The TTT startups find different ways to continue their entrepreneurial journey. For example, different founders dive into a challenge: often a trajectory of several weeks in which their entrepreneurial skills are central. One of those challenges is the Venture Challenge. We spoke with Chretien Herben, founder of LifeSciences@Work and co-founder of the Venture Challenge, about the value of these types of challenges for university startups and the link with TTT.
This article previously appeared in the TTT Magazine.
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Chretien started LifeSciences@Work based on his own needs. “When I started my own startup around 2000 from my PhD, there was very little support,” says Chretien. “As a post-doc or PhD, you actually know very little when it comes to running a startup. I was able to sell the company at the time, but I mainly became rich in experience.” Chretien wanted to pass on that experience to other young entrepreneurs with a scientific background. Eventually, he started the LifeSciences@Work program, where he met Math Kohnen. “We noticed that many researchers had difficulty making a plan and discovering whether there is business potential in your research. While that plan is so important to ultimately raise funding. We then drew inspiration from a concept from Shell and that has grown into the Venture Challenge, which is still successful after 16 years.”
Strengthen
In the Venture Challenge, starting entrepreneurs with a scientific background learn the most important business skills to start in 10-12 weeks. Chretien: “People often say that researchers and entrepreneurs are not the same. That is of course true and not every researcher needs to become an entrepreneur. But almost all researchers want something to happen with their research. This often means that you have to start a startup, and that is what we help with. We mainly focus on BioTech and MedTech, because a lot of money is needed for innovations in those areas.” Many MedTech startups from TTT also enter the program. “That is very nice, because we strengthen each other. The range of support is now much greater than 20 years ago and there is no point in competing with each other. You can see that the participants who also did TTT have already thought carefully about their business case. Ultimately, it is about the entrepreneurs having a stick behind the door and being able to move on somewhere else in the ecosystem.”
Choose consciously
A good reason to participate in challenges, Chretien thinks. But should you register for all challenges right away? “No,” he says. “Take a good look at which challenge suits you best at which time. You should not do it to collect prize money, but to enrich your business case and build a relevant network. Talk to alumni to find out which programs and challenges are relevant to your company. That will help you to ultimately prepare your company so that it is interesting for investors.”
Participant in the picture: FETCH
One of the TTT MedTech spinoff founders who participated in the Venture Challenge was Michiel Stevens’ FETCH (UT). FETCH measures the number and composition of tumor cells from the patient’s entire blood volume by combining leukapheresis and the FETCH tumor cell enrichment process. This method ensures that patients receive the most effective treatment and offers cancer researchers and pharmaceutical companies valuable cells for studying cancer evolution, treatment resistance and discovering new treatment targets.
Michiel started like many others with local support programs from the University of Twente (Novel-T). He then received a TTT MedTech voucher and participated in the Venture Challenge, which he won. Michiel immediately registered for the follow-up phase of the Venture Challenge. Last August, he also won the pitch competition at Enschede Slush’D, with a prize of €10K. So he is working hard and this is undoubtedly just the beginning.
