‘It's a lot more than just the product’ with Anne Muir

Anne Muir is Director of Portfolio at EOS, an organisation that invests in university spin-out companies. Prior to that she was Head of IP and Commercialisation at the University of Dundee.

Anne talks about what she has learned from a long career in technology transfer and business development including:

• The art and science of successful commercialization
• Why everyone needs sales training
• Getting satisfaction from helping develop talented entrepreneurs
• Encouraging academics to take advantage of the support on offer

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This podcast was a collaboration between the University of the West of Scotland, Converge and Sarah McLusky. The podcast team includes Orla Kelly, Adam Kosterka, Jen Black and Sarah McLusky. Proudly supported by the Scottish Ecosystem Fund 2023-24.

Transcript

Anne Muir
You can have the best technology in the world, but you have to have the right team round about it to make it successful. You know, it's a lot more than just the product.

You know, I think sales training is fantastic and everybody should do it, makes you very resilient.

What other sector has that amount of support really, just to help you as an academic spin out your research results?

Podcast Intro
Welcome to the Academic Adventures podcast. This podcast is all about people who have embraced the opportunity to combine their academic work with entrepreneurial ventures. You’ll hear about the highs and lows, balancing responsibilities and grabbing opportunities, plus advice for anyone thinking about following a similar path.

Sarah McLusky
Hello! I’m your host Sarah McLusky and my Academic Adventurer for this episode is Anne Muir. Anne is Director of Portfolio at EOS, an organisation that invests in promising university spin out companies.

Anne has spent her career working in or supporting science and technology businesses. Despite studying biochemistry, life in the lab wasn’t a great fit so she moved into sales and business development in the pharmaceutical industry.  Then moving into technology transfer she had roles at the University of Strathclyde, freelance consulting, and ultimately the University of Dundee where she learned all about the spin out process and how best to support academic entrepreneurs.

Now on the other side of the table she is on the lookout for business ideas with the formula for success - a balance of the right technology, with the right people at the right time. Although personal success means doing her bit to nurture entrepreneurial talent in Scotland.

Sarah McLusky
Welcome along to the podcast Anne, it’s so lovely to have you here. Could you tell us a bit about how you fit into this world of academic entrepreneurship?

Anne Muir
Yep, sure. Thanks, Sarah. And thanks for having me on. So I guess I'll start with my current role. So I'm Anne Muir. I'm director of portfolio management at EOS. So EOS is a St. Andrews based seed stage impact investor. So we invest really early on in companies. So at the seed stage and we invest in companies that you know, as well as having the potential to make a financial return are going to have a positive impact on the world. So for us that's really key.

So we invest primarily in spin outs from Scottish universities in four different areas. So disease diagnosis and prevention, so life sciences kind of in a broad sense, food and water security, energy security and climate change, and making industrial processes greener. So yeah, so I'm in the early-stage commercialization ecosystem in that, you know, we may be the first bit of money that goes into companies, that spin out of universities. We also follow on in terms of investments so we can be involved in a company for, you know, a long time through to exit.

And we're a very hands-on investor, so we expect companies, when they come out of university, to be incomplete. You know, they're not finished article, they might have an incomplete management team. We'll come in, really help and support the company, help build things out. So that's my current role, but I've been around this sector for quite, you know, really quite a long time. So it's probably useful if I can go back and give you a bit of a potted history.

Sarah McLusky
Yeah, sure. Give us a quick round up.

Anne Muir
Yeah, so originally I was biochemist, so studied biochemistry at University of Shathclyde, did a couple of years research at Edinburgh University and the lab really, really wasn't for me at all. So I then went into much more commercial roles, so I did pharma sales and some business development for about five years and that was, you know, amazing training.

