Startup Survival Skills: Resilience, Frugality & Real Talk in Biotech | Ivan Liachko (Part 2/4)

Intro - 00:00:06: Welcome to The Biotech Startups Podcast by Excedr. Join us as we speak with first-time founders, serial entrepreneurs, and experienced investors about the challenges and triumphs of running a biotech startup, from pre-seed to IPO, with your host, Jon Chee. In our last episode, Ivan Liachko shared his early experiences emigrating to the U.S., his unexpected path into research, and how navigating academia helped shape his resilience and scientific instincts. If you missed it, be sure to listen to part one. In part two, Ivan reflects on the emotional toll of startup leadership, why learning to manage people and egos is just as important as managing experiments, and how frugality and adaptability became superpowers as he transitioned into entrepreneurship. He also shares candid stories about grad school survival, the move to the Pacific Northwest, and the scrappy problem-solving that defined his early days at Phase Genomics. 

Ivan - 00:01:17: The underlying message is you have to deal with this kind of conflict stuff all the time. And it wears on you mentally. You learn over time the tricks and tips and what happens when an essential person to the company suddenly quits, right? Like the first time that happened to me, I thought all was over. And now, you know, you go through a couple of cycles like that. You kind of get used to it. You're like, okay, it happens. People get jobs, whatever. You know, but that takes time. But you're dealing with these kind of fires all the time. And so you just have to you get used to them and you learn how to thrive through them. You learn how to turn some of them into successes, you know. So it adds to your mental kind of like tapestry of like what you know how to do, right? Like going back to this thing about how, you know, in academia, you think you only know how to solve these kind of problems. So when you just start doing stuff like this, you just learn so much about human interaction. And it's just like, day-to-day skills, skills they don't teach you anywhere. You learn them by doing. You learn them by experiencing and kind of like, this is what happened. This is how we reacted. This is the outcome. And you pick up that super useful experience, you know. I think a lot of it academics actually already have, you know, and they like, they just don't appreciate that they have it.  

Jon - 00:02:39: Spot on. So my kind of like non-bio business like interests are like in food and hospitality. And a lot of my friends growing up are in food and hospitality. And to touch on the kind of the surprise and delight element is kind of like when a restaurant kind of F's up the dish and then they just bring out all the goodies. You know, we talk about like, it doesn't have to be in biotech. It's like, just think about a restaurant experience. You're like, oh, this came out, whatever, lukewarm, whatever it probably may be. And then boom, they just bring up like dish on the house, dish on the house, dish on the house. You come back out like, I fucking love that restaurant. And it all stemmed from my steak was well done. I asked for medium rare and they came out and it blew my mind.  

Ivan - 00:03:25: Right, right, exactly. Because in essence, all commerce is about human emotions, right? It's rare that we're buying things that we truly, truly need. Most of the time, we're just getting stuff that we want. We have some problems we want to solve. But so much of it is about emotion and relationship. And so you try to make people happy in different ways. You're going to that restaurant versus this other restaurant, not because the food is necessarily sick. You're going there based on some qualitative emotions and opinions. So learning how to make people happy, how to observe them, it's really what it is. You know, one of the things that's different between academia and industry is that in academia, you're kind of like, you're more focused on yourself and your own stuff, right? Like you're saying, okay, I invented this technology and I'm showing you some data and I'm going to publish it and then the reviewers on your publication will like comment and be like, we don't like this, this sucks, whatever. And you're like, well, you know, F you reviewer number one. Review number two, review number three, you're cool. But you're basically saying like, no, no, my stuff's great. You're the ones who are wrong, right?  

Jon - 00:04:39: Yeah, yeah, yeah.  

Ivan - 00:04:40: Here's why, type, type, type.  

Jon - 00:04:41: Yeah.  

Ivan - 00:04:42: But when you're in business the other way around, you have to be like, my opinion means nothing. You have to be like, not nothing, but you have to be super responsive to what people want. You're making something for them. And if they don't like it, it doesn't matter how right you are. Every time you win an argument, you lose the sale.  

