You have to be HELPFUL before you are USEFUL

Hello beautiful people. today is another short one. We are talking about my journey into the biotech space and how I learned to be helpful even when I was clueless. It has been a 2 year journey but I think there are some valuable insights in here. Hope you enjoy it! As always, please feel free to reach out!

Until three years ago, I didn't have a clear direction for my career. This is common—many of us spend our 20s and 30s searching for our "what" and "why." Despite this shared journey, it often feels isolating.

I experienced this when I left Goldman Sachs. I was fascinated by capital markets, but the banking client service culture wasn't for me. So, I did something drastic—I quit, thinking I had another job lined up, which quickly fell through. In hindsight, this was a blessing. It gave me time to reflect on who I was and what I truly wanted professionally. This period of introspection is something we could all benefit from.

I knew I loved capital markets and learning for its own sake. I also wanted to help build something significant.

In 2022, an old friend and mentor, David Hysong, approached me. David was raising capital for his biotech company focused on precision medicine for rare cancer patients. It was an inspiring and noble cause. Back in 2019, I had helped David raise some initial capital while I was still at Goldman, thinking it was just a favor for a friend.

By 2022, the roles had reversed. I needed a favor from David. After hearing about his work, I knew I wanted to be part of it. The catch was that my experience was in energy banking, and my only connection to cancer was a family history of rare diseases, including rare cancer.

David took a chance on me despite my lack of biotech experience. He recognized that I had one crucial quality—I knew how to be useful. While I couldn't be great from day one, I could be good every day.

In biotech, I've learned there's a balance between "work creators" (those with industry know-how and scientific expertise) and "work doers" (the grunts). In knowledge-intensive fields like biotech, this demarcation is stark.

This imbalance, skewing towards the creators, presents an opportunity for work-doers. By being a diligent foot soldier, I was not only incentivized to learn but required to. Each data pull, market analysis, and program review immersed me in new scientific realms. Over time, project by project, I began to see the bigger picture. I started understanding concepts like "target selection" and terms like "proteomics" and "MET over expression."

With enough time and small wins on various projects, I effectively earned an undergraduate degree in this new field. Information is context-specific, and it becomes easier to recognize valuable patterns and build foundational knowledge. This allows you to become not just helpful but truly useful.

In summary, you'll have the chance to be useful before you figure out how to be truly helpful.