0309. A Farewell. Founders At The Fork In The Road

The origin story of a business is rarely clean, and it’s almost never convenient. Oscar and Lawrence sit down for a candid, unscripted conversation.  We look back on how their partnership started in grad school right as COVID pushed everything virtual, and why staying committed after the class ended mattered more than the original idea. That disruption shaped the way they think about entrepreneurship, operations, and showing up when no one is grading your work anymore. Lawrence shares why he’s stepping away from the podcast and business for a move and mini sabbatical, and we talk honestly about what was built, what changed, and what Lean by Design and Sigma Lab Consulting are to become next.

The hosts talk through the early days of testing business ideas in the biopharma space, the challenge of standing out in a crowded services landscape, and why momentum gets harder after the class ends and the deadlines disappear.

Lawrence shares a practical view of the technician skills gap and specialized needs like calibration, plus the real-world complications of trying to start a company with coworkers. From there, they get honest about what actually drives operational excellence: consistent delivery, repeat clients, clear communication, and the tough alignment conversations that no AI tool can do for you. 

Oscar and Lawrence also cover the habits that kept them sharp, especially reading, research, and pattern spotting as the industry changes every few years. And they share some of the scrappy proof-of-concept work: free networking events, learning to explain the value to people outside biotech, and building systems that make work transferable. Finally, the two reflect on a major turning point: shifting from standard consulting services to building a product, and what that demanded from us in product management, workflows, and support. 

If this conversation hits home, subscribe, share it with a friend building something on the side, and leave a review so more operators and founders can find Lean by Design. What part of building a business feels hardest for you right now?

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Welcome to an episode of Lean by Design Podcast. I'm your host, Oscar Gonzalez. And for the last plan time, I am here with my uh co-host, partner, Lawrence Wong. This is a very different episode. Recently we've been leading with problems and discussing what those look like in an organization. Uh, but today we're going to talk about the partnership that we've had. Our relationship has started back in 2020 when we were in grad school, right before we knew the world was going to shut down.

SPEAKER_02 1:35

COVID.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

Yes. And it really shut down. I mean, in the middle of our uh course, I believe it was called Starting New Ventures. All of a sudden, we got an email that we were going fully virtual. So that was an interesting uh way to start a business. That was over six years ago. That was over six years ago. It's crazy. We've been, we've been on this grind for a little while. I mean, it's been we've been, you

Why This Conversation Matters

SPEAKER_01 2:02

know, going from one thing to the other, building assets and building rapport and and you know, getting clients and having conversations with so many uh not just practitioners, but people in the industry um over the last six years. And you know, it's been it's been really a journey that um I don't think either one of us saw what it was gonna look like five or six years later. Um so let's let's go, we're gonna go back to those grad school days. Now, for those of you that are listening, Lawrence has no idea what I'm gonna ask him. So this is unscripted. Usually we have notes, we're you know, trying to compare uh uh perspectives, but we're just gonna hit Lawrence with a few questions and and get to know him and sort of this partnership and this relationship, um, so that you guys can see where we're coming from. But uh if you were uh listening to our last episode, this is Lawrence's last recording with us. You will be uh taking some time, you'll be moving. You actually have to go to the airport to pick up some family today. Um you'll be moving and you know, spending sort of like a mini sabbatical. And I that's such a great idea, I think, at this point in your life. Who says you have to wait till you're 50 or 60 to take a sabbatical right before you're gonna retire? So, you know, I think uh and we'll we'll get into some of those things. Um we're gonna start early on. What was that first impression in grad school? If you do you remember that first class that we were in?

SPEAKER_02 3:38

I think I remember like little details, and sometimes I have to listen to like the first or couple episodes that we recorded because this is the first time that we're actually doing this like in person. But it was like basically, you know, you come up with an idea of like a company that you'd like to start, and then the professor essentially paired us with people. It was a prompt, right? Yeah, it was like some sort of pitch. You had to pitch, and then um, I believe it was four of us in the same um group. I don't think there was anybody else that was in our group. Um, but the the the initial idea was uh around non-scientific activities for like labs, so providing those sorts of services. Um and then we were working on it in class, and then COVID hit, and then we were doing it at home. School ended, and then we still, I think everybody was home, probably drinking way more than we should have. And just I think after work live in the dream, yeah,

Meeting In Grad School

SPEAKER_02 4:32

live in the dream, and then we would uh work on it sporadically. I don't think it was like there was like a cadence to it. It was more of okay, let's just meet at this time, and then we would just talk about things and kind of go through the steps and following essentially like what we had learned in class to um build the a business of that type.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

And we didn't know each other before that class. We knew similar people, but I don't recall being in a class with you before that specific course.

