of de-risk certain developments. And I'm looking forward to you know these data models being also stronger in a way that we also can de-risk clinical studies earlier so that we don't have this high failure rate, which I think is probably one of the reasons why maybe um some uh there is some hesitation to put even more money into this field, but I don't know, up for a suggestion. But um yeah.

Christian Soschner 25:28

So uh as you mentioned Matthias uh beginner's mind this is uh I think it's a term from Zen Buddhism that I learned um my martial arts career and uh it's basically staying open-minded and this is uh the spirit I want to see in the podcast that we talk with a lot of successful entrepreneurs and decipher what makes them successful and make these know-how accessible to anybody and uh point at the success factors like uh how did some entrepreneurs become successful? What were the steps that they were doing? And one important part is as you mentioned Matthias um I mean today we have a lot of big problems and these are not small problems anymore and the right way to work on solutions for these problems like the pandemic SASCo is uh to train scientists to come up with solutions and this is also where beginner's mind comes from and martial arts um in martial arts we always said I mean um when you wait until you're attacked physically somewhere in the street it's too late. If you want to self-protect and you want to learn self-defense you have to train before something like that happens. And I see it similarly uh in tackling the big problems. Like also Peter said with BioNTech, I mean BioNTech basically trained their team for more than 10 years to learn and understand what their technology can do and how they can use it. And after this training period it's quite easy then to switch to a different indication or also have a look when more problems evolve in the world can we use our technology for that but I think the crucial part is we need to start training early. And sometimes when I look at the uh conversations I have here in Austria or in Europe I still get a little bit the feeling that it's more uh reactive so when something happens then we can do something but very often it's too late. So we need to start earlier and hopefully with the podcast we can contribute a little bit uh to these uh to solving these problems or these challenges and help people understand how success looks like also in life science also in the digital space uh what the uh success factors are and how people can model that very nice so how do we model those we will we will see we will see I think we are getting there I mean um when I compare the spirit in the United States it's it seems to me always it's quite normal to start businesses and uh don't worry too much move forward work on the solution uh one percent at a time and uh I think in Europe a little bit it's getting better it's getting better it's improving asked how did you see the spirit in Oxford?

Astrid Woollard 28:10

I mean you spent uh some years there uh how is the UK spirit okay no uh yeah it it's it's just very different I don't know and um but I've and I tried to figure out several times why it is and maybe it is also that you have just um this very nice college system where you're actually thrown together with people from very different fields and sectors. So uh you're not just limited to one study sector again in Austria days if you study I don't know biology then you go to a biology student organization okay sometimes there are some events but there is no really close interaction with uh sort of people from other uh sectors as well and so just by being thrown into this the this college system of having so many other really clever people around you from different fields you get challenged also on a very different level because they ask questions that you might never have thought of of your own kind of field because you're already sort of like quite blindsided about it. And I think that helps also to sort of uh develop yourself and challenge your own views of the world because I need to say honestly when I was in Austria still I was always thinking okay I'll do my uh masters and then I'll you know have a job and it's fine. And sort of this experience in Oxford really turned me completely around into a person who found out that I'm actually much more an entrepreneurial person.

Christian Soschner 29:40

I'm much happier in this space but it really took sort of uh the ecosystem there and being exposed to many different ideas and opportunities to really sort of break up this um sort of I don't know cage I was in really from having grown up in in in in in uh yeah this system right basically I think it was funny when I compared the attitudes that um I got exposed to in the 90s it basically was um finish school um if you want you can study something at the university but you don't need to it's mostly not necessary um and then after school or after graduating from university find a job in a big corporation and then two reasons I remember for founding a company one was uh before you retire so eventually after 40 years of your career when you retire from uh your last job then you can start a little consultancy make some money for retirement or those people who were not able to find a proper job in a corporation I think this is uh in my mind the attitude of the 90s and uh when I look now at the world I mean what happened since 2008 nine here in Austria after the big crisis at the startup scene that were mostly built uh speed invest for example great success Austrian startup we have uh later Marcus round it here when I look at the funds that evolved uh your fund Astrid um also uh ISD Austria uh that was started I think also 2006 ago then uh ISD Cube their fund then we have many funds in the digital space and I always envied a little bit the dynamic that I saw in the digital space and missed it in the life science industry uh but I think this is changing now this is changing now uh since the start of the pandemic and also as uh Johannes sags Philipp Heinzel Bitter Leven Davis said they see a very positive dynamic in the future and I'm curious to hear uh also on that topic our next speaker which is a business angel here in Austria it's Albert Missbiechler I pull it in to the panelists and welcome to the show Albert let's give us uh your insights into entrepreneurship Albert hello good to hear you how are you doing thanks fine okay it's good to hear and see you yes and thank you very much for the invitation you're very welcome Albert we were talking about entrepreneurship in Austria I think you are a long term entrepreneur and business angel here give us your perspective on entrepreneurship well it's a really interesting business and what I'm in since about six years and um I changed a little bit my my point of view because at the beginning I had some some good suggestions for investors for investments um with rather big tickets which obviously turned out to be not the best way to take it a beginning big tick tickets because if the development does not succeed like a like the business plan said you've got a problem with liquidity.

