How to Launch a Deep-Tech Startup from an Engineering Innovation or Scientific Discovery and scale it to a Million-Dollar Company in 12 Months or Less while being Hyper Profitable even without having any External Funding.

Step 1: Watch the trailer video to understand the general concept

Step 2: Read the entire blog article and then book a call to talk with a Growth Strategy Expert. .

By Fabrice Abunde (ScientistMBA, PhD)

First, you need to know that invention creates something that has never been made before (feasibility), innovation creates something that sells (desirability), entrepreneurship creates something that sells at a price that is profitable (viability).

To invent is to discover a new thing, to innovate is to build a framework that uses a new thing while entrepreneurship is to search for a business model that scales an innovation.

A research discovery is inventive if it has never been done before and it is innovative if users can pay money to get a real value out of it – whether it can scale to a Million-Dollar Company (entrepreneurship) depends on whether you can search for a repeatable and scalable business model.

As an Engineering PhD, launching a Million-Dollar B2B business from your research discovery is finding the intersection between invention (feasibility), innovation (desirability) and entrepreneurship (viability).

This intersection point is known as the Zone of Product/Market Fit because you’ve created something which is new, that you can build at scale, at a price the market is willing to pay. Engineering PhDs who get to this zone become Sciencepreneurs.

In this zone, you get the highest return and the fastest growth rate compared to your competitors. Marketing costs approach 0 or physical minimum, sales cycle lengths approach 0 or physical minimum, cost of goods sold approach the physical minimum, price customers are willing to pay reaches the theoretical maximum and cash quickly piles up in a bank account.

In this article I will be showing you how to get to the Zone of Science/Market Fit

If we assume there is a set of tasks required to properly get to Zone of Product/Market Fit, we can assume there is an optimal order in which those tasks are executed, and optimal methods by which those tasks are executed - a framework, the Lean Sciencepreneur Approach

80% of Research Discoveries get Abandoned in the Lab or Archived in Academic Journals

Why is the sciencepreneurship important? Why launch a business from your research discovery?

Graduate Unemployment: More and more graduates even with Engineering PhD degrees find it difficult to get jobs, as over 75% of Engineering PhDs end up unemployed or underpaid at some point in their career. PhD graduates strike on the streets for joblessness
Waste of research resources: Over 70% of research projects get abandoned in university libraries or archived in academic journals because no one needs them.

Do not blame yourself for your current situation, you are not the problem. The problem is how research is being taught at graduate schools.

The system has been designed to make you:

See your peer-reviewed publication (and sometimes patents) as the final product of your research, rather than see it as a tool to start a new discussion with the people or groups that may benefit from your findings.
Purely focus on achieving metrics within your higher education institution, instead of considering the importance of your work to the end user.
Keep focusing on the next output, the next grant and/or the next publication, instead of reflecting on the benefits of your entire body of work and how you can meaningfully use this to benefit society.
Pay upwards hundreds/thousands of dollars to publish your findings in open access academic journals whose audiences are largely other academics – instead of focusing to identify the real target of your research and how you can apply the research to move the target from their initial to a desired position.

The top academic journals and top university administrators have carefully designed the system as such so that you will not realize that there is greater potential of your research skills outside academia.

That is why no courses are being taught in universities on how to turn research to business. All they do is set up Tech transfer offices with the main goal of protecting the university’s interests in every research that has commercial potential.

A well-known challenge of academic outputs is that once they have been developed, they often fail to translate their value and practical applicability to the end user. Entrepreneurs rather take advantage your research discovery to create a ton of wealth for themselves.

If you are reading this article then I say, Congratulations for taking the bold step to look beyond publications, patents and grant writing and start exploring the greater potential of your research skills and experience.

The overall landscape of academia is such that, with increasingly scarce funding for research and university budget cuts, Engineering PhDs who don’t think of commercializing their research discovery will face an uncertain future.

I’ve been where you are now, and I have felt all the frustrations you feel. I have written this article just for you, so that it can become your companion on your journey to turning or research discovery into a fully functional business, showing you why and where certain things in the process happen.

This will help you see everything in the startup world with a new perspective, which in turn will better prepare you to make quality decisions and avoid the various traps that have been set out for you.

Who is this Article For?