SPEAKER_02 4:59

No, because like I was in the You were moving quick, I was in the health sector like management uh cohort. So we were like there was a core group of people that would take all these classes together. But that was like the last semester, and like all the electives were kind of essentially out of the way. And I think that may have been like one of the electives that I took, and like all the core classes were done.

SPEAKER_01 5:20

I had a whole year after that to go, so that was you know, let's start a business and at the same time, but we have to go slow because I'm still working and I have class for the next year, and there's COVID, and there's COVID, so yeah, yeah, we don't even know what we're gonna do here and or how this is gonna work. Um, you know, it's interesting. I remember a lot of different points in that day. I mean, I was coming to class after work. So in some cases, I was one of the last people that were in there, and you know, if you can uh picture sort of stadium seating, you know, each half circle row, each semicircle row, sort of elevating from before that. Uh, I was coming in from the side door, sitting in that first chair. And I remember the professor saying, Okay, why don't we start over here? And he points at me to pitch a company, to pitch a business. And this was the first class. And the first business I pitched was my idea for a brewery that served Puerto Rican food. And then the next person I think wanted to like save the dolphins or something. And then I saw this theme of like, oh, everybody is throwing out the biggest business they had thought about. Oops. So when we came to team up with people, I had to go back and say, okay, well, this is actually what I'm looking to do, and this is

Pitch Day And Team Formation

SPEAKER_01 6:45

what we were thinking about doing. And it was four of us. Um, it seemed that a lot of folks in that class were like teaming up with people they already knew. They like business ideas, venture ideas. And I believe, like towards the end, we all just sort of looked at each other and saw that we were all within the biopharma space, and we were just like, Hey, do you guys want to be friends for the next semester? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:11

Yeah, I don't I I don't even remember what my idea was so bad that I don't remember it. Like, there was you don't remember? I remember the most ridiculous, like, and I don't know if this is still a business, so I sorry if I offend anybody, but there was a I think there was somebody who like was focusing on making beds for dorms. Yes, and like I saw that it was like better beds or something like that. I don't even know if that's still in existence, but I was just like, that's a business.

SPEAKER_01 7:36

Like it there was one for dorms, and then I saw I remember another one that was sort of this uh mattress cleaning that like if they could go to hotels and grab mattresses and and hit them with like UV or something like that. So there were definitely some interesting, I don't remember a majority of them, and I think it's because at the end when we got virtual, we're we're not hearing it as much in the conversation. You know, you have class and then you meet with your team for 45 minutes and discuss whatever. Right. Um but that class was really cool. I mean, was there anything that you took away from working with me on that project that made you have a certain perspective of if we went full business?

SPEAKER_02 8:20

I mean, I I think the idea has changed significantly since you know the idea of providing these services to these labs because you have these larger companies that already do all types of like a thermal fissure, there's like um companies like that that are large enough that provide like these like lab management services essentially. Um, and I think the initial thought was like, okay, because of COVID, there's gonna be obviously a huge demand over um how do these areas continue to be supported because there's just a ton of focus being on like we need to figure out how to you know discover this uh medicine, therapeutic, whatever you want to call it, for this disease that has essentially stopped the world, right? So there was a lot of money being poured into um our space. Right. Um and so that idea I think like definitely had legs in it. I think we were just trying to figure out like, okay, well, how does that fit into what we do for work, but also how does that fit into um the competitive landscape for like all these other companies that exist now?

SPEAKER_01 9:23

Right. I I recall being upset because our professor continued to refer to our business as staffing. And you know, I even though it was sort of coming across as like we're going to support their work, I always saw this vision of we're making their work better, but almost like we we didn't have the language to crystallize that idea and to really sell it. But that course did give us a lot of tools from the founder perspective, like having an agreement and making sure that you're staying true to things. Because I felt like that was the hardest thing. That was the biggest thing that I noticed with you is that when we were not in class anymore and we were sort of distributing homework to figure out what is the next thing we're gonna do. Okay, everybody create user personas. And this was very early before AI was a thing, where now you can tell it what you're looking for and it can craft a user persona for you. We had to do these things by scratch, you know. This is a 45-year-old director that works in here and they work on these projects and they struggle to see what their team is actually doing because of XYZ. And um you were one of the only people that did the homework, and that's why you know that that's ultimately what what brought us down to having two founders was we were ready to go in. Um talk about what that was like for you and when you decided, because you were having a conversation with another fella about potentially working with him and starting a business, right?