Jon - 00:05:02: That is so spot on. I'm just like, because sometimes, having gone through this gauntlet, I think a younger me was like, but I'm fucking right. I know I'm right. But exactly what you said, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because they always remember what they feel. And honestly, most of the decision making is just based on vibes. Like that's that is what I was like early days, hyper quantitative about it, hyper focused on being right. Thought all of this was just rational decision making. And then the longer you do it, you just realize obviously, you can't be completely on Mars. And like, you know, like, for example, your science has to be legit. Like you can't just be like snake oiling and selling snake oil off vibes. But perhaps you can. But that's a whole other thing. But it's just like- Some people do. Some people do. Some people do. But, you know, for the vast majority, it's like you realize that everyone is just like making decisions off vibes and how they feel. So it's like you got to swallow your pride and just take it and just like and just walk away from it. But like make sure that they feel good and remember.  

Ivan - 00:06:14: A real pro tip is that you do enough of that and you start loving it because you see the value of it. Every time you think you're right and somebody puts you in your place and you learn from it, eventually you're like that guy gave me the greatest gift. Right. You're like, man, he told me I was wrong and it really sucked. But then I like got over it and I learned that like actually he was right and I was wrong. And you learn to like love it.  

Jon - 00:06:41: Yeah. And that's the thing, too. Like, I think it is exactly it. It's like as you get more reps, you start to like more and more embrace it. And I think when you do, you start to see outsized impact for your organization or business. And something, too, that stood out to me is like, you know, we're talking about folks who go to grad school and are working in the lab. But like I'll even say, oh, there are plenty of folks who come from non-scientific backgrounds that thrive in science. And, you know, I'll just give you an example of our teammates comes from the food industry and like has been cooking and fine dining like since high school. Like, and the level of like attention to detail and organ is like there's like basically mise on place like, just taking place in our company.  

Ivan - 00:07:27: Everywhere.  

Jon - 00:07:28: Everywhere. Everywhere. And this is kind of the thing where it's just like. Don't feel like you're tracked because again, all of these skillsets, I think you talked about like the tapestry of life and just like checking out, like all people doing you, whether you're an influencer or if you're, you know, a YouTuber or whatever it may be, you're in food, you're in music, all of these skills can be applied to the sciences. So you don't have to have a PhD to be in the sciences. Like there are plenty of roles and important roles to fill that can benefit from a diverse set of interest experiences and learn lessons. But to go back to you're in the lab, you're at Brandeis. Can you talk a little bit about your undergraduate lab experience and what Brandeis was like for you? Was it kind of a moment where you really got to start to embrace your like your keen interest in, you know, obviously lab work. Talk a little bit about that experience.  

Ivan - 00:08:24: Yeah, totally. So Brandeis was super great. It's a pretty small school with, you know, like a high kind of focus on academics and a really good research program. My girlfriend at the time, who is currently my wife, she had some research position in the lab. And I literally just started stalking over there until they let me work there. And then I just like charmed everybody into like, give me a summer job. I was also on my own like financially. So I was like, it was rough times. But like, I drove the shuttle van, like student shuttle van. That was my like occupation. And then I worked in the lab. So, like, yes. So, I'd be driving this van, you know, like, at 2 in the morning, you know, like, picking up all the, like, drunks from the frat.  

Jon - 00:09:12: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.  

Ivan - 00:09:13: And people would be like, oh, man, I remember you. You were like my TA or whatever in some class. And I was like, that's right. I work in science. He's like, that's just my job. This van, that's my art.  

Jon - 00:09:23: Yeah, yeah, yeah.  