If you’re reading this article, there’s a good chance that you're a PhD CEO or Deep Tech Entrepreneur, and are interested in one or more of the following:

Convert your academic knowledge (publications, patents, dissertations, or hard skills) into an enterprise with high societal and economic impact.
Turn your research idea and the seed funding you just acquired into a sustainable source of additional income for your career and family.
Turn your entire research group into a quasi-firm, where you don’t only do it yourself, but you train students to work on research projects that become successful market innovations
Maybe you already launched a company from your research discovery, but you want to scale it to a hyper profitable multi-million-dollar company even without having any external funding,

The purpose of this article is to make you aware of what I learned, so that you have not only a fighting chance, but a great chance to win at converting your scientific research into a business machine.

The aim of this article is to open your third eye, as mine has been. To help you see things you could never see before, where you may be losing money or wasting time in research not knowing that you could make a fortune from it. I will share many examples of the secret framework I use and reveal the knowledge to you. Knowledge you are not supposed to have!

The Big Idea about turning your research into a Million-Dollar Business

First, it is possible to launch a B2B business from your research discovery and scale it to a million-dollar company in 12 months or less while being hyper profitable even without having any external funding.

However, most PhDs & Deep Tech Researchers are not equipped with the skills to do this since no courses are being taught in universities to help you achieve this.

Because I am an Engineering PhD and dedicated years of my life to turn my research into a business, I am therefore the only one dedicated to solving this particular problem for Engineering PhD Entrepreneurs.

My core concept is that PhDCEOs or Deep Tech Entrepreneurs fail not because they can't build prototypes, identify markets, sell, or price products, but because they conduct these activities in the wrong order (and using the wrong approach) and run out of money before they get traction.

In the old approach, you hire and set up a team to build a commercial prototype (production), attempt to do marketing and hope to make sales. In the New approach, you first market, make sales before you hire and set up a team to build commercial prototypes.

I know by now; you would be wondering how you can sell something without having it built. Don’t worry in this article I will show you how to use the model-based approach to do so.

How I Discovered the OptimScale Startup Framework for Scientific Discoveries

For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Fabrice Abunde (PhD), an Engineering PhD like you. A few years ago, I wanted to launch a B2B company where I apply my research discovery to help other companies scale in profits.

I looked everywhere for a strategy on how to do this, but I found nothing other than a few books & articles on how to write a business plan, lean startup, etc, which all require that I raise some startup capital before I could get started.

I decided to take matters into my own hands and run a series of experiments to find the best strategies that could help an Engineering PhD like me earn tens of millions by launching a B2B company from my research discovery even without having any startup capital.

Then I discovered the OptimScale Startup Framework where instead of me starting a company from scratch, I could rather start a company that pairs with startups and use my research discovery to scale them.

My strategy worked so well, that I now earn 4 times the pay of average Engineering PhDs by working with different companies to help them scale. First, within 3 months working with a water Tech Group, I brought in over $100k using my research approach.

I went on to scale 2 other companies within 12 months: one in the developed world to over $1M in Annual Recurrent Revenue and one in developing world to over $250k all while being hilariously profitable.

Every other company wanted to employ me so that I could do the same for them and every Engineering PhD wanted to know how I managed to scale companies just using process modeling and the scientific method (the OptimScale Framework)

To date, my OptimScale Framework has generated millions of dollars in revenue, earned me board seats for several companies, invited speaker at leading companies, universities, and institutions, and breaking a world record for developing the first Model-Based Framework to help companies scale.

Now, I don’t share this with you to impress you, but to show you that with your research discovery is highly valuable in the B2B business world, and it is possible to convert generate millions of dollars from your research discovery if you use the right framework.

Launching a Company from your Research Discovery

Old Method

In the old method of launching a business from your research discovery, you make use of a serial approach that proceed step-by-step with little if any feedback from the potential end user of the research results. You assume you understand customer problems/needs.

You pre-maturely hire a team and raise money. You assume the market is huge, so you start by building commercial prototypes of your research discovery for multiple customer segments simultaneously. You spend months or even years building a commercial prototype without ever pre-selling the research idea to a customer.

You want to introduce an optimal solution to the market, so you ensure everything is perfect before you come in contact with the potential end users. When you’re done, you want to protect your product, so you file in for a patent (intellectual property rights).

While some Engineering PhDs might share their research results with potential end users, the goal of early customer access to the product is usually to uncover bugs and not to provide feedback on features or usability.

When the optimal version of the commercial prototype is ready, you then try to ship to market hoping to sell to potential users. So, you use the Production-Marketing-Sales Approach

Old Result

Too often, after months or even years of development, you learn the hard way that customers are not buying your product because they don’t need or want most of its features.