SPEAKER_02 11:08

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we had like there were some other people that I had talked to about essentially starting a business providing um essentially maintenance services, right, to these different areas. That I think one of the trends that is still um very prevalent to today is I think there's a large amount of the workforce that is on the technician level, um, shop floor, that they're retiring in the next, let's say, five to ten years. And so there's this huge skills gap between this new generation of technicians and essentially blue-collar workers that are coming in. And so there's an opportunity there where if you have a really you know talented group of people that really know how to provide those sorts of services, you could potentially, you know, target certain pockets of biopharma where that's like a significant need, right? So one of the areas is calibration. Very good example, you need instruments that are you know to a specific accuracy and precision. And so there are certain standards

Skills Gaps And Starting Ethically

SPEAKER_02 12:10

that you need to test these instruments to. I don't think that's uh something that people go to school for. It's it's something that like I discovered, even like you know, doing engineering, um, it was always like we knew that that was uh an important part of whatever manufacturing process you're a part of. But there's no course that says, oh, I'm going to be a calibration technician. Like there was none of that um that I had found. And coming to the industry, um, I had you know worked for a couple companies, and then I met some individuals that were really, really skilled at it, and I learned significantly by just being around them and then over the course of being on projects and stuff, and so there was potential of starting a business with them. Um, I think the the problem um there is when you try to start a company with people that you work with at a company that there's just other priorities that people have, and it's it becomes this thing where like, uh, this seems like a conflict of interest, and like maybe we, you know, there's problems with that sort of model. Yeah, I think it was a lot easier for us because like we're not working in the same company. Yeah, we do very different things, and so there's there's not this like issue of like oh things different from the company we were trying to build. Exactly, yeah, and the actual company that you're like we're building, like the the work that you do day to day is not it's not completely um you might use the same skills, but it's it's I think there's there's enough differentiation where it's not going to be an issue. Um, and so I think for me, uh, because we were classmates and then we understood, okay, these are the components that you would need to build a business. It was you know, I told those guys that I was working with, like, hey, I can I'm only gonna focus on one thing at a time, and like chose to focus on obviously we needed to pass the class. Yeah, we also were working on the graduate already. So I think it was a very easy choice, but then I think after uh we finished the class, you know, carrying that momentum, I think that became more difficult because it's not like there was some obligation, right?

SPEAKER_01 14:08

There was you don't have to have paper to turn in, you don't have reports, you have to do it on your own.

SPEAKER_02 14:13

You have to do it on your own. Yeah, nobody is coming to save you. There's nobody telling, there's no professor saying, like, oh, you forgot to do X, Y, and Z. It's kind of this like, okay, you gotta you have your own deadlines, you gotta commit to this. Um, if people aren't serious about this, then you know, don't do it. Yeah, like that's essentially what the message was.

SPEAKER_01 14:32

I mean, I I think that that's a message that a lot of folks who are looking to get into entrepreneurship or to be solopreneurs, even I know there's a lot of folks that are using their skill set and knowledge to uh, you know, rem to continue to be consultants in the space. And there's really a core piece that I don't think is discussed enough, and that is that you have to bring that energy every day to push what that next piece is. No one gave us a playbook, no one told us do these seven things, and then clients are gonna start coming in. And even when those conversations did come out, it's not doing them one time, it's doing them repet repeatedly, consistently, over time, consistently, you know, going out and and and being your true self and representing the business, and you know, finding you, you know, you you have to find work, you have to find the work that you need to do. It's not just social media, it's making sure your voice is together, making sure that you are uh you know hitting the major points that you want people to remember your organization by. Um when it comes to delivery. I know you know in the early days of our business, you were very focused on the delivery. How are we delivering the best version of what we can do to these clients over and over and over again so that they want to continue working with us? Because ultimately that's what's going to pay the bills, are those repeat customers, not those people that take one project and then they leave. So absolutely we learned we learned quite a bit. Um, is there anything, any habit that you had in grad school that has carried into your professional life?

