There has long been concern across the EU about the relatively poor performance of European countries in terms of innovation and entrepreneurship.  While the continent regularly scores highly in basic research, it struggles to turn those ideas into viable and successful businesses.

It’s a malady that even afflicts giants such as Germany, which has a woeful track record at creating spin-offs from the numerous exceptional research institutions across the country.  Research from the Technical University of Munich attempted to understand just why this was.

After tracking over 100 entrepreneurial teams, the researchers believe the problem may rest in the struggles those teams have in working effectively together.

Each team was required to complete an online questionnaire every week, with interviews then conducted with the entrepreneurs to discover some of the challenges they were facing when creating their spin-off.

I’ve written previously about the importance of human capital in starting a business, both in terms of the personnel you have in your direct team, and the people you can count on within your wider network to help grow and develop your proposition.  While many scientists have exceptional technical skills, they often lack these connections, especially in the business and political domains.

Setting the strategy

A lack of commercial experience can also undermine attempts to decide upon a clear strategy for the business.  This can be especially problematic when paired with both the German desire for perfectionism and the scientific mindset, which can often be anathema to the fail fast startup ethos.  In a way, scientific entrepreneurs have to learn to think in a very different way in order to grow their business and pitch it to investors.

“The preliminary results of the study show that even interdisciplinary academic start-up teams with similar initial situations and challenges are pursuing very different directions in terms of development. Teams that listened less to the expert tips from our incubator and who lost themselves in their decision-making processes have generally not been successful,” the researchers explain.

It’s not a completely lost cause however, as the research identified a number of characteristics that were common among successful scientific entrepreneurs, including traits such as curiosity and an openness to new ideas.

Suffice to say, the results are not conclusive enough to draw firm conclusions, and indeed the researchers plan to continue analyzing the field before publishing their final results in 2021.  Nonetheless, they provide interesting preliminary results that give plenty of food for thought and direction for further analyses.