At this stage, many PhD Entrepreneurs just abandon their research it in the lab, publish scientific articles and include the patent in their resumes.

New Method

In the new method, you Sell the research idea validate the price customers are willing to pay before you build a prototype to Save Money and Time.

You start by Testing for Desirability (get clients who pay you money). You focus on one customer segment and go heavy on research using sound principles to get first hand customer data without writing one line of code or without building any single prototype.

You understand that as a startup founder, your goal is to increase the pressure (P) you apply to the market. Since you don’t have enough bandwidth to invest in huge marketing campaigns as large companies do, it means your Force (F) is fixed.

So, the only way to increase the pressure you apply in the market is to reduce the size (A) of the customer segment you target since (P=F/A). That is why you only focus on one customer segment.

Next, you Test for Feasibility. You Combine customer data with your unique insights to hypothesize useful offers. You spin up a working model using lean engineering and sign up your first customers without hiring anyone. When customers pay you for the working model of your research discovery, you then use the money to build a commercial prototype. The choice of materials and technologies use in the commercial prototype is constrained based on the price the market pays to have the problem solved.

So, you market, sell before you build. Also, with first customers signed up you have a proof that the market needs the results from you research discovery. At this stage, you are confident that efforts won't be wasted.

At this point, you have sound evidence to recruit investors (but only recruit an investor if your solution is capital intensive).

Last you Test for Viability. Using information you gather from the customers; you solve for an end-to-end distribution channel that can deliver your product at scale while being profitable. When you scale the business in the first customer segment and reach a maximum, you then gradually start extending to other adjacent customer segments.

New Result

You avoid financial and time wastage that comes with team complexity and drama. You build a highly profitable and scalable business based on real-time market facts and not faith. You become a PhDCEO.

Bottomline

The Error most researchers make is to think that if they own a patent for their research or publish articles in top scientific journals, then your research discovery is highly marketable. A patent (or scientific article) has nothing to do with marketability of a research.

It's just a validation of the scientific relevance of your research and protection of your results against copyright issues.

No matter how much efforts you put into marketing research that is not marketable, it will always be in vain. The market doesn’t care about the scientific aspects of your research project but the outcome it will bring to them.

Using a good framework, you can clearly demonstrate to a target how your research discovery (or expected research results) can take them from a current state to a desired state.

That way, you can sell your research idea and validate the market before you even start conducting the actual research. All you need is a framework to sell your research idea to a potential industry target.

When you get 2 or 3 interested buyers, you then invest time to build a scalable commercial prototype which you will first test with the 2 to 3 buyers, collect case studies (or make modifications) before you scale production, marketing, and sales to other industry buyers.

The OptimScale Startup Methodology

Launching a B2B business and searching for an industry job is basically the same steps. The only difference lies in the approach with which each of the steps are being conducted. While an industry job will pay you for your time and skill set, a B2B contract with a company will pay you based on the results your research discovery brings.

Recall that when you want to apply for a high paying job:

You first prepare your marketing documents (CV & Cover Letter) and submit your application to a job posting from an employer you are interested in.
If you get an interview, you demonstrate how you will be relevant to the employer (sales),
When you get the job, you offer your services to execute the activities involved in job you have been hired to do (production)

If you don’t get the job, you modify your CV and continue to apply until you get a recruiter who is willing to hire you for your personal services. Sometimes you need to go top up your skills by taking one of two more certifications.

You can’t offer your services before you get a job. You first apply for a job (marketing), get a job (Sales) before you offer your skills (production). In the same way, you can’t build a prototype (offer services) before you get the job (client). So, the process of launching a B2B Company from your research discovery is the same process for getting a high-paying job. Just that in Launching a B2B Company,

Instead of preparing a CV and Cover Letter based on a job posting you identified in the company, you rather prepare a framework and a marketing thesis based on your research discovery and a problem you have identified in the company. Simply put, you organize your research discovery to build a framework that solves a specific industry problem and a thesis to convince the company, why they should believe in your framework.
Instead of going for an interview waiting to answer a series of questions about your skills and experiences from the employer, you go in with an ROI justification document and a PowerPoint presentation to show the employer how their business will scale if the implement your solution. You position yourself as a partner for growth and not just a candidate searching for a job and salary to survive.
Instead of offering your personal services to be paid for your time, you offer the results from your research discovery to be paid based on the results you bring to the company. For instance, if your research discovery can help the company generate $10M per year they will happily pay you $1M.

