You're doing the right thing if you want to build a business, which is ask questions directly to potential customers. You may find some people keep tight lips because they're trying to do the same thing. I feel like there was a heck of a lot more content and energy on here 4-5+ years ago but naturally things wax and wane. A lot of people on here have started companies doing pretty cool stuff or started their own makerspace/hackerspace whatever you want to call it. They found an answer(s) to the question you've asked and solved it or are trying to solve it. So I guess I'd say the majority of people on here have the personality type that where there is a will, there is a way. Access to reagents isn't that bad if you do a little searching and hunting. Equipment isn't that bad if you spend a few hours on ebay or LabX.
There's no doubt a market for amateur scientists, and I believe schools as well. Most schools default to Carolina Biological or BioRad kits. Give them something better.
I don't know shit about electronics or EE really but I've been spending some spare time and money on Arduino kits etc. It's fun and it's INSANE how many things you can buy for...pennies. That's not the case really for a lot of bio/chem stuff. That aside, I think the BIGGEST area to add value is very clear videos/instructions on what to do.
It's easy to stockpile chemicals and reagents but if you have no purpose or guidance on what to do with them they're a hammer looking for a nail. I don't know if that analogy makes sense in this case but I used it! For Arduino the # of tutorials and very clear guided instructions are great because I know exactly what I'm doing with all the pieces in my toolkit. If I buy 500g of 20 metal salts, wtf am I really going to do with that? My lab will be stocked and look cool, but all I can do is grow crystals.
If I get 10 restriction enzymes and Taq and pipettes and a thermal cycler, wtf am I really going to do with that? If you can't read a plasmid map or design primers you're again wandering aimlessly. That's also why people go to school or get a job. Science really is like a trade. A carpenter learns to frame a house, build a roof, do finish carpentry, use multiple tools and knows WHEN to use them and when to use something else. They generally learn from years to an entire life of apprenticeship, journeyman, master, etc.
I believe science is taught quite poorly in primary schools and even universities. It's 95% memorization and testing, 4% hands on lab-work (with a pre-made protocol), and 0-1% "thinking" about what to do. If I give you all the tools to solve a problem and then give you the recipe on how to solve it, you've basically learned nothing.
The best professor at my school got FIRED because students complained he was "to hard" because he made them think. He was the type to give them an organic chemistry reaction and told them to pick their own solvents. What polarity solvent should I use? Hmm water, ether, or dichloromethane? Well we're working with non-polar materials so water is out. What about it's boiling point and flash point and general ease of handling? DCM is probably the better option here! Think about that, in the real world, when you're doing new things, there is no recipe book, you need to be able to go into the ol tool box and think about how to solve problems.
I'm rambling now but the point is, I'd try to just mimic what Adafruit did for electronics but for bio. Sell tools, but also sell small recipe books on how to build stuff to build skills. Then there can be more challenging things people can move onto where there won't be a recipe book.
Yeah that may be a useless rant but, take from it whatever you can. I'd also try to focus on what you're good at. Are you a biologist, chemist, coding wizard, graphic design guru?
My biggest pet peeve is the "lab markup" on equipment, which some on here have helped with like OpenPCR, miniPCR etc.
Want a pair of tweezers? $1 at CVS. Lab tweezers? $50 at VWR. College fridge? $35. Lab fridge? $500. Metal cabinet? $10. Chemical storage cabinet? $2,500. I could go on and on with that!
On Thu, Feb 28, 2019 at 8:09 PM Seth Donnelley <newbiolutions@gmail.com> wrote:
Thanks! Much of that sounds like me as well. I will try to help you as best I can. Stay tuned!--On Thu, Feb 21, 2019 at 5:22 AM Nathan McCorkle <nmz787@gmail.com> wrote:On Wed, Feb 20, 2019 at 8:40 AM Seth Donnelley <newbiolutions@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> your most painful, biggest problem with your lab, and why it's such a big problem for you (i.e. why it hasn't been solved yet).
not enough lab space, not enough time and energy, not enough money,
not enough experience, not enough passionate peers and mentors.
I've been considering going back to school for a PhD for several
years, and the itch is getting more and more annoying, such that I'm
traveling to visit a potential graduate program lab soon. I had a lot
more energy when I was a teen working in my mom's kitchen and my
bedroom... still 90% of that energy and gumption to work under duress
or in non-optimal circumstances, but my Bachelor's program spoiled me
in terms of nice labs and free/prepared sterile media. Having a kid
and thinking about sterilizing a bunch of contaminated cultures in the
kitchen is really unappealing.
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