PhD is a passport to academic elite. But is this really true? Not really. To substantiate my claim, I will share with you the following figure from a publication

As you can see, in last 30 years, only 1/8th of the PhDs in science and engineering ended up in faculty positions. What happened to the remaining ~90% PhDs? Probably they took one of the career paths discussed in the PhD Career Guide



In this blog, I will focus on pursuing an entrepreneurial career after a PhD. I will build a case by highlighting a few similarities between PhD and new venture creation.





1. Commitment: It takes ~5 years to finish a PhD. In some cases, it could take even longer! It is a lonely road that is full of hard work and frustration interspersed with moments of joy when experiments are working (which is rare :-)). To be able to effectively handle the frustration, one has to be committed to get a PhD. For those who lack this commitment,

it is not uncommon to see them drop out of their PhD program.





Starting a company is also a road less traveled. With >90% failure rate of startups, one has to be fully committed to the company. Unlike a well-cushioned job in a big company, starting one's own company will be full of frustration. Many things could go wrong e.g. co-founder leaving, no seed capital that will require bootstrapping etc., all of which will test the entrepreneurs perseverance. Depending on the product of one's startup, it could take anywhere from 1 to 5 or even more years before their startup becomes profitable.





2. Research: The core of PhD is research. The following figure depicts the recursive loop of doctoral research:













Thus, we can see that the recursive hypothesis testing during PhD is very similar to the development of an MVP.





3. Handling Failure: During PhD, failure is an integral component of hypothesis testing. It is very rare that an experiment has worked in the first instance. But, based on each data point or more precisely building on failures, a PhD student keeps trying different hypotheses, various experimental conditions, discussing with mentors and fellow students and searching literature - one way or the other, the student makes the experiments work.



In startups, developing an MVP is fraught with failures. Until an MVP is ready, the founders have to keep trying. And, after customer validation, the MVP has to be improved further. Besides, there is >90% chance that the startup will fail. But, the entrepreneur keeps going - trying one hypothesis after another or in some cases starting one startup after another!



4. Pitching to investors: An integral component to PhD training is presenting at conferences, lab meetings and journal clubs. The presentations can range from discussing a journal paper over lunch or presenting a poster or giving longer presentations to a diverse audience. Besides, our friends and family are always curious to know why we are so busy!





Similarly, integral to entrepreneurship is pitching to the investors, who are not subject matter experts. Hence, jargon should be avoided and the business has to be explained in an interesting way. Alike PhD, when we venture into a startup, our friends and family are always curious about what is keeping us busy and where are all the savings gone! :-)





Thus, presenting our research as well as pitching to investors both require that the topic should be explained in a way to grab attention of the audience.