This explains why launching a B2B business and searching for an industry job basically involve the same steps with the difference lying in the approach with which each of the steps are being conducted.

In summary, if you want to launch a B2B business that helps companies scale from your research discovery, then you need to apply the following 5 steps:

1. Search for a Problem:

Choose an industry segment and identify a problem that is preventing them from scaling. Problems that you know can be solved by the results from your research discovery.

2. Build a Solution Framework:

Skilfully organize and intelligently direct your research idea/discovery to build a solution framework and a marketing thesis (also known as job search thesis or whitepaper) for solving the problem.

3. Stimulate and Attract Companies:

Using elements from your Marketing Thesis, attract, add value, nurture, and trigger companies to book an appointment and request working with you.

4. Position yourself as a Growth Partner:

Position yourself as a growth partner by visually showing companies how you plan to help them scale & grow their company using the results from your research discovery.

5. Onboard and Scale Company:

Onboard the company and apply the modeling, simulation and optimization techniques launch and scale your company. This proceeds as follow: First you develop a test model (minimum viable product) of your commercial prototype, simulate it at with 1 or 2 companies to see if it truly delivers value to them & perform any required optimizations, next you validate the optimal operation with 2 other companies, before we think of building a full commercial prototype.

The 5 steps are also known as the OptimScale Job Search Methodology because you can apply the same steps to get a high-paying industry job.

How to Get Started

There are a couple of ways you can achieve this…

Option 1: You do it yourself.

Option one is to follow the 5 steps to launching a B2B business by yourself and take the time to learn everything I have shown you. However:

You will find it difficult to identify the right industry problem, which when solved will help the company scale to the millions. If the problem is wrongly identified, all the other steps will be irrelevant.
It will take you so much time and many trials and errors to be able to organize your research idea/discovery to build a framework and a marketing thesis that clearly illustrates how you can solve the problem. This might end up frustrating you to giving up and returning to your old ways.

I know as engineering PhDs we are tough and can easily learn things faster. But if you try to research online, you’ll only find snippets of information. You can’t find a cohesive body of knowledge that can help you achieve this.

This means you might have to devote months or even years of research to be able to figure out everything by yourself. So, it’s possible trying to do it yourself but it will be painful, costly and time consuming.

Now because you have read this article up to this point, I know you are a PhD or Deep Tech Entrepreneur who really wants to succeed. So, I will provide you two other options to help you get started.

Option 2: Watch full training video here and take a quiz.

I have prepared a 2-hour free training video for you on how PhD CEOs and Deep Tech Entrepreneuers can find Product Market Fit and Consistently get High-Paying Clients to Scale their Deep Tech Venture.

Option 3: Book a Free Growth Strategy Call here and talk to a Growth Strategy Consultant

On this call, I will help you figure out where you are now in terms of launching a deep tech business from your research discovery and the steps you need to take to scale to a million dollar in profits even if you have no VC funding.

Benefits of using the OptimScale Startup Framework

The greatest attribute of the OptimScale Framework is that it helps you break the financial barrier for starting a successful business and ensures that you identify a business model that is scalable. The Framework teaches you how you can identify a problem and leverage model-based techniques to sell your solution to generate funds for starting your business.

Summarily, the OptimScale Startup Framework offers five main benefits for aspiring and existing entrepreneurs. These benefits include.

Reduce competition: by niching down to a specific segment of the market and identifying a problem which is unique to that segment, you reduce competition from existing players in the market.
Reduce risk. By identifying a problem which is associated to a financial burden, you are sure people will be able to pay for your product. In other words, people will happily pay money if your product/ service helps them make money.
Start-up capital: By using model-based engineering, you can sell your product/solution before you produce it. This helps you generate start-up capital to kick-start your business.
Scalable business: By starting small you can search, test, and validate a successful business model which is scalable.
Human Resource: Identifying a problem that has financial cost is like a pain point to your target client. When you identify a pain point, they are willing to work with you to help solve the problem. Your required human resources become your partners.

Now that you understand the how juicy the OptimScale Framework is, I will carefully illustrate to you some proofs.

Proofs to show that the OptimScale Startup Framdwork Really Works

The OptimScale Startup Framework is not only used to launch a B2B business from your research discovery, but you can also use it to get a high-paying industry job where you apply your engineering knowledge to help companies scale.

Using this methodology, I now earn 4 times the pay of Engineering PhDs by working with different companies to help them scale.

First, within 3 months working with a water Tech Group, I brought in over $100k.