Ivan - 00:09:25: But so I did that for some amount of money. And then for whatever it was, six bucks an hour or something. And then I just worked in a lab doing undergrad research in the lab of Ranjan Sen, who worked on immunology. And we worked on this thing called V(D)J recombination, which is where, which is how antibodies become so diverse, like how your body can make crazy, infinite numbers of antibodies, because you have these DNA pieces that can recombine and swap around to make. You know, massive, massive combinations of different binding sites. And that's how you get the immune response to new threats. So anyway, so it was super cool research. I started doing, you know, everything from, like, for those of you who are lab people, like pouring our own northern blots, which nobody cares anymore, acrylamide everywhere, like old school radiation blots, like all that kind of stuff. And so, but yeah, but it was, again, it was a lot of it. It was just like, you show up in the lab. You're like, listen, I really wanted to science. I'm good at it. Can I just do this? And they would let me. And then summer comes. I'm like, dude, I have no money. Like, yes. I need to get paid. Can you pay me a little bit to keep – I just want to work in a lab and survive? And I always dreamed – like grad school, a lot of people, when they think about grad school, they're like, man, you're making no money. You're spending all this time working, whatever. But to me, it was like paradise because I would be like, I can just do the thing I want to do and make enough money to survive. It's like, yes, when I started grad school, we were getting paid $17,000 a year. Like that was my stipend. But a year before that, I was talking to my counselor and I was like, I don't know how I'm going to afford to go to grad school. I'm going to have to take out loans and stuff like that. And she was like, you know, a lot of people don't realize this, but in life sciences, like you get paid to go to grad school. Like they pay you a stipend. And I was like, what?  

Jon - 00:11:29: Yeah, yeah, yeah.  

Ivan - 00:11:29: Are you kidding me? She's like, it's gonna be like nothing, it's gonna be like, 15 grand a year. And I'm like i make six dollars an hour driving a van at two in the morning, like 17 grand a year?  

Jon - 00:11:43: Yeah. This is amazing.  

Ivan - 00:11:45: This is amazing. So basically, that was that. And so you know, we were just like scraping by there's a lot of like survival, you know.  

Jon - 00:11:52: For sure.  

Ivan - 00:11:52: The immigrant stuff. You're like, you don't appreciate how little people have, you know, um, they're not just like poor. My girlfriend worked in a restaurant, I was living in this place like this dorm basically in the summer, that had no kitchen. So there was no way to make food, you basically could boil water for ramen, and like microwave stuff nothing else.  

Jon - 00:12:11: Yeah, yeah, just like a hot place.  

Ivan - 00:12:12: You're working in restaurant, I'm like, can you like bring me food people send back? Like it was that, she would buy me like employee meals, she would buy me-  

Jon - 00:12:20: Yeah, yeah yeah.  

Ivan - 00:12:22: And stuff-  

Jon - 00:12:23: I know exactly it.  

Ivan - 00:12:24: But I'm like, you know, I know somebody like threw out some like lobster ravioli. Like, can you just like bring me it? Like, yeah, I'll eat whatever. And she was like, no, that's gross. It's nice to have. That's why we have partners.  

Jon - 00:12:39: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was going to say it's so funny.  

Ivan - 00:12:42: But it was like survival mode. And so then when I find out, you're going to make like 17, 20 grand a year in grad school. And I'm like, and all I get to do is work in a lab. And like, that's it? That was like, I'm like, what's the catch?  

Jon - 00:12:53: Yeah, yeah, yeah.  

Ivan - 00:12:54: We're like, yeah, you get to work 70 hours a week in a lab and make minimum wage. And I'm like, that's too good to be true.  

Jon - 00:13:00: Hell yeah. And I get a degree out of this?  

Ivan - 00:13:03: Yeah, I'm like, what are they getting out of this?  

Jon - 00:13:05: Yeah.  

Ivan - 00:13:06: Yeah, and so that was me. I was just like lab monkeying as much as I could.  

Jon - 00:13:11: I love that, by the way, because I think there's another element of this that ties at least where my head is going for entrepreneurship is that I think when you have this level. So I come from an immigrant family, too. So I have like similar experiences. And there's kind of like an element of like if you know what the minimum you need to survive is, everything feels like gravy like after that. That is a crazy level of like, I think I look back on it of like perspective that because like when you think about things are like how you're running your startup, things are getting tough and you're like, oh. I've seen worse. Like, I've seen worse and I was fine. And like, I think too, I think about the really frugal days where supportive partners help a lot. But it's like, you know, you're scraping to get by. But I wasn't like unhappy. It was a lot of fun. Like, and you survive and you get through it. And you're like, exactly kind of like when you're thinking about grad school, like, they're paying me more. And I get to do research, and I get a degree. It's kind of, again, it's kind of like expectations. Right. It's just like, if you know what that is, like kind of that kind of the minimum that you need to get by, then you kind of just go from there.  

