Sebastian Gensior

Decoding Investor Intent: It’s Not on the Website When it comes to raising capital, founders tend to be optimists—or more precisely, pattern-seeking creatures in an environment that rarely rewards it. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the blind faith many place in investor websites. “We invest

How to Actually Find the Right Investors: A Field Guide for Biotech Founders In a previous post, I explained why just asking for money is not a strategy. In another, I warned against simping for capital—blindly emailing a spreadsheet of names like you’re handing out resumes at a

Somewhere between the lab bench and the pitch deck, a strange thing happens to many biotech founders. These are individuals with more post-nominals than a UN delegation. PhDs, MDs, sometimes both. They can explain the subtle mechanics of ion channel modulation, draw the entire MAPK pathway from memory, and

European biopharma is a maddening paradox. It has the academic firepower to generate groundbreaking discoveries but lacks the financial machinery to turn them into therapies. This is not a new problem, and it’s not a small one either. Yet every time I see another promising European biotech sell out

There’s an old saying in Silicon Valley: when in doubt, invoke physics. And so the term “first principles” has become one of those phrases—like “disruption” or “pivot”—that is routinely abused by people who’ve never used a soldering iron. Everyone wants to think from first principles. Few

There’s a curious delusion that haunts modern professionals. The belief that before you start something—anything, really—you must first understand it completely. As if mastery precedes curiosity. As if competence is a prerequisite, not a result. It’s nonsense, of course. And nowhere is this more obvious than

What Is a p-Value? The p-value measures the probability of observing data as extreme as the actual results, assuming the null hypothesis (H0 ) is true. It does not measure the probability of the null hypothesis itself. Formally, the p-value is defined as: $$ p = P(\text{Data} \mid

There’s a specific look founders get when I ask, “What’s your runway?” It’s part shame, part bravado, and part magical thinking. “Maybe a couple of months,” they say, casually, like they’re describing a parking ticket. Sometimes, the answer is worse: “We already ran out, actually.” In

There you are—armed with a lukewarm flute of prosecco, trying to make small talk with a stem cell biologist in a conference centre that sounds like Heathrow Terminal 5 during a baggage handler strike. You lean in. You nod. You squint as though comprehension is a muscle group you’

There’s a peculiar optimism embedded in the English language: pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. The phrase is now Silicon Valley gospel—synonymous with grit, frugality, and making something from nothing. Originally, though, it was a joke. A 19th-century absurdity. The physical act of lifting oneself by one’