Frequently Asked Questions
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- Initial Consultation: Share your research concept or innovation with our team; we’ll help you refine it.
- Business Driver Identification: We help find you the right business or operating partner (if needed). Sometimes, we begin with an internal RA or staff member to do preliminary research or an IQSS EIR (Entrepreneur in Residence) before moving to a more full-time professional once the venture has spun out.
- Deep Dive: You and your Business Driver explore the research's commercial potential. (This is how you might work with a grad student or postdoc: you provide wisdom, they do the homework, and you both learn from the experience.)
- Market Research: Your Business Driver investigates industry applications and brings findings to you.
- Customer Discovery: Together or led by your Business Driver, conversations with potential users refine the concept.
- Mentorship & Networking: Access to our network of industry experts and entrepreneurs.
- Go-to-Market Strategy: Development of a commercialization pathway, whether through venture funding, customer contracts, or direct market entry.
The director of the IQSS Startup Foundry is Debi Kleiman. The Foundry is part of the Institute for Quantitative Social Science directed by Gary King. IQSS has considerable experience over many years incubating academic projects into commercial startups, nonprofits, open source efforts, and centers at IQSS, elsewhere at Harvard, and across the world. Recently, we moved a nascent startup foundry at the Harvard Business School (part of their D^3 initiative, which was itself originally incubated at IQSS) here and combined it with our ongoing efforts into what is now the IQSS Startup Foundry.
We are specifically looking for innovative projects in the quantitative social sciences that solve important problems. Few areas of the economy do not involve people or groups, and so we do not limit industries that we attempt to influence.
No, we don’t charge for support and resources (we have amazing donors who fund this work) and do not take any equity. Any IP issues related to the company are subject to Harvard University's IP Policy. Consult with Harvard's Office of Technology Development if you have IP questions. We can help you navigate the sometimes complex Harvard ecosystem (and outside activities reporting) as you prepare to launch the new initiative.
You do not. While part of the IQSS Startup Foundry, you and the business driver will be doing a research project, using all of Harvard’s facilities. At some time after the business is launched (agreed upon between you and the University), the business will operate independently and off campus, but the faculty member will retain a role as advisor, board member, equity holder, or in another mutually agreeable and beneficial capacity.
Please email Debi Kleiman.
We focus on ventures at the earliest stages of development. The ideal project has validated academic research foundations but has not yet fully explored—or has only minimally investigated—the market viability and technical feasibility of commercialization. In the program, we concentrate on business model design and pilot programs, customer discovery and market validation, and Minimum Viable Product (MVP) development.
Of course, IQSS has a long history of incubating these and other organizations.
The Business Driver or EIR is someone who joins the project team in an operating capacity to transform the research into commercial ventures. This skilled professional—whether an external business expert or entrepreneurial postdoc/doctoral researcher—works directly with faculty to develop business models, refine research applications, conduct market validation, secure funding, and navigate IP considerations. The Business Driver may ultimately evolve into the operating leader of the venture as it progresses through development stages and transitions from Harvard's ecosystem into an independent company.
We don’t offer direct funding, but we can help you find it.
Yes, we encourage you to use as many Harvard resources as you need or want.
The program is not time-bound; it is based on milestones. Some go through the milestones faster than others, because of what they are building, where they started, or the nature of their research or the market. We find it often takes 6-18 months for the project to find a business model and market. Exit events (when you will become an alumnus of the program and perhaps co-founder, advisor, or C-suite member of the new company) include milestones such as acceptance into a nationally known accelerator program, raising a pre-seed or seed round of funding, obtaining a contract that funds the company beyond the university, or receiving revenue.