Sussex Founders: experience the stories behind the spinouts : Blogs and podcasts : News : ��Ƶ

Sussex Founders: experience the stories behind the spinouts

Hear academic founders discuss challenges they've faced in their commercialisation journeys.

Episodes

In Sussex Founders, speak to academic founders as they share their experiences of their own commercialisation journeys, diving deep to uncover the challenges and milestones faced, and how they have shaped the commercial impact of their work as they pave their path to market.

Episode four: Building your values into your commercialisation journey with Dr Charlotte Rae

Peter Lane speaks to Dr Charlotte Rae about the importance of building your own values into your commercialisation journey right from the very beginning.

Charlotte's research interests lie in the intersection of neuroscience and wellbeing at work, and the processes by which how we feel influences how we behave. In 2022, Charlotte began a major national study investigating how the working pattern of a four-day working week can positively influence both wellbeing and workplace performance.

Increasing awareness of these benefits has continued to cpature more interested companies, and the knowledge Charlotte gained from the study exposed an opportunity to provide a service to organisations interested in trialling and transitioning to new working patterns.

Join us while we experience Charlotte's story.

Podcast transcript

Hello. Welcome to Sussex Founders, a series where we experience the stories behind the spinouts created at the ��Ƶ. Join us as we speak to academic founders as they share their own experience of the challenges and key milestones they faced in their commercialisation journeys.

My name is Peter Lane, and I’m head of University Services at Sussex Innovation. Today, we’ll be talking about the importance of building your own values into your commercialisation journey, right from the very beginning.

Our guest today is Doctor Charlotte Rae. Charlotte’s research interests lie at the intersection of neuroscience and wellbeing at work, and the processes by which how we feel influences how we behave. Charlotte’s work combines the use of Magnetic Resonance Imaging, MRI, with physiology, behaviour tasks, and occupational psychology.

In 2022, Charlotte began a major national study investigating how the working pattern of a four-day working week can positively influence both wellbeing and workplace performance. Increasing awareness of these benefits has continued to capture more interested companies, and the knowledge Charlotte gained from the study exposed an opportunity to provide a service to organisations interested in trialling and transitioning to the new working patterns. This activity also serves to further her research interest through the acquisition of ongoing real-world data.

Hi Charlotte, thanks for joining us on this episode of Sussex Founders.

It’s great to be here Pete, thanks for having me.

Simon Sinek’s first and most popular book ‘Start with Why’ introduced the golden circles model, as well as the now well-known phrase “people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it”. Our team feel that starting by gaining a clearer understanding of a researcher’s Why is vital to discovering a future commercial model that will fit with the individual. By understanding this, the core principles of commercialisation – solving problems, evolving a value proposition, and creating impact – will drop into place and create something exciting and energising.

So, Charlotte, my first question. Can I ask you to think back to when we first met to discuss your four-day working week research? Were you surprised when we kicked off the session asking about your personal values, and what motivates you every day in your work – or put another way, your own Why?

Actually, I was delighted. Because that felt like a quite nice, gentle lead-in for me to discussions around commercialisation. Because for me that’s quite an easy question to answer – the Why and the values. Because, you know, the conversations that we’ve had – that I’ve had with businesses over the last couple of years – have really helped me realise what drives me is making a difference in the world. And I didn’t have a clue how to translate that into something commercial, and that’s where you came in to help me with that. But I was very happy to start off by talking about what drives me and motivates me as an academic.

So, my background academically is I’m a psychologist and a neuroscientist, and I’ve always been interested in the biology of wellbeing. And I’ve previously done some academic studies on various patient groups, say, with neurodegenerative conditions. And I feel that it’s incredibly important work, but lots of other people are already doing it. And it was when I saw news in the media of the 4-day week trials, particularly the original one run by Andrew Barnes in his New Zealand business published by The Guardian, and I saw in the media that it was leading to both better wellbeing and better workplace performance; as an academic it ticked me. Because it got me thinking “What is it that’s going on up here inside the head that’s behind those media headlines?”. And at that point I was grabbed, and I couldn’t think about doing any other research. I thought “That’s what I want to find out, what’s the journey that staff are going on when they switch to reduced working hours”.