Ivan - 00:14:29: We were starting a company and we're doing budgets and stuff like that. So, you know, I co-founded Phase with a friend of mine, Shawn Sullivan, who was amazing software developer from Microsoft, but he basically had to leave Microsoft to do it. And I had to leave my post doc job. And so he took some absurd pay cut and I was like, this is more money than I've ever made-

Jon - 00:14:50: Ever seen. Yeah.  

Ivan - 00:14:52: And we would sit there and I would do these budgets, like, you know, talking to like early investors and funders and stuff or putting budgets together. I'm like, I'm like, look, I have kids. You know, my wife is also a postdoc. Like I don't have like a lawyer or software developer, a significant other. So my entire salary is basically going to childcare, right? Cause like infant care is like half of a normal person's salary. And I was like, if I can just, if I can make like 50 grand or more, I think like I can, I can keep it up. And they're all looking at me like, the hell did you just like, you know, these are all like everybody. They're like, yes, our CEO. Like the numbers were so small compared to what they were, what people, like the norm, because you're kind of academia and you're used to being like, if you just feed me, I'll work, right? And then these business people in suits, they're like, oh, okay, 50, that's what you need? I know. They're like... Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes they're like, you're too hungry, dude.  

Jon - 00:15:58: Yeah, maybe too efficient. Like, are you going to be able to survive?  

Ivan - 00:16:04: Like, I don't want you to, like, die halfway through this.  

Jon - 00:16:06: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think about that experience because it gets woven into your DNA and the org's DNA, too. Because, right, like, I think there's, like, the flip of it where you never learn that. And then everything, you try to just throw 1,000K or 100K at every problem.  

Ivan - 00:16:21: Yeah.  

Jon - 00:16:22: Without actually questioning, like, what is it that we actually need? Like, and I'm not saying that you shouldn't, like, I'm not anti-investing capital behind important things. But it's kind of like- 

Ivan - 00:16:32: Yeah, sometimes people, they try to use money to solve problems. And it usually, like, if you don't understand the problem, is it going to make it worse or you're going to just lose the money?  

Jon - 00:16:42: Yeah, that's something that I think, I don't know, maybe I'm too opinionated on this point. And I'm probably biased because I have similar experiences with this frugality. But I think it's great to be sitting on a boatload of cash. I get it. But, like... Money can also compound problems as much as it can accelerate success.  

Ivan - 00:17:03: Yeah. It's also where it comes from, right? Like money is rarely given freely. So you might be sitting on a boatload of cash, but what's attached to that cash, right? So yeah, like it's better to have a boatload of cash than no boatload of cash. But there's also this curse of easy money, you know, it's why it's why people like, you know, people get in debt, like, because it feels so easy to spend that. But then you just keep borrowing more and more and more because you don't feel the emotional ping. You know, I'll give you an example here. We need an autoclave. You know, my people are like, we got to buy an autoclave. We're starting to do stuff that requires it. For many years, we didn't need one. And I'm like, cool. Well, you know, there's this paper that says that the Instant Pot Makes a perfectly good autoclave. And they were like, what the hell are you talking about? I'm like, we're going to buy an Instant Pot. And that's gonna be our autoclave for the time being. And if we need a bigger autoclave, we'll buy a bigger autoclave. That's how we do everything. And it's like a joke. It's like an internal joke here. I'm like, we're a company, make millions of dollars.  

Jon - 00:18:03: Yeah.  

Ivan - 00:18:04: We're buying an Instant Pot. And they're like, no, we got to buy this special thing. I'm like, we're going to buy the Instant Pot. And when we need the big thing, we'll buy the big thing. And guess what? It's been a long time. We're still using Instant Pot because it turned out that the Instant Pot is just fine. You've got to boil a few bottles here and there.  

Jon - 00:18:19: Like, that's amazing.  

Ivan - 00:18:20: And it's just stuff like that. Like, people want to sometimes, sometimes it's an act of surrendering sovereignty to somebody else. To be like, okay, we have a problem. And I think it does go back to who solves the problems. We have a problem. If I just say, we need to buy a thing, it's no longer my problem. It's no longer my fault. Because then somebody else can say, we can't afford it or we buy it. And then if you buy it and the thing doesn't work, whatever. Like, it's somebody, it's not my fault, right?  