SPEAKER_02 16:15

I think reading is probably the biggest thing, right? So in business school, there's a a lot of reading that you have to do because we have these case studies and you have to write papers and then you have to do presentations and all this stuff, and you have to be very comfortable with being able to communicate and be able to present things and um very useful for work, I think. Um, and like I think after graduating, oh, I don't have to read case studies anymore. So you kind of have to force yourself to like find things to read and find things that interest you and find things that will um that you can take from that can, you know, obviously apply to the business. And um at the same time, just you know, having I think there's a lot of stuff that you can read online now that's whether it's articles, you know, on the computer, on your phone, but I I still think that there's something about having like some physical copy of something that um you don't let your mind get distracted and you're you're able to process information in such a different way from reading like that. So um I have a gigantic library that I've built from you know from reading since COVID,

Reading, Research, And Pattern Spotting

SPEAKER_02 17:16

because COVID was the thing that kind of forced me to like, okay, I don't I don't have any case studies anymore. Like you're gonna have to find things to read and to fill that gap. And that's um that's probably the the best habit that I've picked up is is reading. Because I didn't do, I mean, I was reading um before coming into business school, but they were mostly manuals on how to fix things, and like it wasn't it's not the type of reading that you doesn't really stimulate you.

SPEAKER_01 17:41

It doesn't really stimulate you, it's kind of like um it's it's uh like you go to IKEA, you get a book and there's a picture, it's very matters, it's it's two, yeah, you know, it's just like this is what it is, this is what you do, as opposed to when you're reading a book or reading research or what have you. You are internalizing what that is telling you, and then sort of developing your understanding of that document.

SPEAKER_02 18:05

Yeah, and I I think a lot of these books force you to also reflect on things, right? Like I can't reflect on a manual telling me how to take them all up.

SPEAKER_01 18:13

Like it just make you feel like you never want to build that again.

SPEAKER_02 18:16

Yeah, I just this is not what I want to do. Yeah, and I think that's the only thing that I've got out of it. Um, so certain, you know, books that you um can take apart from, and there's a lot of um stuff that's not related to work that I also picked up reading, you know. So I think I think just having that habit of of having something to read to pick up, you know, to separate your mind from all the distractions that we have today, I think helps a lot.

SPEAKER_01 18:38

It's uh it's funny you mentioned that because as I was getting these questions together, for me it was coming up like the studying. And and when I say studying, it's doing the research on your own, not being prompted by something else. Like that was being able to go in and sort of scrape resources and understand what resources are available and getting into these newsletters so that I can get like the news that's happening at the top of the hour to understand how the industry is moving to query if we have to make a maneuver based on what's happening historically, right? Um, you know, in in in real time. And so I think you know, I I have to agree with you. It sort of gives you that um momentum that you don't want to lose. You know, it's like going to the gym and then stopping for a few years and then saying you're gonna go back and go every day. It's just like that, where we're in a place that the industry is really changing every two to three years, and that research muscle needs to continue to be worked on and flexed to understand what are the moves that you need to make from a business perspective. The stuff you had planned is not necessarily gonna feed you in the next three years.

SPEAKER_02 19:53

Yeah. And I mean, there's yes, there's a lot has changed since COVID. A lot changed because of COVID and then coming out of COVID, things changed. But then there's a lot of stuff that didn't change. And I think also the more that you read, the more that you consume you can start to recognize certain patterns and things that are gonna be forever, right? Um one of those things is coordinating uh projects with large amounts of people. Um, your AI is not going to help you with these difficult conversations that you have to have with these people and leadership and manage the gaps in your operation. Like that's just not a thing that is going to happen.

SPEAKER_01 20:28

So let's jump into some fun things, work things. We'll see if we have some. I know we've spent a lot of time together in a lot of different areas. What's something that we did early on that was scrappy? We're like piecing it together to try to understand proof of concept.

SPEAKER_02 20:45

I think there were in the beginning, we did go to a lot of random events, I would say. And trying to like talk to people and kind of explain to them what we were doing. And I think every networking event that ever was popped up and free. Yeah, every networking that and then it was free. I remember specifically we had there was one event where we went, it was downtown Boston, somewhere we went to the bell in hand, and like that was uh um, I forget what organization was holding that.

SPEAKER_01 21:13

Is this where that guy tried to be an intern with us, like in the first month of us being official?

