For biotech, I'm interested in understanding why YC would be a better choice than the SBIR/STTR route.
That's a good point and reflects my own experience. But I'd be hard pressed to generalize what I've learned in my career in IT/IT related start-ups and take that and apply it to say a company that creates a new medicine or one that tries to commercialize some new medical instrument. The sales avenues in that domain are radically different from 'just' IT based start-ups and just like I wouldn't see a bio-tech person run an IT firm the reverse probably holds true as well, ditto for advice to such management.
I recently had a long and in-depth look at an organization that sells a lot of physical goods on-line and even in that case there was so much domain knowledge wrt to the retail portion of it that without a CEO with significant knowledge in that particular field they wouldn't have stood a chance.
Anyway, you're doing pretty good so far, can't wait to see you prove me wrong :)
Not quite. YC has been successful selling to people. Biotech isn't selling to people. The drug sells itself. It either works or it doesn't. Science doesn't care what we want.
One thing I don't see happening in biotech is an end-run around the law such as AirBNB pulled off. That's going to get you into a lot of very hot water.
For instance my company (Glowing Plant, YC S14) is entirely predicated on such an understanding. We read the rules and realized that if we engineered a plant with a gene gun instead of agrobacterium it would not be regulated in the United States. This saves us millions of dollars in getting a product to market and means we can pursue an agile product development strategy. Game changer.
I'm aware of another 4-5 such opportunities for syn bio products where you can get to market for low or zero regulatory permission.
Trying to move fast and break things in a regulated industry strikes me as producing fragile business plans, at best.
[0] http://www.nature.com/news/glowing-plants-spark-debate-1.131...
[1] http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v475/n7356/full/475265b...
Most of what people think about when they hear biotech still falls under typical FDA CFR regulations for either pharmaceuticals or durable medical devices. I think that's what the grandparent was talking about.
Apologies, my original post was incompletely expressed.
Otherwise, I'm very curious what their strategy is for breaking into the bioscience and technology space in a broader sense, and if that would lead them to opening shop in other metro areas outside of the bay area.
http://wavefunction.fieldofscience.com/2015/03/cancer-genomi...
http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/reading-the-human-geno...
The Washington DC area I believe disproves your hypothesis.
As do facts and numbers:
http://www.fiercebiotech.com/story/top-15-cities-biotech-ven...
http://www.genengnews.com/insight-and-intelligenceand153/top...
I would be fascinated to hear how they will handle the regulatory challenges, and how they bridge the cultural differences inherent to a group in a regulated industry vs. the more stereotypical software startups.
Also, gaining the relevant knowledge to filter nonsense from sense here isn't necessarily as hard as you might think. And some of the filtering can be done with information theory, basic economics, probing deeper until you find the "and them some magic happens!" step, and some other non-biological tools that apply everywhere. I'm not saying it's easy, it's still months of work potentially, but it's only months. You don't actually need a PhD for nonsense filtering.
1) SBIR/STTRs are specific solicitations that serve the specific goals of funding agencies. If you don't see one that matches your tech exactly, it's a nonstarter.
2) Often times, the call for proposals are written with a specific company in mind that the funding agency already has some relationship with or interest in funding. Breaking into this can be challenging for a new company to learn the landscape.