Thoughts & notes from an event last night @ Imperial College geared towards pharmaceuticals, "Attracting the technology buyer"

• Facebook & Google are behaving like large pharmaceutical companies e.g GlaxoSmithKline. They have the funds, customer base and manpower to distribute products worldwide - but they are outsourcing innovation in much the same way as drug companies buy up experimental bio-med companies.

• Examples: Google recently acquiring Plink, Picnik, Aardvark etc

• If they are doing to the web what drug companies have done to the pharmaceutical industry, how can startups behave like experimental drug companies?

- be bold, try stuff
- protect IP (absolutely essential in drug industry)
- look to solve commercial problem for Google/Facebook (thought: should these guys be more open about the innovations they are looking to source?)
- Build your innovation in the context of its potential acquirer's brand/s
- Understand resource constraints of large corps - whether it's time, funds, scope etc
- 'Serendipity is when you find things you weren't looking for because finding what you are looking for is so damn difficult.' —Erin McKean ... Fit this in to the context of a large corp looking for innovative companies to buy
- 'Speak the language' of who you are selling to (whether selling your product, company)