SPEAKER_02 21:19

Yeah, he drank a lot of beers, I think, that that night. Um there were a couple of people from biotech. There was a lawyer, an accountant, I think there were some random people that we've met. Um I think that was uh

Scrappy Networking For Proof

SPEAKER_02 21:34

proof of concept in the way that we're talking about you know the vision that we had. Practice, absolutely practice and and being able to explain it in a way that somebody who is completely out of our industry would be able to understand. And um, I think we learned a lot from that, and it kind of let us know the the types of people that go to certain events and things that we should be maybe more targeted towards. And yeah, I I think that definitely was because you you have to commit, right? Time-wise, like being able to you're not just showing up and doing nothing, you're showing up and then having conversations with random people about what you're trying to do. So I think that was very scrappy, and like money-wise, I don't think that was really much because you're just maybe buying a couple drinks and some food, but yeah, I I think the biggest thing was the time and the just showing up and just being yourself and being able to talk about what you're trying to do.

SPEAKER_01 22:25

Yeah, is uh hard. The the networking was sort of scrappy because I think we're we had to change our lens of how are we going into this event, how are we presenting ourselves? Um, you know, and even now I have a whole new plan uh for networking in this fall because I have different motives than before. I think before we just wanted to talk to people and little seeds of this is what we do, this is who we are, maybe meet a couple people that are in different industries that might be able to support the work that we're doing. And we got a lot of different. Responses in different places. And one of the things that I recognize too is that these networking events that are not necessarily industry focused might not be the ideal clientele, but it allowed us to flex that and practice. This is what we were doing, this is who we are. It's you know, and it was prompting a lot of conversations. I think what was universal was outside of the different industries. People felt the pain that we were talking about resolving. So that that in and of itself, I think was, you know, there was some value in there to say, okay, well, there's problems that everyone is facing, not just in biopharma. Yeah. Let's go into a little bit of the partnership because I'm seeing some of these other questions I put out and I don't like them. So uh let's talk about the partnership. Um if you had to that now this might be hard because I know I watch a lot more movies than you do. But if you had to create a movie character or had to pick a movie character for how I tend to work, can you come up with that?

SPEAKER_00 25:00

Incredibly difficult. Um I should say, what would what what is a takeaway of my working style?

SPEAKER_02 25:10

I I think the movie character so the only thing I can think of is like the most characters I know are gonna become from the Marvel universe. Like there's no like I don't have any perception of I could be a superhero. All these, you know, um and I think more um the first thing that pops in my mind is uh like the it's like a little bit of Tony Stark, but then a little bit of Bruce Banner, like kind of like mixed into because Bruce Banner's more like science-y, and I think um Tony's more building hardware and and things like that, but very vocal about things, right? And I think there's there's a mixture of that, right?

How We Work Together

SPEAKER_02 25:46

I I think um working style-wise, I I think you we come from very different backgrounds, like you're you came from the RD, like the very early stages of of like drug development. I'm on the other end, which is like we just need to make this stuff and get it out the door, yeah. Um so I think there's there's a different like lens in which you see science unfold versus like for me, it's like we just gotta reproduce this recipe every single time. How do we gotta make it consistent consistency? Right. So there's there's a there's a pro like a very defined process for how things are done. And I think for me, looking at how like the way that we approach our work, efficiency and and that sort of context is more of like connecting the the the pieces that we already know it's defined, right? It's just connecting these things so that they flow better. I think in in the work that you do, those pieces aren't defined, it's kind of a mess, right? And so you're gonna have to define it. You have to define what those things are, which makes it a little bit more different. So efficiency is really people communicating what is it that you need for your work to continue for the next person to do their job. There's some overlap, but I think for the most part, that process is your like being defined as the work is being done. Whereas here it's the work is defined, we just need to be able to get this done like efficiently in the flow, right? Now, aside from that, I I think working style-wise is like I think you you I think prefer to have a lot of um I think smaller projects. It's kind of like research, right? You're you're trying to do things and you're trying to figure out what things hit. And I've told you this multiple times. I can only do one thing at a time, and like that's my like I can't multitask. This is I think it's but it's I think you're the opposite where like you're uh like great at multitasking. Pros and cons. Yeah, it's pros and cons for sure. So I like I just I don't even try. I'm just like I can do one thing at a time. That's it.

SPEAKER_01 27:42

So so you might be like uh Spider-Man or Ant-Man, like let me know what you guys need me to do or who I need to battle, and then send me over there and I'll do it.

