Want to Lead a VC-backed Startup after Your PhD? Here are the DOs & DONTs
We sit down with Pahini Pandya to deconstruct the transition from PhD researcher to venture-backed founder. Discover her best practices for scaling a startup and raising millions in capital.
Pahini Pandya is a scientist-turned-entrepreneur who successfully bridged the “valley of death” between elite academic research and global venture-scale impact. After completing her PhD at King’s College London and a postdoc at Cambridge, where she specialised in the biophysical interactions of cancer and it’s environment, a personal health scare shifted her focus from decades-long research cycles to the urgent need for accessible, real-time diagnostics.
PAHINI’S BACKSTORY: WHY YOU SHOULD CONSIDER BECOMING A PHD TURNED FOUNDER
For Pahini, the catalyst was a moment of profound clinical irony. While finishing her PhD at King’s College London - training as both a biophysicist and a molecular biologist- Pahini faced her own cancer scare. For a month, she waited for results from the simplest lab tests, the same ones she performed daily in the lab. She realised that while she was using world-class science to understand tumors, that research might not reach a real patient for decades.
“I realised that patients and their families need accessible solutions today, not ten years down the line”
After a postdoc at Cambridge, she joined Entrepreneur First (EF), found a co-founder with complementary AI expertise, and began the process of raising millions from top-tier VCs and institutions.
Proving that the jump from the lab bench to the C-suite can provide an amazing moat if executed the right way. In this article Pahini describes a set of strategic steps that helped her with the transition and navigation of the business environment.
If you’re sitting in a lab right now wondering if your research could be a company, here are the battle-tested DOs and DON’Ts from someone who has actually done it.
1. (DO) Solve a Problem, Not just a Technology
In the lab, Pahini saw that patient tissues were a finite, precious resource. Simply said, you can’t just keep going back to a patient for more “samples” to run tests. While most scientists would try to find a better way to process tissue, Pahini decided to solve the scarcity problem by moving to In Silico (AI) solutions.
Key Takeaway: Don’t force your wet-lab skills into a startup, identify a technical constraint in the real world and build a technology to bypass it. Identify the pain point first, the technology is just the tool to fix it.
2. (DO) Run the “Mom Test”
Pahini didn’t wait for a prototype to talk to clinicians. She went to the Chair of cancer screening programs and asked about their “unsolvable” problems. She didn’t ask “Do you like my idea?”, instead, she asked about their technical constraints. When she hit on the pain of tissue scarcity, the clinician made a high-stakes offer: “If you can actually build this, I will give you the data you need to train it.”
Key Takeaway: True validation is when the customer risks their own resources (like proprietary data) to help you build. If a customer offers you their hardest-to-get resource, you have found a product-market fit.
3. (DO) Optimise for Speed
When Pahini joined Entrepreneur First, she didn't wait for "chemistry" or a serendipitous spark. Instead, she approached the search with the precision of a data scientist. She built a literal leaderboard of every technical founder in the cohort, ranked them by AI expertise, and stress-tested three different pairings in just a few weeks.
Key Takeaway: She chose her co-founder because they were the pair that could “unlock things very, very quickly.” If your partnership isn’t producing results in weeks, it won’t survive for years. In a startup, speed is absolutely crucial.
4. (DO) Leverage Your “Academic Shield”
Pahini discovered a powerful social hack: the so called "Researcher’s Privilege." While a CEO or Senior Clinician will reflexively delete a sales pitch, they almost always have time to give "expert advice" to a scientist. By approaching prospects not as a founder with a product, but as a researcher seeking insight, she bypassed the gatekeepers.
Key Takeaway: Use your academic status as a Trojan Horse to learn the market’s pain points. By the time they realise you are building a company, they are already emotionally invested in your solution.
1. (DON’T) Overvalue the “How” over the “Why”
In the lab, precision is the ultimate currency. You’re trained to qualify every statement, cite every source, and never (under any circumstances) oversimplify. When Pahini first stepped into the boardroom, she brought that academic rigour with her. She found herself diving into the biophysical interactions of the tumor microenvironment, mapping out the cellular “how” with meticulous detail.
The result? A room full of glazed eyes and missed opportunities.
Pahini had to face a painful truth: she was pitching a thesis, not a business. Investors didn’t need a biology lesson, they needed a vision of the future.
Key Takeaway: Never talk about the “how” first. Get them excited about the “what if” (how many lives saved, how much money recovered) then prove you have the technical sophistication to deliver it.
2. (DON’T) Underestimate the “People” Factor
Looking back, Pahini’s biggest realisation was that she should have invested in Relationship Capital much earlier. Whether it’s a senior clinician who opens a clinical door, a mentor who brings a strategic opportunity, or an investor you’ve nurtured long before the pitch these human connections are the invisible engine of a startup.
After all during her hardest moments (like fundraising or navigating team changes) it wasn’t the science that saved the company, it was the trust she had built with her board and her investors.
Key Takeaway: You can have the best data in the world, but if your investors don’t believe in you, the company will fold. Your relationship with your co-founder and your team will determine your success more than your p-value ever will.
3. (DON’T) Fear the Co-Founder Split
In 2022, Pahini hit one of the toughest moments any founder can face: she and her co-founder realised they just weren’t on the same page anymore. Their paths were moving in different directions, and the tension was real.
Most people would have had a complete emotional breakdown, but Pahini kept her head. She knew the person across from her was hurting, too, so she acknowledged those feelings but kept the actual conversation focused on the facts and what the board needed to see.
Because she didn’t let the drama take over, she kept hitting her business goals. The result? She actually landed a major investment as a solo founder, even while the market was crashing.
Key Takeaway: Because she managed the split professionally and kept hitting business milestones, she secured a major term sheet as a solo founder during a market downturn. A split is a transition, not an end.
4. (DON’T) Be “Too Academic” in Communication
Pahini realised she was “crap” at commercial communication. She was too technical, too precise, and too slow to get to the point. She didn’t try to “fix” herself alone, she brought in experts who were exceptionally good at “translating” deep science into strategic business language.
Key Takeaway: Academics love nuance; founders need clarity. If your solution is meant to be accessible, your explanation of it must be conceptually accessible too. Don’t be afraid to hire your own “translators.”
5. (DON’T) Wait for Perfection use the “Proxy” Strategy
Pahini knew Panakeia couldn’t wait a decade for full clinical trials just to prove their value to investors. They needed to show progress now.
Instead of waiting for the perfect final result, they built proxies: smaller, faster wins that showed the tech was working. They focused on securing patents, hitting early clinical proof points, and running pilot evaluations with real-world partners.
These weren’t “the end goal,” but they were the evidence investors needed to see that the company was moving in the right direction.
Key Takeaway: Learn to be comfortable with the unknown. In a lab, you don’t publish until the data is 100%; in a startup, if you wait for total certainty, you’ll run out of money before you ever launch.
📚 The Founder’s Library: Resources for Scientists
The specific programs that powered Pahini’s transition.
Programs & Incubators
Entrepreneur First (EF): The program where Pahini found her AI co-founder.
Silicon Roundabout Meetups: Our Deep Tech community hub where Pahini first connected with and secured critical funding for Panakeia from us.
Cambridge Ignite: Academic-focused entrepreneurial programs Pahini utilised during her time at Cambridge.
Nucleate: Organisation Pahini mentioned that now support scientist-founders in ways that didn’t exist when she started.
Innovation Forum: A global network she leveraged to bridge the gap between her research and the industry.
Early stage sounds exciting, but most people underestimate how much of the job is managing pressure from investors, team, and market all at once. If you’re not comfortable carrying that weight for longer than expected, the role will reshape you before the company does.