Startup Foundry Project Journey
From “Is This for Me?” to “Ship Sails”
The Typical Project Journey
Faculty move through the Foundry at different speeds and often do not go through every stage. If this is your first time exploring commercialization possibilities, you might have a lot of questions that need to be addressed first.
Most of the faculty we work with follow some version of the following path:
You might be here if:
- You are curious but skeptical.
- You are unsure whether any of your work is commercializable.
- Your main questions are about fit, conflicts of interest, and career implications.
At this stage, we:
- Explain concretely what “commercialization” can mean in your case (and what it does not mean).
- Walk through example paths that similar faculty have taken.
- Identify parts of your work that might plausibly have external users, customers, or partners.
- Give you enough information to decide whether to move forward—or not.
Outcome: You come away with clarity. For many, that clarity is “not now.” For others, it is “this might be worth a small experiment.”
You might be here if:
- You suspect there is something in your research that others would pay for or adopt.
- You do not know what “the product” is, who the user is, or what problem you are really solving.
- You are interested partly because this could also inform what you work on next.
At this stage, we:
- Help you inventory your existing and planned research through a commercialization lens.
- Identify candidate ideas, tools, datasets, methods, or platforms that might have external demand.
- Conduct lightweight market and stakeholder exploration to see what resonates.
- Use what we learn to refine both the practical opportunity and, if you wish, your research questions.
Outcome: You get a sharper sense of whether there is a real opportunity, what it might look like, and whether it is worth treating as “one more project” in your portfolio.
Stage 2: Getting Ready – “I’m in. Now I need help.”
Once you decide that you want to create something beyond the paper, there are usually two needs.
Research Needs
You may realize that, to make the opportunity real, you need additional research:
- New data or experiments
- Further validation of a method or model
- Engineering support to turn a prototype into something demonstrable
Here, we:
- Help you scope what research work is needed to de-risk the opportunity.
- Connect you to the usual IQSS and Harvard mechanisms—grants, technical support, computing, quantitative consulting, etc.—to get that work done.
Industry Needs
In parallel, you may be ready on the research side but missing all the “business” components:
- Early customers or partners to talk to
- A simple prototype or demo others can use or react to
- A first-pass understanding of the addressable market
- A coherent narrative and pitch for internal and external audiences
Here, you need a business driver. At this stage we:
- Help identify and recruit that person (from your team or from our network).
- Work with them to run actual customer and stakeholder conversations, not just talk about them.
- Build first versions of the business model and value proposition.
- Assemble the materials needed to approach funders, customers, or institutional partners.
When the startup (or equivalent structure) is ready to emerge, we help you:
- Decide the right vehicle: a venture-backed startup, a customer-funded company, a public-benefit structure, a license to an existing firm, or a partnership with a public or nonprofit organization.
- Identify and approach the right early funders or first customers.
- Choose and form the appropriate legal entity (LLC, C‑corp, etc.).
- Navigate Harvard’s conflict-of-interest policies and technology transfer processes.
- Lead or support negotiations between Harvard and the new entity to align incentives and responsibilities.
- Line up essential services—legal, accounting, HR, data infrastructure, compute, and more.
Outcome: A deal is made. There is now an actual company or organizational vehicle, with defined relationships among Harvard, you, and the new entity.
Once the company is formed and the initial deal is in place, there is often a defined period—typically on the order of 12–18 months—during which the new entity can:
- Operate on Harvard property
- Make use of certain Harvard resources under agreed terms
- Continue to interact with your lab and research program in defined ways
During this period, we:
- Help ensure that everyone understands and abides by the boundaries set in the agreements.
- Support the gradual operational and organizational separation between the company and the university.
- Work with you and the business driver to prepare for life fully outside Harvard.
Outcome: The company grows while still benefiting from a structured, time-limited connection to your academic environment.
At some point, the clock runs out by design. The company:
- Moves fully off campus
- Operates on its own infrastructure, with its own staff and governance
- Interacts with you and Harvard at arm’s length, like any other external partner
Our job at this point is mostly complete. We remain available as a connector and resource, but the company is independent. You remain a faculty member, with whatever formal relationship to the company was established (e.g., advisor, board member, founder equity), and with a new channel for your work to reach the world.
Outcome: The ship sails. You stay with it as an advisor, keeping an ownership stake and continuing to provide your input, but on a part-time or consulting basis. You stay on the faculty.