SPEAKER_02 27:50

Yeah, I mean if I had to say like what character I my favorite character is is Winter Soldier, no superpowers, like just gets incredible arm. Yeah, like I just like go into the night and just assassinate people. It's like it's an amazing like backstory behind it, and then he becomes a hero, and then obviously I don't I don't know the full extent of like how he becomes. I think maybe there's some timeline where he becomes Captain America and stuff like that, but for the most part, it's this regular dude who gets injected with something, becomes evil, and then you know um the rest of the uh Marvel universe.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

Rest assured Lawrence is anything but evil. I don't know if I've seen him kill a fly. I've killed like three mosquitoes already today. Cool. All right, well, that's a new one for me. I appreciate that. Uh, is there a hill that I will absolutely die on? And you just said, okay, that's Oscar.

SPEAKER_02 28:44

Easy. Smartsheet, obviously. I think like you're pool of choice. I think like I think the world can be completely managed using one application. I think I think I think in your mind, you're like, yeah, we can totally do everything like using if the if the government was run by smart sheet, we'd be in a much better place. I think from like I'm a little different where I'm like, okay, I could use this for this, I could use this for the like I take bits and pieces of things, and I'm like, okay, if you're trying to do this, it works way better using this. But I think for you, you're like, oh, we can do everything using this because you have such a deep understanding of all the capabilities and things that Smartsheet can do.

SPEAKER_01 29:17

That was a good that's that's a good one. Yeah, this is not a paid endorsement by Smartsheet by any means.

SPEAKER_02 29:22

I just would love to get endorsements.

SPEAKER_01 29:24

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Give me a call, guys. What is the most Oscar thing that I've done? Oscar thing.

SPEAKER_02 29:29

That's a difficult question. I can keep going back to Smartsheet, but I I think if we pulled up the the tech stack that we have, I think we have you're you're very organized in that sense. And I think in never in a million years would I have thought to like build a um a whole sheet of like these are all the applications that we use, this is what we use it for. Here are the links, here are the paths. Like, I think you're incredibly organized in like how we separate things, and um, you can see that in our Google Drive. Like, everything is very specific. I think if you looked at my folder, it's just like one folder with my name on it. I just dump all stuff in there, but I know exactly where things are. Yeah, I think you're a little different where like you kind of you're you're organized in that way, like it's like organized chaos, I guess, is like the only thing that I can say.

SPEAKER_01 30:13

I appreciate that so much. Like it gives me it gives me a lot of pleasure to actively know where things are, and I think that's something that we try to, at least when I'm talking with my clients, I try to continue to go back with like the you have to sort of groom and curate the spaces that you have because one of the easiest wastes to remove is wasted time. Waste of time looking for things, wasted time in recreating things because you couldn't find them in the right place.

SPEAKER_03 30:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:45

Um the hard part is that not everybody thinks of labels the same way you do in any setting, not just me, you, and everybody else. So I think that can always be tricky, but uh but yeah, I think when we started this business, I had this idea of making sure that everything was transferable. I didn't know when new people were gonna come in, I didn't know when assistants were gonna come in, but I wanted to have things set up where when somebody comes in, okay, here's this first level, here's this second level, now here's the documents. Very it's it's definitely something that I've I get so much pleasure out of things being organized in certain ways. Interesting take there. So now we're up to the speed round, yeah. Early meetings or late nights, early meetings, slides or spreadsheets or something else.

SPEAKER_02 31:42

I actually prefer meetings, like I prefer like meetings like this. Live I prefer not having any slides. If if I could I if I could have meetings with no documents and no slides, that'd be great. But the problem is I think um, depending on the the the meeting itself, like whatever you're trying to do, it obviously it helps have graphics if we're trying to you know convey information. But for the most part, a lot of the issues that we have at work have nothing to do with those things, it's more of like this person is clearly not communicating well to another person, and it's just kind of resolving that you know miscommunication and alignment between the two. Coffee or tea? Oh, this is coffee. That's that's an easy one.

SPEAKER_01 32:19

How many coffees do you do typically in a day?

SPEAKER_02 32:21

Just two, just two, just two, yeah. Are they planned? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um probably like an hour after I wake up, and then our like probably lunchtime, I think, is like the next one around that time, and then if I'm really feeling it, then probably like 3 p.m.

SPEAKER_01 32:38

Here's a heck. I recently heard if you drink a cup of coffee before you take a power nap, when you wake up

Tools, Coffee, And Product Pride

SPEAKER_01 32:47

from that 15-20 minute nap, the caffeine hits you at the same time, and you end up getting this like sustained boost of energy because you had the coffee before you took a nap.