So that was two or three years ago, and so that passion has really motivated setting up the research project, and we’ve been going for 18 months or so on the research. But after only a few months I realised that we were learning a huge amount, not just about the way the brain was working, but about the whole business transformation that was going on for these organisations. And a couple of academic colleagues suggested “Oh, I think there’s some potential here for commercialisation”. Because my motivation previously has been about answering interesting questions about the way the mind works, that had never occurred to me – that there might be commercial opportunity here.

But in setting up those original conversations with Innovation Centre colleagues, I started to realise “Ah, okay, this is just another way – another vehicle – that I could express those values about being really curious about how the mind works, about what are the changes that are taking place within staff, and what does that mean for the organisation, and really just helping people to thrive.”.

It’s almost like an alignment of values, isn’t it, between the research work that you were doing and have been experimenting with and, if you like, that shift driving a kind of increased awareness of “this has got to change”.

Yeah, absolutely.

I’m just interested in what really excites and motivates you in your work with businesses now? And has this changed since we started meeting and working together? And if so, how?

Yes it has, though I wouldn’t say it’s changed so much as evolved and grown and really built even further.

So originally, the motivation was “Oh I really want to see their data! I want to see the numbers, and the spreadsheets, and the graphs!”. And that hasn’t gone away, that’s absolutely still there, but what’s really grown and evolved for me is the personal human touch of meeting with the staff themselves, meeting with the business owner. And we have so many interactions at different points along the journey with them where you can feel the difference that you’re making – whether, you know, whether it’s that sort of reassurance early on that you can actually make it work, I’ve got the answers, we just need to sit down and I can make it happen. And you can see the metaphorical weight almost lifted off their shoulders.

But then once people are actually in the trial, whether it’s through email exchanges that we have about the questionnaires they’re filling in, or when some of the staff come into us for some of the research procedures that we do. For example, staff can volunteer for MRI brain scans so that we can understand more about the neuroscience behind the 4-day week. And so when they come in to us for a scan there’s lots of chat and preamble, and we get to hear all these personal stories about the difference that it’s been making to their lives, both in work and outside of work.

Really interesting. Earlier, we briefly touched on how the success of your research study led to companies contacting you to learn, seek expertise, and find support for trialling and then implementing the four day working week. Can I ask how this felt at the time, and if there were challenges this presented to your core research focus?

So initially, in the first few months, I was quite focused in terms of what we were providing to the companies on data analytics – because that was a comfortable home territory for me as a professional scientist. And I think we genuinely did provide a useful service there giving some, you know, objective data from someone who was external to the organisation and could really but some hard numbers on “Well this is what we’ve seen with your productivity, this is what we’ve seen in your mental health” and so on through those first employers that we worked with. Actually, by osmosis almost, but also by having lots of personal conversations – because I love to go and visit the businesses, chat to the business owner, the HR manager, the staff themselves – we’ve learned a huge amount from those personal journeys.

So over time we’ve transition the service to actually be a much more holistic package. From the early conversations with the business owner, who has this aspiration you know, this wonderful goal that they’d like to consider a four-day week but haven’t got a clue where to start; to thinking about the implementation; working with the staff themselves to identify what are the adaptions to your working routines and the working week to find those efficiencies; and then through to the trial phase, identifying additional Key Performance Indicators; and finally the end of the trial reporting back – this is what we’ve seen, where do we go from here, and how do I help you with the next steps.

And in the evolution of that, you know, a challenge that came up – not so much in terms of conflicting with my values, but conflicting with my identity and status as an academic – was “this is working really well, and I’m getting a lot out of it and I’m hugely enjoying it. But I’m struggling, ironically, for time myself”. Because to provide all of that service over, you know, actually many months we hold company’s hands for through that time, I’m also trying to give lectures and do student supervisions and look after my pastoral care tutees.

So it became clear to me if I was going to keep going with that level of ambition of helping people as much as I possibly could, I needed to look at my own working practices and my own working routines. So I applied for a research grant that would give me buy out of teaching – essentially, because it would pay my salary. And happily, I was successful in that. So as of today, of us recording this, my salary is now being paid by this research grant. That means I’m freed up from giving lectures, from all the student supervision, and therefore I can really you know focus the time that I want to give on supporting employees through that journey.