You know, I think sales training is fantastic and everybody should do it, you know, makes you very resilient. And basically we're always selling, you know, all my other roles that I've done, it may have been dressed up, but it was basically, it's always sales and continues to be really. So that was kind of my grounding and obviously introduced with bio and pharma. But then I guess what I missed was that really early stage signs, being at the, you know, the cutting edge. So I then went you know, sort of way back in the cycle and entered tech transfer. So I worked at the University of Strathclyde for quite a long period. Obviously, you know, Strathclyde has got a major name in technology transfer, you know, really entrepreneurial university and a brilliant place to train in doing, you know, licensing, commercialisation, spin outs, big industrial partnerships, etc.

So I did that for quite a long time. I was mainly focused on life sciences there. And then like you, I worked freelance for quite a bit of time. And when you're freelance, you tend to get involved in lots of different things. But it was mainly around that sort of early-stage sector. So worked for universities, worked for a bit of NHS commercialization, worked for quite a few startups, mainly again in sort of you know, pharma-related drug discovery, drug development, worked on and off the University of Dundee doing various roles. And then, from there went into full-time role at University of Dundee as Head of IP and commercialization. So again, it was spin outs licensing. Dundee is really well known for, you know, having amazing spin outs, but also for doing really long-term big industrial partnerships, particularly with large pharma partners. And then last post before I moved to EOS was Deputy Director of the Tech Transfer Office. So looked after IP commercialization contracts, so both research and commercial contracts and public engagement. So quite a broad role.

In between, at some point in that journey, I did have my own startup, which was nothing to do with science at all. Didn't quite turn out how I expected it to. We did raise a bit of investment, but from that, learned lots, and that's actually useful in my current role to have had that sort of hands-on experience of what it's like being in operationally within a startup.

So yeah, quite a long time in the sector and jumped to the other side of the table last August when I joined EOS. So my role there, Director of Portfolio Management, but again, it's very broad. So that covers everything from helping with deal origination due to my relationships with the universities and a lot of technical due diligence on opportunities and then following that through. So helping companies with their 100 day plans, post investment, any actions that come out of due diligence, and then helping to monitor and manage, and well, basically support companies post-investment, make sure they've got everything they need to help them be successful and grow.

Sarah McLusky
Yeah, thanks. Thank you so much for that overview. I feel like I've got to ask just a little question about that startup that you went over there. So what was you said it was something completely unrelated to what you were doing is that? 

Anne Muir
So yeah, it was totally different. It was actually clothing, so it was a women's waterproof. It's still around, still goes. So it's called Protected Species, beautiful product. I mean, I guess what I learned from that is it takes a lot more than a beautiful product to make a successful company. And I see that sort of time and time again in the university career and current career. So it's not just about one thing, it's a whole, you know, it's that whole, it takes a village type thing. You need a lot more. And yeah, it's interesting. I mean, I do see that a lot with companies that were assessing for investment just now. You know, you can have the best technology in the world, but you have to have the right team round about it to make it successful. You know, it's a lot more than just the product.

Sarah McLusky
Yeah, so as you say, you've seen so many companies come and go over your career. So I think that's, you must have some really interesting insights there that I'd love to dig into a little bit. So maybe the first thing there that you said, the importance of having the right team, could you tell us a little bit more about that?

Anne Muir
Yeah, I mean, it goes back to what I was just saying there. It's that is that is the key thing for, you know, I was going to say for us as investors, but it was a key thing really when I was on the other side of the table at the university as well. I mean, it's just so important to have that right person to be able to drive things forward or people.

And if you don't, you know, you have to be able to have, you have to find the right people to help drive the technology forward. And I think, you know, as universities, we just kind of naturally get really, really focused on the technology because that seems to be what it's all about, but it's not, you have to have the team round about. So I think, you know, there are a lot of support mechanisms around like, you know, high growth spin out program or, you know, various other things that help build that team. So, you know, it's not just the academic involved, you have to be able to bring in someone commercial to drive it forward. You just have to have the right mixture of expertise round about your technology to be able to drive it forward.

But certainly, you know, from an investment angle, the team is massive. I mean, that's the thing that you're assessing, you know, straight away. Yes, the product and the technology is really really important, of course it is, but you know you can't do it without the right team round about it.