SPEAKER_02 32:57

I can't take naps. This is if I take a nap, I'm out. Like that's uh yeah, I can't do that.

SPEAKER_01 33:03

That's too funny. So, what's the proudest thing you can think of about this six-year?

SPEAKER_02 33:09

Um, I think biggest like proudest moment, I think, of the the company itself. Um that's a good one. I think when we we actually built a product, we had always, again, from the very beginning, it was it was very like service-based and standard consulting. Standard consulting, right? And I don't think we ever thought about creating a product um as an option. And then we kind of went through this conversation of like, you know, this idea of of having these like drops and the highs and lows of invoicing and billing, and there's just a lot of um uncertainty around that. And so the idea was having a product where you could have you know this passive income essentially that would come from having these things available for people to purchase if they wanted to. Um, and I think that kind of changed our mindset from um being a developing a service to product management, which is a completely different skill set that you need, right? Because there's a lot of things that you need to take care of as far as like, okay, what tools are we using? How are we gonna troubleshoot this thing? What's the support around it? Like, what are um the what's the workflow? Like there's their entry, their entry, yeah, what they're seeing, and then having consistency for every single you know product that you deliver.

SPEAKER_00 34:31

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 34:32

Yeah, absolutely. What what are you most excited about next? And what's what's the first thing that you're going to sort of bring in with the free time that you have?

SPEAKER_02 34:44

First thing I'm doing is a moving. Um, and I think just being because I've lived in Massachusetts since 2008. So it's it's gonna be how old were you when you moved to Boston? I was 17. Wow. Yeah, yeah. 17, yeah. So that's a stretch.

SPEAKER_01 35:00

That's a good move.

SPEAKER_02 35:01

More than half my life in this state, and now I'm not moving home significantly closer to home, which is New York's. Um, I think it'll be I think this just that chap, like this chapter of my life coming to a close and then opening up a new one. Uh my parents are aging, right? Thinking about being there for my sister. I'm excited to be in a new place, but also kind of be around them because I haven't been around them in a long time.

SPEAKER_01 35:25

It can so uh this podcast we came up with a few years ago. And I would I would push it to say that this idea came from you, from how much you were gaining from listening to other experts in the industry and podcasts. And um that was such an easy sell to me that let's start a podcast, let's put things out there and continue to have these conversations that are not being spoken about, even

Moving Home And What’s Next

SPEAKER_01 35:55

in the workplace, these other issues that are underlying the symptoms that we're facing. Uh so you know, I think that we've been able to really provide a view and a and a soundboard for people that probably feel like alone. Um what's one thing that you hope to feel if we have lean by design in five years and you're catching an episode? How do you hope to feel about it?

SPEAKER_02 36:19

Yeah, I I think the the conversations around these areas that you talked about, right? So stuff that is clearly isn't working out at where you work, but for some reason we don't really address them or talk about them in some way. Um, I think that's really important to continue kind of like diving into specifics around obviously the like biotech and just biopharma industry. Um, because there's a lot of nuance specifically with this industry versus the other ones. And I think at the same time, like maybe having more um being able to have other people that also experience this kind of speak on this, right? Because there's I think still to this day, people are obviously hesitant about talking about these things because they like, oh, you don't want it to come back on them. And there's sort of this um wall that people have. I think people outside the industry are much more willing to talk about these things, be very open with them. Yeah, yeah. So um I think maybe one of the um possibilities is is having people that are also uh vendors or suppliers that help the industry, right, to talk about this. Because I mean, it would be awesome if you could talk to somebody at Smartsheet and then ask them, like, okay, like how do you see the industry using this, you know, your application and your tool for you know the work that they do and how they manage uh projects at their company. Um and I think also just also having some of uh more of yourself in it, right? Like I think being able to communicate freely. I know people listening to the first episode versus this one now, like where art the tone and everything is completely different because we've definitely changed over the years. If we're not cringing at the the the thought of listening to the early episodes, I think that we haven't grown, right?

SPEAKER_01 38:04

I I love that perspective, and it's something that we fail to acknowledge at times. And if you're not looking back at those moments and evolving from them, you're not growing. And and that's ultimately what we try to do is grow as humans, grow as partners, grow as business owners, um, to make sure that we're delivering the right version of us in our vision to the masses. So um, Lawrence, is there anything else you want to leave us with?

