Interview with another Scott Shane workshop graduate

Today’s interviewee currently works on determining the effects that ingesting pesticides has on bee memory.  I got baby honey bees to walk over my fingers and while he had the comb out I saw a bee emerge – just the front half – struggling out of its egg.  I saw a bee hatch.  I never thought I would ever get to say that.  I got to confirm all the factoids that I have ingested about bees.  I have luckily not been holding any wrong ideas but there were some things that I did not know.  Wasp and bee and bumble bee venom is all the same(ish).  The reason why monoculture is bad for bees is that pollen has very few calories and when there is a variety of flowers for the bees to feed on they get nectar too i.e. kilojoules.   A comb has honey bee eggs in the centre and around its perfect replicating hexagonal edges a wide band of honey; when the baby bees hatch they crawl outward and eat the honey.

Pier is in his first contract post doctorate and has no experience with commercialising.  He also did not have an idea that he wanted to commercialise when he attended the Scott Shane workshop.  His father ran his own business and Pier feels an affinity for working for himself.  He wants his ideas to come to fruition, to get out into the world.

Shane stressed the importance of building up contacts, saying that if you want to spin out a company in the future work on your contacts now.

Pier felt the lack of information about start-ups (the focus is on university spinouts in the course).  He now wants the same level of detail – but he wants it about starting up one’s own business.

He has hatched and he is crawling toward the edge of the comb and he hopes to find honey there.