Sarah McLusky
And what are the things that you look for in a really good team? Is it that mix of skills or is it the personalities and how they work together as a team?

Anne Muir
I think it's both of those. I think definitely the skills. You need to have people with experience in there. That doesn't mean that you can't have someone in a C-suite position who's not done it before. You absolutely can, but you need to have the right support round about them. There needs to be someone there who's been there, done that, just to bring that experience and help guide them forward.

But we do support a lot of first time CEOs or you know some and founders but it's just getting that right mixture of expertise round about them to really support. So I think there has to be the right expertise but oh so much of it's down to personality as well. So so much I mean you just yeah it's a little bit more of a some of it is more of an art than a science you know because you just do kind of know who comes across as credible and who you think you can work with really quickly. So a lot of it is personality, because it's about drive and everything as well, and being able to lead people. Yeah, so it's a real mix, I would say.

Sarah McLusky
Yeah. One of the other podcast guests said, you need to make sure that you get on with your partners in the company because it's almost like you marry them.

Anne Muir
Yes! Yes, absolutely. Yeah!

Sarah McLusky
Excellent. Oh, well, I think as well as finding the right team, I think you've said there that there is, you know, it needs to be the right product, it needs to be the right technology or things like that as well. What sorts, maybe you could give us some examples of things that you've seen that work or that don't work in terms of these spin out companies?

Anne Muir
Yeah, I mean, certainly, you know, both Strathclyde and Dundee have had massive successes in terms of spin outs. So there's quite a lot of, you know, there's quite a lot of successes there. But I guess in terms of sort of recipe, it has been that real sort of mixture of very entrepreneurial academic with the right technology at the right time, you know.

So I don't think that means that it's about luck. It is more about drive and technology and innovation and who's at the cutting edge. But I've seen things that don't work that just don't have that mixture. So where you have a fantastic technology but there's just not the right team round about it. So for example, being in a startup's very, very different from being in a large corporate. And I think, you know, sometimes as universities, we put people in startups who have a very, very long experience of being in large corporates. And that just doesn't quite work. I think there's a place for it, but probably not like, well, it depends. I don't wanna say never. I mean, because maybe I'll do it tomorrow. But it's more.

Sarah McLusky
So what are the sort of differences? Sorry.

Anne Muir
Well, sorry, it's more time and I guess what position they have in the company. But yeah, I think you have to have someone in there with start-up experience because it is just very different. You know, there's not the same.

Sarah McLusky
In what ways is it different?

Anne Muir
I think, you know, in large corporates, you don't have as... you often don't have as varied a role. You have a lot more support around about you, you know, there'll be people who do things for you. You don't have that in a startup. You have to do everything and you have to have the drive and be able to juggle, be able to move very, very fast. And, you know, that's not obviously a criticism of people who worked in large corporates. And I could be accused of that having worked in a large university. But it's, you know, it's so different. It's just the time scale, the variety, what you need to do is just so, so different.

Sarah McLusky
Yeah. Well, I wonder if we could think a little bit then about the kinds of support and practical things you've seen that can help. So you've mentioned that obviously, there's a couple of things you mentioned already. Obviously, you work for a company that's about finance and you mentioned sales training. Could you maybe give us some examples of the things that are out there that you've seen that really make a difference?

Anne Muir
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, for IP commercialisation, there's a lot of support out there. I mean, I think it gets a bad rep within universities, you know, but if you think about it, there's a whole unit set up there, or department set up there to help you as an academic commercialise. I mean, that's massive. So I would say, you know the tech transfer office as first port of call is huge. So they will give training on IP, give training on business development, various other things and provide masses of support.

And then there's loads of other things within the ecosystem as well. So like Converge, most universities will have like a, at Dundee we had a centre for entrepreneurship which provided masses of amazing training, you know, around pitching, bring people in to help with finance, sales, business development, you know, kind of all everything you need for a start-up and spin out.

