Our first interview will be with Greg Cruikshank, Chief Executive Officer and President of LabRoots (http://www.labroots.com/). Greg has a B.S. Degree in Biological Sciences from California State University Fullerton. He brings 10 years of Life Science & Biotech Sales & Marketing experience from companies such as Beckman Coulter, GSK, and Scientist Solutions. He worked for over 5 years selling capital equipment for Beckman Coulter and was awarded “Salesman of the Year” 4 years in a row. Greg then transitioned over to the pharmaceutical sector selling for GlaxoSmithKline for a short period of time before moving to the Internet. For the last 3 years Greg worked for the start-up internet company, Scientist Solutions. Greg was brought on board to generate ad revenue, increase sales, and manage all marketing activities.
What is LabRoots? LabRoots (http://www.labroots.com/) is a free, social networking (web 2.0) site that enables scientists, engineers and other technical professionals to connect, collaborate with, and learn from each other. LabRoots facilitates scientific communication, incorporates advanced data mining techniques to improve targeted communication between scientists, focuses on scientists from all disciplines, and reaches a global audience.
Can you explain the difference between LabRoots and other social networking sites out there? LabRoots, like most other social networking websites, has all the general networking tools such as connections, groups, profiling, and Q&A – but what we’ve done is we’ve built science related applications to compliment them. We have Live News Feeds from science sources; a Publications feature with thousands of publication from reputable sources such as PubMed, IEEE, NASA, and the Gartner Group (we have the API of these sources); an Events feature with hundreds of science events; a Blogging feature; a Jobs feature; a Reviews feature giving our users a portal to articulate their opinions of product, services, schools, books, companies, papers, and more; the ability for our users to Comment/Vote/and Share on any content from the site. Our site has a data mining technology so every profile on the site is mined to bring relevant information to each user. This is great for both our users and advertisers.
How important to the company is your scientific advisory board? Very important. Our Board has helped guide us through difficult decisions and given us insight on many levels.
How are you funding LabRoots? Private investors and revenue from the site.
What issues have you run into that you were not prepared for? Financing is really the most important ingredient to starting a new company. Without funding any company will go under. I would say the biggest issue we have run in to is the failing economy. Who could have predicted this would happen? I don’t think we could have picked a worse time to start our new company, but we did and we will persevere. In addition to the funding issue, finding the right developer is very important. We’ve had our issues with developers, so it’s always good to have find developer(s) with strong background and experience, and people you can trust.
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