Albert Missbichler 33:13

So I changed to small tickets now and I'm just now busy with three or four different very young startups involving as well young as also already um little bit older people which have the big the big advantage that they have already some experience. Very engaged perfect but they need some sort of backup with all these uh things you have you have done during setting up a company or these uh do's and don'ts which you don't find in any book you don't learn at the university you come from scientific part which is perfect you have a perfect say process development you have the idea of a perfect product but there is another important point which often is is neglected there's the point of market so is there my market how can I get to that market we had this with uh the the the comp the the important point is sorry um that the the approach to the market and the the feeling of how in which time you can access the market often is missing with young people and this is where I'm now busy in in in trying to involve myself with my experience and with some advice is to get there. On the other hand the small company has the big advantage that it can be flexible. As an example I invested in in Fire Gnostics which was founded six years ago and was focused on on uh rather um small molecules development of detection uh or diagnostic of small molecules in the RT section and two years ago everything which was not related somehow to corona r and t it simply was turned off so you have a you have a business model with companies with laboratories with partners all over the world and within two weeks they all disappear simply they disappear because nobody got money for research expect you busy in in in in in in something correlated to corona and so we had the chance and we took the chance to switch over and within half a year we developed the test on our on our platform and we are now going to market this test. And again big surprise to two seniors in this company having about 30 years experience in clinical diagnostic we had we know all the people we know the market and we said okay the test is ready it is approved every every things are done it shouldn't be any problem to get this test into the market it is a problem so we just face three months of being active getting results yes very interesting oh yes could you give me a sample would you buy it just not now and this is the thing that we have to just to face and and and keep in mind you you need a lot of a long uh long odom to to keep this this distance or to to stay within this distance without getting back in the meantime.

Christian Soschner 36:58

Yeah that's that's true I mean one thing is producing a working prototype and the next thing is then to either um sell the story to investors for the next step to make uh the working prototype fitting any kind of market or if the prototype already addresses the need then uh to find the customers and this is this is tough work this is tough work needs proper planning and I think this is often this is very much underestimated that this is maybe it is at least 50% of the whole whole story has to be get the product on the market successful. I mean I completely agree my opinion is also backward thinking so start from the customer need and uh then think about what problem you solve. And very often when I talk with uh companies that or with people that are early to entrepreneurship um I get the impression that uh market comes last in the thinking and also financing comes last. So when they run out of money then they start thinking about okay is there a customer or is there an investor? And very often it comes too late. So my recommendation always is uh the minute you start putting together a team you need this business skill and financing skill on the team as a core process that uh develops alongside uh the other operations in the company how do you see that as a business angel yes this is this is a very important thing uh you this is and also I see this as a the main uh activity of the business angel besides investing some money just dragging along the people to the lead anyone who will pay is not investor is not the bank is not any any fund it's a customer that will pay the whole company and if the company should be a success to you need a lot of customers or a big customer that really pays for the product and therefore it's very important to get the need which problem can we solve for the customer do we have to to make the awareness in the customer with his problem or is the problem already there most of the things you have to make the awareness to the customer you got a problem you simply don't know but I have the solution as as soon as one of the customers believes the story you're on the good side if we can't get the customer to believe the story that they have a problem that you can solve with your product whatever it is they never will buy it.

Albert Missbichler 39:37

And I think this is in many cases is this is the a problem for many startups that they have very good idea a perfect product but the market is simply too small or they can't address it properly so they even if they get a lot of money it takes them not only two years maybe five years but the end in the end they have to fail because the market is simply not there. And if you if you can raise some money from whomever and you have some sometime you have to pay this money back.

Christian Soschner 40:12

That's true.