At Dundee as well we also had a spin out academy, so, but all other universities will have similar centres, and there's huge amounts of support there. So within the university and outwith as well, and then there's obviously you know, in economic development agency, Scottish Enterprise have a huge amount of support. So I think really, you know, it gets, you know, people tend to sort of diss these things, but what other sector has that amount of support really, just to help you as an academic spin out your research results? It's, you know, it's pretty incredible really.

Sarah McLusky
Yeah. That is quite an incredible range of different organisations involved in contributing to things. Yeah. And you particularly mentioned that you think sales training is really important. Why do you think sales training is so important?

Anne Muir
Because I think, you know, you are always selling. If you think about when you're spinning something out, so I mean, the first thing you have to do is convince someone of your data. That is sales. You know, so you're convincing other people about it then, you know, particularly you're convincing investors, you know, when you're pitching, you are selling yourself. And then, you know, as you go on if you're in a spin out and you're continuing to fundraise, you're always selling. And then, you know, it's just having that sort of commercial view on life as well, when you do sales, you know, then you're always thinking about, you know, your return and, you know, getting out to the customer.

You have to get into that customer mindset. I think that's it as well. You know, we can be quite removed from who's gonna buy it when you're in a university, whereas you need to have that kind of customer at the front of your mind from the outset I think. So it's that, it's just having that much more commercial view on your science. You know, who's gonna buy it, why should they buy it, what's different, which is all sales. And I know we dress things up and we call it other things, but it's just sales.

Sarah McLusky
Yeah just what I was thinking. I think a lot of what you're talking there, people, you might talk about it as like, yeah, training in speaking or persuasion or, you know, whatever. But as you say, at the end of the day, it's all selling something, whether that's yourself or a product or an idea. Yeah.

Anne Muir
Uh huh. Yeah, yeah.

Sarah McLusky
Well, I wonder if in the experience you've had, perhaps without naming names, and there's any situations you've seen where somebody or an organization, a company, has really impressed you in the way that they've dealt with a challenge and maybe turned things around.

Anne Muir
I can think of one spin-out company where they spun out expecting, so they had a very cool technology, I won't go into what it was, and they thought they were going to sell products, but when they went out to the market, people actually found it too complex and they wanted. They wanted the researchers to actually carry out, to use the product for them and carry it out as a service.

So they had to flip from being, they had everything lined up or not lined up, but they expected to grow a product company and to be selling product, to have stock, et cetera, but actually ended up being a very specialized service company, because people wanted them to carry out the testing. So, but that worked. So I get, yeah, it's just all about being flexible, responding to the customer, responding to customer needs and to the market.

Sarah McLusky
Yeah. So you've said that the job that you're doing at the moment has lots of different elements to it. The other jobs you've had, there's been juggling lots of things going on at the same time. How do you balance these different parts of your role and your life

Anne Muir
It's a good question. I mean, so all the roles I've had have always been really broad. I've never really had a sort of narrow role apart from maybe my very, you know, my first sales roles were pretty specific. But all other roles since I entered this sort of early stage ecosystem have been incredibly broad and it is, you know, can be quite tricky.

So at the moment, you know, EOS is quite small company so it's kind of like a startup itself and that we all do, well we don't do everything because we all have sort of areas to specialise in but the role is broad and goes from helping bring in new opportunities, speaking to universities etc or other places where you may find startups. It goes from that to doing very technical due diligence, which requires, you know, it's that kind of deep work, whereas lots of other things, you know, like speaking to people about new opportunities or managing companies afterwards is a very different way of thinking. So it's quite hard to sort of juggle that, you know, and block out chunks of time for that kind of, you know, really focused, but we're trying to get your head round bits of science. So that can be a bit of a challenge.

I think it is just trying to block things out, but because it's that sort of startup environment, you just have to respond, be able to respond to opportunities. I think overall it's just being flexible. And we, you know, we, you do have to go where the need is. So if we have a company that needs support, then we, you know, we support them. You have to be able to respond very quickly in the kind of environment that we work in. So I think it's been flexible, mainly. Yeah.

