According to Sandy Weinberg, professor of entrepreneurship at Muhlenberg College, Allentown, Pa., it's critically important for more scientists to enter the business arena. "Right now science decisions are being made by businesspeople, [but] from every social and economic point of view for the [United States], we're much better off if those decisions are not business decisions. The key is to have some science people get a business background and be able to make those decisions themselves."
Experienced scientific entrepreneurs caution that researchers must learn something about business before attempting to start a company. "You need to know the vocabulary of business," advises Weinberg, a biomedical engineer who has founded five companies. "You need to know basic accounting and how to read spreadsheets. You need to understand the concept of marketing. You need to understand the regulatory and legal environment."
Yet gaining this knowledge isn't especially difficult, Weinberg points out. "Scientists ...