Albert Missbichler 40:13

Therefore it it doesn't make sense to raise 15 million of whatever money for a market which is about 10 million in total you won't get into the market with that and the country interesting it's very interesting to see business plans prepared for investors prepared for uh funding companies or FFG or whatever where you have this total market and you get rest then 10% from Austria Vienna with five people this simply doesn't work. But I remember when I started my my my style tech nil 20 years ago we had a very good business plan histamine intolerance this is involved about five percent of the world and you can calculate every person takes one pill per day which costs in euro makes whoops turnaround with whoops whoops this doesn't work I remember just an example do you you have to check the market whether you can have the idea this is from the Austrian market whether can transfer this to international market or even to Germany so what I learned very quickly if you come from Austria Germany ends around Frankfurt everything north about they don't need German or Austrian inventions or Austrian people you need a person a confident person there who can make the marketing there for you because you must not go from Vienna to say Hamburg.

Christian Soschner 41:45

They simply don't talk to you I think there is one important point that you emphasized or that we should that we should emphasize more because I miss it very often in companies um Jeff Bezos in his book Invent and Wonder wrote uh as a headline to one article uh what's good for the customer is good for the shareholders so the only goal a company has is to serve uh the needs of a specific type of customer so customers that have a problem uh which the company addresses with a product or a service that solves the problem and a company doesn't serve public funds or doesn't serve investors they serve the customer and sometimes when I look now on the market uh sometimes it looks like to me we are too much on the investment side so that uh companies or entrepreneurs think in terms of exits and selling the companies and Christoph Lenger for example in one podcast said a company is not sold by the entrepreneurs or by the founders it's purchased by a company so it's the switch in in the mindset. How do you see this this this mindset that you perceive on the European market?

Albert Missbichler 42:59

What are we dealing with currently yes it is an interesting problem you're addressing now um that the mindset of of many many founders is is really we sell the company or we build something we have to build something up we file lots of patents which are more or less expensive which are more yes useful in the idea I can sell this whole package to another company to an investor whatever not keeping in mind that this investor doesn't pay the comp doesn't buy the company but a product which should work in the market or at least a very good idea which the investor or the strategic investor can use in his in his in this setting. And also the next part is looking for a strategic investor not for a VC in most in most cases you have not the experience you don't have the resources To address the market properly when you start a company with, say, five or six persons. It simply is impossible. So you need some connection network which goes with for you, which go together with you to address the markets in different uh fields of the market in different uh companies or in different uh countries. You can't do this by yourself. And this is also very important to bring this into the mind of the startups that they need partners and indeed reliable partners. And of course, most of these partners want some money for their activity, and it is always important to divert the money into product development, whatever this is in total, and market development. This must go in this must go in parallel. If you forget about the market development, you've got a product with no market for that, and then you run really into problems. And also to have the feedback at the market, as soon as you have some sort of working type of prototype, you have to check it with the market. Is this really this what my customer needs, or is this this what our development process developed because it was the most easiest way to get somewhere in this direction we want to go? It's good that you take the need of the customers changes. So we had development, for example, antibodies to SARS-CoV-19. Very important. Politicians said three months ago this is no valid system for getting somewhere. So you can forget about that within a few days. So you have to do this market surveillance, this perfect permanent market surveillance and see where does the market change? Does are there different requirements for the market? Are there different requirements for the regulate regulatory parts? Another very important thing, regulatory can kill a project rather quickly if you overlook some details.

Christian Soschner 46:15

This is uh important what you say. Um, I mean, we were talking about content marketing, and uh today on TikTok, for example, I saw a short clip which was quite interesting. And the question was, how can I make my business successful? Should I uh draw up a nice balance sheet or write extensive business plans or something like that? That and the answer was no. The first thing you need to do is finding your customers that pay you, even when you just have a prototype. This is the most important step, unless you don't have at least one customer that buys into your solution, you always have to question the market. Um, Albert, in that spirit, when we look at 2022, what is your outlook to 2022 in terms of entrepreneurship?

Albert Missbichler 46:58

Well, I hope that we will have more possibilities to get into personal contacts again. Because just what you just reminded uh said, you can't sell a product online without having personal contact to your customer. You have you and you don't get the proper or necessary feedback from your customer from your potential customer without sitting with him in a room and having him in front of you talking with him. You can't do this online, you can work out protocols if you know each other. It is to my experience now, it is nearly impossible to get an honest feeling of that what your customer or your potential customer really needs. He won't often he won't tell you this in written words, but you can see in your reaction, okay, yes, this is the feeling, or there might be a problem, you can talk with it. So I think it's very important to find personal contacts again with universities, with young research groups, also to find out if there are any useful ideas that can be transferred into market. So this is what I'm looking for, really, and hopefully, we can at least in spring start again going out, talking to people, collecting ideas, bringing ideas together to make this virtual network also working in a real network of connecting people on a table in a whatever.