SPEAKER_02 38:36

Um, I I think maybe just a question for for you like, what are you most excited about with doing not only you know stuff with the podcast, but also with the business? Like, what are your um hopes and like what are you looking forward to for not just this year but beyond?

SPEAKER_01 38:54

I think I'm looking forward to connecting with people more. I think in these last couple years since we were in grad school, and uh my oldest is five years old. So there has been this I need to stay home and be more of the parent and not taking all these conferences, not taking all these opportunities to go talk to people. And I sort of left that for you in a sense, and I'm recognizing that there is a role for me out there, and so I think in practicing and and planning my upcoming um, you know, events and and networking, it's I feel very positive about the conversations that I'm expecting to have and start to develop other kinds of partnerships that I didn't really see before. And a lot of different businesses have come forth uh curious about

Future Plans And Closing CTAs

SPEAKER_01 39:47

doing partnerships and finding out what that means and finding out how to structure those things. I mean, these are all more growth initiatives for Sigma Lab Consulting. What we are gonna see is some differences in the podcast. In the more immediate, we will do more solo episodes. They might be a little bit shorter, um, but we're gonna stay within that same stream. What's really most exciting um is that I don't know what's gonna happen. And it could really be anything. I mean, it could be beautiful. Who knows? We could, you know, we could sell our assets with our product or or something. I don't know. Um, we could grow to, you know, 40-50 people. I don't know. But I have folks like you that have helped challenge my thinking and and make sure that I'm considering different perspectives and not just getting a really firm idea and sticking with it and just running. Above all, I'm gonna enjoy my kids growing up. I think we have a fantastic opportunity to continue to push Sigma Lab Consulting into new spaces. So we're gonna explore things like that. Even outside of biopharma, we know that folks are having these challenges. They're struggling when a major change happens at their organization and it's just rocky, and they can't figure out well. I think this is a new chapter for the both of us. But like now we're actually recording from my office, and this is a dream space that I would never have expected. So I and a lot of this I have to give thanks to you for the partnership, for the camaraderie. I'm gonna miss our strategy uh weekends where we got to really bond and just hammer every conceivable direction and come out with something really beautiful, really refined our thinking and and and really gave us an opportunity to continue to grow the organization. When you're trying to differentiate from big players like McKinsey and and EY and PWC, these other large consulting firms, it can be very challenging. And I think that we set ourselves up really well to be those differentiators. So thank you for helping develop this beautiful organization. And without your your additional support and suggestion, predictably broken may have never been written.

SPEAKER_02 42:18

Yeah, no, I appreciate that. And it's been uh been fun. I think uh I think there's gonna be a lot of good that's gonna happen in the next couple of months and years that are ahead, and I think we're both growing as as a result of this too. It's it's not gonna be easy, and but it's I think that's the choice that we make, right? Like there's we're not um I think at this stage in our life and career, whatever it is, um, things you you get to pick your own problems, I think. Yeah, yeah. Like where we're you know, you decide where you want to take the business, and then I'm gonna figure out what my life is going to look like being close to home and like you know, setting boundaries.

SPEAKER_01 43:00

Like there's a lot of things that Lawrence, thank you for coming by and spending time with us today. All of our listeners, thank you for listening three seasons so far. Um, we are gonna have a brief break before coming back uh at the end of September to round out season three and those last few episodes. We're gonna dig into uh predictably broken, which is on virtual bookshelves, it is on uh Bards and Noble, Amazon, and a number of indie bookstores. Uh I'm really have a conversation with you directly on the issues and the challenges you see. And let's cut through it, call it for what it is, and fix it to make our operations better day in and day out. And if you're ready to have that conversation, we also have our operational risk assessments that are completely open, available, take a look at it. You can go to our website, Sigma Lab Consulting.com slash assessments, to take a look. And if you're ready to take that next step, you can also go to Sigma Lab Consulting.com slash check to have a risk check done, and we can have a conversation. No strings attached, no contract. We just have a conversation on the challenges that you're facing and see what might be the right course of action from you from the perspective we've built together over these last number of years. So thank you all so much. Don't forget to follow us on LinkedIn, follow us on Instagram and Lawrence. Yeah, LinkedIn. Find Lawrence on LinkedIn, connect with him, don't let him get too far. Thank you guys for joining us. Thanks, Lawrence.