Sarah McLusky
Yeah, yeah. And do you enjoy that having lots of different things going on?

Anne Muir
Yeah! Yeah, that...yeah, suits me.

Sarah McLusky
Yeah. Well, I wonder with that, talking about enjoyment and thinking about all these companies and things you've worked with, whether that sense of what it would mean to be a successful spin-out company, what perhaps it meant to you in the past, what it means to you now, if that's something that's changed over time.

Anne Muir
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think it has changed over. I mean, I guess, you know, previously and now, I mean, obviously a huge part of it is seeing a company going on to a successful exit. You know, they're bought out and everyone gets a return. That that's what you want a success, really. So sort of in the past and now that's a kind of main marker of success.

But I think along the way, what I've what I've realised is another you know, huge thing about success is that development of talent. And I think that's so important. Um, you know, if you have, if you see someone who it's the first time doing a spin out, um, and it's been successful and then they've gone out and used that experience and started something else. And I think it's that recycling of talent, entrepreneurial talent, um, in Scotland, I think it's really exciting and really important. So and what I, you know, something I really enjoy in a current role is working with, you know, people who've really early on in this kind of entrepreneurial journey, you know, sort of first time founders, etc. and giving them a lot of support. That's, you know, it's incredibly rewarding because then they're going to go on and do a lot more. And it's that sort of recycling of talent and developing a lot more talent in Scotland, I think. Get a lot of you know, it's really rewarding.

Sarah McLusky
Yeah, and are there a lot of people who come back again and again with new businesses, new ideas?

Anne Muir
Probably not as many as we would like. I mean, I think that's something that we don't, you know, that in Scotland it can be quite hard to get sort of experienced management teams in place sometimes because we maybe don't have that as much recycling of talent as you do maybe down sort of golden triangle. But I mean, there's still, you know, masses of hugely talented people that keep doing it. So I mean, there is a lot, there is a significant amount, but we would obviously be good for, for Scotland and the economy if we had more.

Sarah McLusky
So, well, perhaps on that note, what advice would you give to anybody who is thinking about either taking a step into these entrepreneurial waters, maybe for the first time, maybe for the second or third time?

Anne Muir
Yeah, I think if you're in a university, you know, go and find your tech transfer office, go and find your IP commercialization people. They are there to help you. They really want to help you. And you know, there's hugely talented people in those offices with masses of experience. So I would say go and speak to them. And I think it's just all about trying things, having the energy to have a go at it. But I would say just go and find the support because it is out there. Absolutely, there's huge amount of support that's available.

Sarah McLusky
Yeah, and is there any advice in terms of, I don't know, people preparing themselves emotionally for what might be ahead?

Anne Muir
You know, I think if you're an academic, academics it's not an easy job, is it? I mean it's incredibly difficult. They're well equipped, you know. They get turned down for grants, they get turned down for publications, they're already very resilient. They already have to explain their science, sell things. Yeah, I think it's just using that experience in a different way, but they're you know, hugely well equipped.

Sarah McLusky
I think it's really helpful to reframe that experience in that way. So the fact that it's like, yeah, you might not think of presenting your research or writing a funding application as selling, but it kind of is.

Anne Muir
It is, yeah.

Sarah McLusky
And as you say, that resilience of applying for things and not getting them and often again and again and again. Yeah. Yeah, really helpful to reframe it that way.

Well, it just remains to say thank you so much for taking the time to come and have a chat and sharing your knowledge and experience. Thank you.

Anne Muir
Oh, you're welcome. It was good fun.

Podcast Outro
If you’ve been inspired by this podcast head over to our LinkedIn page and tell us about your biggest takeaways. You’ll find a link in the show notes or search for Academic Adventures podcast.

This podcast was a collaboration between the University of the West of Scotland, Converge and Sarah McLusky. The podcast team includes Orla Kelly, Adam Kosterka, Jen Black and me, Sarah McLusky. The Academic Adventures Podcast is proudly supported by the Scottish Ecosystem Fund 2023-24.