Christian Soschner 48:36

I'm I would I'm curious now to hear Astrid's opinion on that. Uh, I mean, my opinion is my opinion is also that we need this personal contact um to understand what customers need. It's uh for me, it's also different uh sitting face to face in real life in front of a person and getting the full experience of communication compared to the digital version. I mean, digital has become much better in the last two years, uh, but still a belief in it in the real world. When I talk to younger people, they often say, no, we don't need it. Uh Astrid, how is it in the digital space? How important is the direct contact to customers in your world?

Astrid Woollard 49:19

Um, not really much. I mean, in general, you know, I agree that we all need, you know, um face-to-face contact, you know, and sort of uh value our uh relationships there, you know, with friends and uh occasional business partners. But I think most people have seen that also in the digital space, you can become more efficient and you think more about, you know, do you really need to travel to this meeting? Or can I actually do it online? Is it really necessary for a one-hour meter meeting to actually block out three hours, you know, uh just to get an initial assessment? I think we have been actually quite successful in speaking to teams fully online. This has also not been the case in uh the VC space before, before you would always have also get the whole team on-site and sort of meet everyone and also go there to the office and stuff. I think there are now ways that you can also um it I mean, it takes some training. I will I will say that, yeah. It takes some training and also for your gut feeling to develop on how you can actually measure and interpret digital interactions. Um it's much, much harder if you don't have a video like we have now, for example, in Zoom, you know, that that already gives you much more information. But I think you can do most things actually online. I think you can also sell um to your customers online. And this is also why we have now also such a push with this whole metaverse system, you know, where we will see that um a lot of things will actually move into the digital space that don't necessarily need to be uh in the person-to-person contact.

Albert Missbichler 50:53

And maybe this is what this was a very important thing you said. Uh, you need training on the online um communication. And I also think it's a question of age. We have been educated as an older older person, we have been educated and we have lived our active lives in direct communication. If you grow up as a uh digital native, it's simple, I think it's very much easier for them to get into this sort of communication type. Of course, we have to do that. Sure.

Astrid Woollard 51:29

So I tell you one thing, you know, when I had my first job out of well, while I was actually still writing up my PhD thesis, I already took a full-time job at the Science and Technology Facilities Country Council in the UK. I had actually my manager who was already in his 50s up in the north of England, and I was actually sitting down in South. Uh, and I had actually no team around me. And what we were doing was also communicate always just digitally. And it was really weird for me because it was the first time that I actually hadn't met someone in person uh or had didn't have contact with my manager in person, but sort of after a year or so you get used to this and so like, okay, no, yes, you can actually talk like you would in any kind of way. So I think it really comes, it's it's less an age issue than really something like training, being open to it quite regularly. I mean, I have now uh basically Zoom calls every day, starting from 8:30 to I don't know, some time in the evening. And so for me, it's become quite um well, not normal, but uh I got very much used to it.

Christian Soschner 52:33

Yeah, I I agree to that, what you both say. I think it depends, uh, my opinion. Um I mean um Sascha Berger pointed it out with the importance of building trust, and where he said, uh in his opinion, it's important to meet at least once in real life. And I would agree to that. But building on that, what Stephanie said, uh, the content marketing, I believe when a company and especially the founders do their content marketing online really well, uh, putting constantly content out there that describes who they are, what they are doing, uh and seeing a track record after five years of a consistent content marketing strategy can help to build the trust. But companies that don't do that online, where you basically, I mean, still when startups approach me, when I look the people up, they are not existing on LinkedIn sometimes, they don't have a Twitter profile, a Facebook profile, maximum my company website that says we are coming soon. So it stays a black box. And when I compare it to, for example, Gary Weinerchuk, he's one of those who says uh a company has to put out 64 pieces of content every day, and not only the company, but also the executives, founders, and owners. And his opinion is when you do that really constantly, you don't need the real world anymore because everything is laid out and building trust comes naturally. How do you see that, Albert? Is that uh something that you could also live with that you see a track record of content of a company to replace the personal contact?