Also, don’t just take me for my word. OptimScale is built on my proprietary modeling framework for system scale up that been vetted and recognized by some of the world’s greatest publishers and news agencies such as:

Also, others have made use of the same 4-step approach to earning millions of dollars by helping startups scale.

Professor Steve Blank (USA) who scaled 8 startups to the billions of dollars,
Russell Brunson (USA), worked with over 30,000 startups to help them scale to the millions.
Sabri Suby (Australia) who generated over $1.33 billion scaling thousands of startups in over 215 different niches,
Nick Kozmin (Canada) repeatedly scaled over 2000 tech startups to the millions,

And the list goes on……

If you're a PhDCEO or Deep Tech Entrepreneur who wants to Find Product Marekt Fit, consistently get high-paying clients and deliver even better client results for just 1/10th of your current operating cost then Watch Full Training Video on OptimScale, the new Scientific Client Acquisiton and Model-Predictive Scaling System. Or book a Growth Strategy Call here to talk with me or one of our Growth Strategy Consultants.

For PhDs & Deep Tech Researchers

Hi, I'm Fabrice Abunde, PhD

After 7 years of research, I discovered OptimScale, the Scientific Client Acquisition and Model Predictive Scaling System. With OptimScale, PhD CEOs & Deep Tech Entrepreneurs can Find Product Market Fit and Scale Sales to millions in profits

About the Author: Fabrice Abunde, PhD

Fabrice Abunde

Fabrice Abunde is one of the world’s leading experts in Model Development for Process Optimization and Scaleup.

His recent research in system modeling has been focused on issues that lie at the intersection of entrepreneurship, scientific research & graduate employability.
He has over 7 years of practical experience using his Modeling Expertise to consult for companies and R&D projects across USA, Europe & Africa, worth over 3 million USD in funding.

The 32-years-old business enthusiast holds a Ph.D. in Energy & Process Systems Engineering, an M.Eng. in Industrial Chemistry & Environments, an M.Phil. in Biosystems Engineering, and a BSc in Biochemical Technology.
He obtained his B.Sc. with First-Class Honours and emerged the 2012 overall best graduating student (valedictorian) of the University of Buea.

Ing. Dr. Abunde’s outstanding contributions in the field of R&D has been recognized by numerous international awards and fellowships from recognized bodies including European Commission, Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD), and the Cameroons Presidential Award of Excellence.
He is the Founder of OptimScale, the First Model-Based Approach to help companies find product market fit and scale profits using Scientific Client Acquisition and Model-Predictive Scaling. OptimScale is built on his Proprietary Modeling Framework for system scale up that is published in some of the worlds leading scientific journals and news agencies.
Ing. Dr. Abunde has also distinguished himself by many important and original research discoveries archived in over 20 original research articles and book contributions published by industry-leading journals.

2 Reasons why using A CV/Resume Is Rather Killing your Industry Job Search: Engineering PhDs now use the Job Search Thesis to Get Hilariously High-Paying Jobs.

By Fabrice Abunde (PhD)

Engineering PhDs end up unemployed, underpaid or trapped in routine average pay industry jobs not because they aren’t good at what they do, but because they use the wrong approach and assets to search & apply for jobs.

As an Engineering PhD you can’t search & apply for an industry job the same way regular job candidates do. Getting a highly paid industry job at the PhD Level is not about having the best CV/Resume but about having a Job Search Concept that will differentiate you from other candidates in the job market and help recruiters see you as a partner in growth and not simply a candidate searching for a job and salary to survive.

How I discovered the OptimScale Job Search Methodology that can help any Engineering PhD Transition to Industry and earn $200k to $1M per year

By Fabrice Abunde (PhD)

Consequently, Engineering PhDs end up underpaid in academia, unemployed or trapped in routine average pay industry jobs not because they aren’t good at what they do, but because they search, apply, and execute jobs, using the wrong approach and lack a Framework to translate their academic knowledge into measurable financial results for companies.

I realized that instead of starting a company or searching for a job to work for companies, Engineering PhDs can now use the OptimScale Methodology to pair with startups, apply modeling, simulation, and optimization Framework to scale the startups to Millions-Dollar companies and earn a percentage of revenue.

Get the OptimScale white paper for Free.

Step-by-step guide on how to make $200k to 1M per year using the Process Modeling
and the Scientific Scaling Method to help Companies Grow.

Join other Engineering PhDs

Become a Respected and Highly-Paid Industry Consultant. Learn How to Apply the New Process Modeling and the Scientific Scaling Method to help Companies Grow