Stack Audit

A rubric-based evaluation designed to help you create consistent data standards and practices across your biotech startup.

Are you struggling to maintain technical standards across your biotech startup?

Data driven biotechs need to maintain consistent practices for how they collect and organize data. Doing this for lab readouts is one thing. Coordinating practices around metadata – plate maps, sample sheets, etc. – is much more complex.

As your organization rolls out new teams, assays and tools and it becomes impossible for one person to deeply understand all the details, maintaining consistency turns into a completely different game.

Separate teams don’t have the bandwidth to negotiate and coordinate their conventions and standards with each other. And the longer this goes on, the farther they grow apart, the harder it gets to leverage data across the organization.

If you’re not careful, the high standards that have made you data driven so far could become a thing of the past.

What if your organization had a shared understanding of expectations and gaps around data and metadata?

Imagine having a detailed picture of each team’s conventions, standards and expectations across your organization. Imagine having a consensus about how each team differs and where they need to adopt consistent standards. Imagine having a clear understanding of what you can do to ensure your organization will be data driven long into the future.

Getting these things right isn’t easy. Data standards and conventions involve complex, subtle, sometimes barely tangible details. But without a shared understanding of where you’re starting from, this difficult endeavor becomes impossible.

Get a detailed audit with information collected directly from each team

The fastest way to build a shared understanding is to talk to each team. But without a framework for these discussions, they can quickly devolve into abstractions, making it impossible to identify the most important details.

The Stack Audit uses a proprietary rubric to interview each team in your organization about their conventions and processes. The rubric divides every aspect of your data processes and infrastructure into a discrete technical components, allowing you to compare apples to apples across teams. The result is a thorough report that every team can understand and get behind.

How it works

During the Stack Audit, I’ll begin by working with a selected member of your team with the broadest technical understanding to define the overall picture and assess the components that they’re familiar with.

Depending on their preferred working style, this will be a mix of asynchronous communication and online one-on-one meetings designed to efficiently capture the information without requiring any more time than necessary.

Once this phase is complete, I’ll go through a shorter version of this process with technical representatives from up to 4 other teams to fill in the components that they understand best.

After compiling and evaluating the results, I’ll share a detailed report that allows you to compare expectations and standards across the teams. You can share this report with your leadership team to evaluate potential infrastructure investments, or use it however you want.

Ready to get started?

The cost of the evaluation is $7,000 for projects involving up to 5 teams, but it will save you many times more than that in the long run. To make sure you can maintain the consistency and standards that have gotten you this far, let’s get started today.

Don’t worry – there’s no risk or obligation and it’s free to apply.

What happens after I apply?

After you apply, I’ll reach out to schedule a discovery call where I can answer any questions and go over next steps. After the discovery call, I’ll send you the rubric so you can see whether it’s right for you.

How do I know you won't try to sell me something I don't need?

My goal is for every biotech startup to have the right tools, infrastructure and knowledge to change the world. When I don’t have the right expertise for a project, I’m the first to admit it. If I’m not the best option for your needs, I’ll use the discovery call to help you find someone who is.

Why can't we just figure this out ourselves?

You probably could. But every week you spend on trial and error will cost you even longer once you eventually figure out how to clean up the mess. Teams that are building the tracks ahead of a speeding train don’t have time to step back and think about how they work. If you learn from my past mistakes instead of your future mistakes, you can keep the train speeding along.

Who you’ll be working with

I’ve helped biotech startups of all sizes build processes and infrastructure that make them more data driven.

After learning the ins and outs of data infrastructure/architecture as a software engineer at Google, I’ve adapted this knowledge to biotech through roles at Verily Life Sciences, Sanofi, Cellarity and Dewpoint Therapeutics where I was VP of Data Science and Engineering.

As I pushed these biotech startups to use data more effectively, I realized that better software wasn’t enough. The real work is defining and adopting conventions and work practices that ensure the teams can use the software consistently and reproducibly. I’ve written extensively about this in my weekly newsletter, Scaling Biotech, with more than 850 subscribers.

I’ve seen first hand what it looks like when biotech startups circle around decisions because they can’t find the right data. And I’ve seen the difference it can make when you fix the situation. I want every biotech to be able to make the best decisions as quickly as possible, including yours.

Don't wait another minute

To find out if this program is right for you, click below to set up a discovery call. Even if it turns out it’s not a good fit, I’ll make sure you come away with a better understanding of what you can do to get things on track.

Don’t worry – there’s no risk or obligation and it’s free to apply.

The sooner you get started, the easier it will be.

The longer your teams use inconsistent conventions and inefficient processes, the more the problems will compound and the more expensive it will be to clean it up later. Every week you wait to get started creates hours, if not days, of additional work for your team. Let’s start building the systems that will drive your decision making today!