Blossom Your Business Idea

It’s 2 a.m. You’re lying awake, restless. Mind darting everywhere. Suddenly, it comes to you. ‘That’s it!’, you think as you continue to toss and turn.

But …

• How would you advertise your idea?
• What will your cost structure be?
• What are your value propositions?

Chris Walker lectured Bangor University 3rd year Biological Scientists on the how to develop a business idea.

We learned that many ideas fail largely due to a lack of planning and preparation. To help ensure any potentially novel ideas from the students won’t be wasted in a world desperate for revolutionary inventions in biology, each was provided with a business model canvas:

Following lectures on this topic, students were invited to attend a 3-hour workshop where they were split into groups and assigned the task of developing a biology-related business idea for 2 hours, with the final hour reserved for pitching to the rest of the class.

Our group’s idea was ‘Biobeauty’ – a brand initially selling an enzymatic skin toner made from proteases secreted by Bacillus subtilis bacteria which degrade dead epidermal cells on the face.

‘About 80% of people aged 11 to 30 are affected by acne.’

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/acne/

How would we advertise our idea?

Biobeauty would have a website advertising not only our product(s), but also our aims and commitments:

• Eco-friendly, biodegradable packaging
• Eco-friendly production process
• A commitment to helping the target audience (14-25 year-olds) with insecurities and self-esteem issues surrounding acne vulgaris given the increased modern awareness of mental health

‘It grows on you’

Biobeauty slogan

The company slogan ‘it grows on you’ works well given the microbial origin of the enzymes.

We planned to advertise the product as ‘enzymatic’ rather than using the word ‘bacterial’ given the stigma surrounding the term, implying connotations of poor hygiene and disease which is simply not the case. Our target market would stem beyond biologists and for this reason we had to consider our language carefully.

What will the cost structure be?

For something relatively simple, the cost structure surprised the whole group:

• Scientific research e.g. enzyme extraction, culturing Bacillus subtilis
• Clinical trials
• Packaging
• Product licensing
• Supplying free samples to promote the product

It became clear quite quickly that something as apparently simple as a bottle of skin toner will have likely had months of time and effort applied to it.

What are our value propositions?

The skin toner was proposed as a novel product with all-natural components and, given its cosmetic nature, use of the product is technically classed as body modification for legal reasons.

“Try before you buy” in-store testing in companies such as Boots and Debenhams was proposed to offer potential customers a chance to test the product for themselves before deciding whether to purchase.

With smell being a crucial part of any healthcare product in the modern day, a novel scent was also proposed by Biobeauty.

With the scientific appetite of Bangor’s Biological Science students already seemingly satisfied, their business curiosity won’t be far behind. This was a valuable workshop that highlighted the importance of basic business skills to complement advanced scientific understanding.