Jon - 00:18:49: Yep.  

Ivan - 00:18:49: But you, as the leader, have to be like, no, no, we're actually going to solve the problem. And so, like, the Instant Pot example is like, it's a funny one, but it's very, I think it's very true. Because people immediately just want to buy a thing. And part of why they do it is because they don't want to, like, they just don't want to, like, deal with the problem sometimes. And you have to be like, no, no, no. We're going to sit here and we're going to have an uncomfortable conversation where I go, tell me why an Instant Pot is not enough.  

Jon - 00:19:16: Yeah, that's amazing. And I think that too, because like this gets to like culture, right? Where it's like that can creep unless you set that kind of like... Culture up front and have your whole team understand this is how we approach problem solving. Let's say you didn't do that. And, you know, being in San Francisco, you just see boatloads of cash just like getting dumped into like AI companies. And look, I'm not an AI expert, so I'm not going to pretend like I can opine on, you know, but it's just like, okay, it's kind of like, let's just start scaling and just throwing money at these kind of problems, like which we believe will solve it. And then it creates these inefficiencies. And then you have like this deep seek moment where everyone loses their shit. We're like-  

Ivan - 00:20:00: Oh, it makes sense for a certain context, because, you know, in that particular case, people know that's what it is, right? They're like the VCs who are funding this. They're like, look, we know that 90% of these things are going to flame out, but some of them won't. And so we're deliberately throwing tons of cash at it. Because we're trying to basically accelerate evolution. Some of them are gonna fail, some of them are gonna succeed, but the potential of success is so much higher than the cost of failure that it makes sense to optimize for speed. Let's just go crazy. And yeah, it creates insane inefficiencies. But that's like baked into their formula. When you don't have something like an AI where there is an incredible amount of hype and incredible amount of potential. Like if you're starting to run like a normal company, what's tempting to do is to see the news about the AI companies and think you're one of them and try to follow that path. That's what kills people. Like if you're going like, guys, we're going to do an AI company. If it works, it's going to make a trillion dollars. But there's like a 99% chance it's going to fail. Everybody understands what's going on and they just dump it in and we just build it, build it. Or some people who do these like kind of like pump and dump companies where they're like, we're going to inject a whole bunch of money, make it look bigger and then sell it to somebody. Like there are business models where that approach makes sense. But if you think I'm going to actually build a company, we're going to make product, we're going to sell it, we're going to grow, we're going to hire more people. But because the news is dominated by the big players, the big money things. You have a tendency to think that like that's the way you're supposed to do it. And so people who really aren't suited for that model try to get into that. And that's what kills them. Because then you have a boatload of money, but you're making your little products and they're growing at 20% a year. And the investors are like, this needs to be like 2,000% a year. What are you even doing? And you're like, guys, I'm growing my company 20% a year. It's good growth. And they're like, that's not what the game is. The game is instant explosion, right? And then that money becomes a curse. And you're like, no, I should have been efficient and slowly growing the whole time. I think it's mismatched. I think there are times when that approach actually works and is deliberate on its own purpose. But I think people just don't understand which game they're playing.  

Jon - 00:22:23: Spot on. Playing different games. I think, again, I got to paint this as these are John's opinions. I can be wrong. But to get back to the Michael Dell book that I was just wrapped up reading, when Dell was formed, it was the competitor was Compaq Computers. I don't know. Which was stupidly well-funded, stupidly well-funded. And when they were stupidly well-funded, they basically were throwing money at their supply chain. Like, and they were just had really, really inefficient supply chains because they're like, why not? We have the money to do this. So their cost structure just got bloated. And the reason why no one cares about Compaq anymore and Dell is like what Dell is, is because he did the frugal thing. And it was because of the constraint. He didn't have the money. Therefore, he built a better cost structure in the supply chain and then scaled it. Dell was basically bootstrapped, which is insane. So, I think-  

Ivan - 00:23:26: Insane, right? It's crazy.