So maybe we could talk a little bit further about your decision to apply for an academic grant from within the University, perhaps to relieve more time. Why did you feel that applying for a grant within the University was the right way forwards, as opposed to maybe taking this more independently forwards or whatever else? Could you talk us through that?

Yes absolutely. Well we had some really useful conversations, Pete, as part of the mentoring and support that the Innovation Centre had given to me on sort of growth strategies. And one idea and suggestion for how I could do more of the work whilst still remaining an academic was essentially to employ other people, and to become you know a managing director. To have a team of people who would go out and, you know, run the workshops on efficiency. And at that point I though “Oh, I’m not quite ready to let go of holding the hand of the businesses all the way through the journey”. I love, love, love having that personal touch all the way through, so I don’t want to let go of that to someone else, because that’s the job I want to do. I’d miss it! It’s giving me a huge amount of joy and fulfilment. And I came to the realisation that, you know, as much as I love teaching and I’m good at it, I get good feedback from my students, and it’s rewarding in many aspects, I realised I was enjoying those personal journeys even more. And actually, that’s where I wanted to spend my time – in the four days that I’m now at work, because I’ve just started doing a four-day week myself.

Brilliant. And one of the things, I guess the conversations that we regularly have with people that are starting on this journey, is they often feel that they need to jump into it 100% to start with and kind of put their academic work to one side. And sometimes the unique advantage, the unfair advantage, that working within a University can give you is that flexibility perhaps, to start to build that. And that grant sounds like the first step that’s really helped you kind of build that model.

Absolutely, that’s another reason it’s been the ideal solution for me. Because when you and colleagues said you know “there’s this growth model whereby, you know, you’re the managing director and you have a team who actually deliver the service”. And I went “Whoa, I’m not quite ready psychologically for that”. As someone who’s only ever been an academic, and who also has the kind of career safety, you know, of not needed to worry about where my salary is coming from. I’m also still really enjoying the research.

So this felt like a wonderful transition, where I can gradually bit by bit dip my toe more and more and more in the water of commercialisation. So I do envisage that over the next couple of years we will transition to charging, you know, a broader range of clients. But there’s another benefit to that research grant, which is that it means I retain my cachet as an academic expert. So I do think actually there’s an additional benefit for academic who have that, you know, academic status whereby we can communicate to a client “you’ve got access to a world expert in this”. So for all of those reasons, the research grant has been really beneficial as the kind of way to enable me to make that transition.

What an amazing journey you’ve started. Hopefully, hearing about it will support our listeners and give them confidence that they can align and stay true to their own values throughout their own commercialisation experiences. But just one last quick question before we let you go today. What would be your one piece of advice to people starting their own journey on how to build their own values into their work?

So I would say you’re not alone it in. You know what your values are, and you might have an idea about where you want to go with that. But certainly as an academic I didn’t really know where to start. And we’re so, so, so lucky to have here on campus Sussex Innovation Centre. So if you’re not sure about how to express those values, the Innovation Centre can help. They can do mentoring, they’ve helped me with marketing. So find the people who can support you to express it.

I guess what you’re saying is, life’s a team game. And there are people out there that can kind of help you build those skills and help you move forwards.

That’s fantastic, thanks Charlotte. It’s been great to have you on the show. That brings us to the end of this episode on building values into your commercialisation journey. Many thanks to Charlotte for taking part.

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, follow us on Sound Cloud and Spotify and join us for future episodes exploring a variety of other spinouts at Sussex.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Sussex Founders, where we experience the stories behind the spinouts. Our innovations, specialist consultancy services, technology, training, and know-how are transforming the world of businesses and the public sector. We hope you’ve enjoyed this episode. I’m Sue Baxter, Director of Innovation and Business Partnerships, and to find out more about how the Innovation and Business Partnerships Team at Sussex can support you on your own commercialisation journey, visit the Collaborate section on the University’s website or email collaborate@sussex.ac.uk.

Episode three: Finding Early Commercial Application Focus with Professor Gianluca Memoli

Peter Lane speaks to Professor Gianluca Memoli about finding an early commercial application focus as your technology readiness develops.

