Startup Foundry - FAQ

Any Harvard faculty member in any department or school at the university doing social science research (by which we mean research where the person, group, firm, country, etc., is the unit of analysis). Others associated with faculty can apply if they can recruit a faculty member to be a central member of the team.

"Faculty" means any ladder faculty doing social science research at Harvard, at any school, who serve as the intellectual cornerstone of a startup project. These scholars bring groundbreaking research and domain expertise while maintaining their Harvard position. Academic Founders vary in their level of engagement in the startup, depending on their preference. For example, faculty who want deep engagement throughout the venture development process would meet regularly with the team working on the business and advisors, and may continue as advisors post-launch, retaining equity ownership with appropriate university conflict-of-interest disclosures. In rare cases, the academic founder may choose to leave their Harvard position to take an operating role in the new company, but usually they keep their job and continue to advise or participate as a member of the board. Faculty participating in the Foundry program find that they can also extend their research impact in and beyond academia while preserving their position at Harvard, which is incentive compatible with their academic career.

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.

• 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.

Yes, we encourage you to use as many Harvard resources as you need or want.

We don’t offer direct funding, but we can help you find it.

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.

Of course, IQSS has a long history of incubating these and other organizations.

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.

Please email Debi Kleiman.

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.

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.

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.

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.

• Is this allowed?”
• “Will this put me in conflict with my responsibilities at Harvard?” 
• “Am I going to accidentally violate a policy I didn’t know about?”

We work closely with Harvard’s existing offices and policies precisely so that you do not have to become an expert in them. From the beginning, we will help you:

• Clarify what you can and cannot do in your faculty role versus in a company role.
• Structure the relationship between Harvard, you, and the startup so that it is compliant and transparent.
• Navigate disclosure forms, management plans, and agreements in a way that keeps you well within the rules.

In practice, this kind of work is not only allowed; it is encouraged. Universities want their research to reach the world. Our job is to make sure that happens in ways that keep you out of trouble.
 

• “Will this hurt my standing as a scholar?”
• “Will colleagues see this as a distraction or as ‘selling out’?”
• “What if the startup fails in a public way?”

We design projects so that they are additive to your scholarly profile, not in competition with it:

• The work typically builds on your existing research agenda and can open up new lines of inquiry, data, and collaborators
• Success, in academic terms, is increased impact: your ideas, methods, and findings influencing policy, practice, and public debate at scale.
• Even when a specific venture does not succeed as a business, the learning, data, and networks often feed back productively into your research and teaching.

Most faculty remain full-time in their roles. They do not take on the CEO title; they do not run the day-to-day company. The reputational risk is low; the potential reputational upside-from demonstrable real-world impact—is high.