Albert Missbichler 54:09

Um I think it's very helpful and it's very important as you all pointed out some sometimes today. As you there's a new name on the screen, you look it up in Google, you look it up at the in LinkedIn, the same thing as what I also do. Uh, the problem is when you found a company, you don't have a track record because you're new. So you may have a track record as a person, but if you are spin-off from a university, so you may have some papers which are limited to those people who can read this paper scientifically. Everything else is simply not there, and therefore, you this is especially at the beginning. I think it's important to have this personal contacts as soon as you're somehow uh present already. You have to build up this, you have to make this feed, this is okay, and you can continue your uh connections with every people with customers already if you if you're here, as soon as you're present, and yeah, as soon as you have settled up your home page or whatever you put in there, this will work, I'm sure. But at the very beginning, it is I think it's necessary to meet people in person and to discuss also this this is uh to make this my um brains brainstorming or sessions, brainstorming sessions online. Um, they work. I've done some of them, but they work much better if you are meeting in person with five or six people. This is my experience. I mean, this is very subjective. This this meaning. Maybe it can work much better, and I'm simply not not used to that. And I'm not really wanting to get used to that, really.

Christian Soschner 56:05

Yeah, I think um there's a question also from uh comment from Kimberly coming in uh that she finds a very interesting discussion, and she would be interested in knowing it uh if you found ways of connecting with new people and ideas online less effectively as we do at coffee breaks, at in-person events. I mean, this is something that I experienced in my behavior with this new normal that we have now. Before, I mean, before 2020, my normal behavior was um that when somebody wrote me an email, I wanted to meet for lunch or for coffee or someone. Um, but as Astrid said, I mean, it takes uh three hours going for lunch in Vienna, is one or two hours lunch, and then you have to commute between that. And since Zoom is working so well now, even when I'm in the same city with the person who invites me, now my first reaction is okay, let's have a 30-minute Zoom call to see if we really can do something instead of let's meet for lunch. Uh, Astrid and Albert, uh, how do you see it in your life and Matthias?

Astrid Woollard 57:08

Well, I mean, just do it. No, I mean, uh, for us, it worked quite well actually over LinkedIn, for example, as you said, you know, can you can reach out to people uh via their profiles or even sort of Twitter, then set up sort of an initial call of 30 minutes, you know, to keep it short and then see like, okay, is there any you know angle that you could work on and then sort of keep the interaction going from there? So through several either messaging apps or also email. I mean, email seems to also be dying down these days, I have the feeling, but it's still there. Um, but um, yeah, just it it is uh certainly, I don't say and uh more intense because you have to sort of check in at least once a month for sort of like any up, are there any updates or you know, keep up with regular calls, but that has actually worked quite well for us.

Albert Missbichler 58:04

You can continue or you can discuss a lot of things with people you are intending to meet. You make an uh an appointment with one person or with another person, you can go to lunch or you can set up a Zoom meeting. This is fine. But if you take the coffee break after some conference or whatever, you meet people you would not address via Zoom meeting because they're simply there because they're taking their coffee one meter beside you, and you listen what they are talking about, and all this information simply you meet you're missing because you don't address these people because you don't even know them, but you get to get to know them and you oh interesting. What are you doing? Maybe we can connect, or maybe you're a sympathetic person, or maybe you have an interesting project, but I won't work with you because I don't like you. All these things are very different to pick up in in Zoom meetings.

Christian Soschner 59:09

Yeah, that's absolutely true. I think um at conferences, this uh element of chance or luck or however you call it, pumping into people that otherwise I would have never met is uh an important factor in business. So a lot of uh contacts come out, and you also can't replicate it here. So when I have an audience, uh, I don't even know if Zoom still restricts people from communicating with each other. But uh when I see 60, 70 people in the audience, uh, I hardly believe that there is any communication dynamic behind the scene like we see on a conference.

Albert Missbichler 59:43

Exactly. And to be honest, in conference, one part is presentation or whatever, but the most important part is the discussion afterwards with the people being around there, to connect with people you simply didn't know in before. And this I think this cannot be replaced by by online meetings. Yeah, but I think it will as soon as you have a project, as soon as you have some sort of agenda, it's fine to go online. You do not need to travel through wherever to go. But at the very beginning to get into contacts, it can be replaced, for my opinion.

Christian Soschner 1:00:24

I agree to that. I think we need a balance between online and offline worlds, but I also think that the online world will be part of business uh as it is right now and will become more important, but we still need some at least some big conferences uh where people can meet and uh also have this initial accidental contacts to move forward that are very important. Yeah, I albert, thank you very much for joining the session. It's always good to see you, and hopefully we can meet up for a real life lunch or dinner pretty soon.

Albert Missbichler 1:00:57

I hope so. Yes, I wish everybody good holidays, a very good switch in the next year, and hopefully much health.

Christian Soschner 1:01:09

Same to you, Albert. Same to you. Have a good 2022. Bye bye. Bye. Thanks for listening. Please, please share the podcast and make sure you've subscribed. Have a great day.