Gianluca’s research interest has been focused upon controlling sound, as we do with light. This has led to the development of some exciting acoustic metamaterials, now providing new solutions to how we are able to manipulate sound. In 2019 Gianluca and his co-founder Bruce Drinkwater led the formation of a spinout company, Metasonixx, founded to bring the unique benefits of this research and Intellectual Property to market across a wide range of markets and applications.

Join us while we experience Gianluca’s story behind the spinout.

Podcast transcript

Peter Lane: Hello. Welcome to Sussex Founders, a series where we experience the stories behind the spinouts created at the ��Ƶ. Join us as we speak to academic founders as they share their own experience of the challenges and key milestones they faced in their commercialisation journeys.

My name is Peter Lane, I’m Head of University Services at Sussex Innovation. Today, we’ll be talking about finding early commercial application focus as your technology readiness develops.

Our guest today is Dr. Gianluca Memoli. Gianluca’s research interest has been focused upon controlling sound, as we do with light. This has led to the development of some exciting acoustic metamaterials, now providing new solutions to how we are able to manipulate sound. In 2019, Gianluca and his co-founder led the formation of a spin-out company, Metasonixx, to bring the unique benefits of this research and Intellectual Property to market.

Gianluca, thank you very much for joining this episode of Sussex Founders.

Dr. Gianluca Memoli: Thank you Peter for having me today, I’m really excited to share my, part of my journey with your listeners.

Peter Lane: Brilliant, and it’s going to be fascinating, I think, to get your insight around this subject.

Dr. Gianluca Memoli: Well, it’s a very hot subject for whoever wants to start a company.

Peter Lane: Absolutely! I think it was Warren Buffet that’s quoted as saying “I don’t look to jump over 7-foot bars, I look for 1-foot bars that I can step over. Wise advice, eh? However, experience of the early stages of commercialising a novel technology, particularly a platform technology such as your own, can seem to pose a selection of 7-foot bars that can seem impossible to lower.
So, my first question is about finding focus. How, when early in your journey there were clearly so many promising applications, did you approach the challenge of filtering – finding the most applicable applications on which to focus and build your initial strategy?

Dr. Gianluca Memoli: Well that’s a very good question, because as an academic you normally want to say “oh I can do everything”. That is what the job of an academic is, while a start-up needs focus. Focus means that you really need… how you are saying, a one foot bar? Well even probably lower if you can, because you really have very little resources – it’s just you, your co-founder, and if you’re really lucky someone else who decided to share the journey with you.

Okay, so we had the platform technology, we were dreaming of submarines; we were dreaming of having personalised sound for everyone in cars; we went to CES; we were so, so excited. But then we went to the nitty gritty bit, which is- we were, we needed to be honest with ourselves and realise what really could be done tomorrow. And like every time in these cases, you ask for help. And in our case we asked the University and the Sussex Innovation Centre to help us focus. So what they did, is they did for us market research, which means they listen to us very patiently, taking out all the possible ideas, and then they filter them. And they said “okay, this will get you this size of market in this amount of time, we think”. And so it’s like, you know, a funnel. And you get smaller and smaller as you go along.

That was not enough though, Peter. Because while the team here did a fantastic job, what we really needed to do was take the pulse of the people. Now, I really love to do outreach, so I do a lot of science fairs. And in particular, just after we incorporated the company, which was 2019, we had the New Scientist Live in London. And so we went there with our ideas, and we exposed them to people. And we asked them “What do you think of that? Do you think this could work? Do you think this is… will this change your life? Do you have a need for that?”. These are the three questions which eventually make your value proposition. So what they did is they gave us invaluable insight on what they saw. They dreamt with us, they shared our dream, and helped us to actually make sense with thinking into products. And everyone, everyone inevitably didn’t ask “oh I want to, I want sound perfect delivery in my car” – which was my problem. I had my kinds singing their nursery rhymes in the back, and I didn’t want to hear that. But what they asked us is “I have noise outside my windows, and I want to keep them open. Can you solve this?”. And that was the start of our journey.

Peter Lane: That’s absolutely fantastic, and I love the way that you’re reaching out and engaging with people with real problems – helping them guide you towards those kind of killer early stage applications, where maybe you can kind of deliver a proof of product demonstrator.

Dr. Gianluca Memoli: The issue is, we normally talk about “oh my technology can do this, this and that, and I can solve the world’s problems in this way or the other way”. But actually, sometimes