Jon - 00:23:27: It's insane. And I'm like, and again, he's a super outlier. That company's a super outlier, had tailwinds. But all that to be said is like, I think knowing the game that you're playing, super important. And also being frugal does not mean slower growth. Like- can actually grow really quickly while being frugal because If you have more efficient structures, you can just redeploy cash at higher incremental value, like at a higher clip. Whereas the inefficient system, they're redeploying capital at like way, way less incremental return. So anyways, all that to be said is possible.  

Ivan - 00:24:09: There are also cases where people dump lots of money at their supply chains and win.  

Jon - 00:24:13: Yeah, totally.  

Ivan - 00:24:14: So there's examples of everything. That's kind of what I was saying. Like the world is bigger and it's kind of infinite. And just because a thing worked for Dell doesn't mean it's going to work for you. There are plenty of bootstrap companies that go on. Like it's not like there's a solution. You just have to like think about what it is you're doing and understand that it's a dynamic system. But I think the problem is like the news cycle.  

Jon - 00:24:36: It's prescriptive.  

Ivan - 00:24:37: Everyone into the same path.  

Jon - 00:24:40: Yeah.  

Ivan - 00:24:40: Even if it's not for them.  

Jon - 00:24:41: Exactly. It's super prescriptive, which is like what I'm, I guess hope anyone out there listening can take away from this is like. These are not like hard and fast rules. There almost are no rules. And being aware that there are no rules kind of is the liberating thing to it. That's the liberating thing. It's like, no, no, no, no. It is possible. You just got to, you know, free yourself of like these confines.  

Ivan - 00:25:08: One of the other things, I read this somewhere, but it rang so true to me, is that one of the difficult things about entrepreneurship is that you have to look into the face of experts who you respect, who are smarter than you, who have done this before, and say no. Because what's going to happen is you have a million people giving you advice, but they all disagree with each other. The advice is different from everyone. And you're the person who makes the final call, and you go like, this person here. Is super smart. They did this before. They have all this advice, but I'm just going to say, I'm not doing that. Sorry, dude. And it's like, you have to have this, a little bit of this mental chaos to say that. Like you have to be a little crazy to say no, but you have to do it. Like all these experts will tell you, do this, don't do that. A lot of them will just tell you not to do it at all. And you just have to be like, no, I'm going to be unreasonable. And I'm going to do the unreasonable thing just because I feel like that's what I should be doing. And then what happens when you fail and you're like, damn it, I should have listened to that guy. But does that mean you listen to him again? And the next, you know what I mean? Like you could keep doing that. Like there's all these stories of people who are just like failing and not listening and being disobedient and failing again and failing again. Everyone's like, dude, stop doing this. This is crazy. And you're like, no, good again. You fail one more time. And eventually they're like super successful. And everyone's like, oh, we knew they were going to be successful all the time.  

Jon - 00:26:32: Yeah.  

Ivan - 00:26:33: They didn't know. Yeah. So the no rules thing, I think, is more apropos than it sounds. There's legal rules.  

Jon - 00:26:42: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't break the law. I guess the rule is like, don't go to jail. Right.  

Ivan - 00:26:47: Don't defraud your customers.  

Jon - 00:26:49: Yeah, yeah. Don't go to jail. That's like probably the main rule.  

Ivan - 00:26:52: For those of you listening, just remember there are rules in the U.S. legal system.  

Jon - 00:26:57: Yes. Yeah, exactly. So you're now, you know, you're talking about having your kind of guidance counselor be like, hey, you can get paid for grad school. Like. Talk about how your selection of grad school and how that shook out.  

Ivan - 00:27:13: That one was a little bit more intelligent than my high school because I now had like some amount of like there were other people and there was guidance and all the other undergrads are like applying for stuff, right? You take your like GREs and all this kind of stuff. And so, you know, I applied to a bunch of good science schools. The one that I liked the most accepted me that I that accepted me. I went to and it was great. So Cornell, Cornell is where I went for grad school. Also, just like a great experience. I got accepted to a few places again. Like there's so many universities out there and like, which ones do I apply to? So you talk to your friends, you talk to people who know you get some advice from here and there, you know, you put together a packet, you send out, you know, a dozen applications or so, which if you're listening and you're thinking about applying to grad school, that should be your minimum number of applications because people will be like, I'm going to apply to two schools and one of them is going to take me. And you're like, no, there is a lottery thing. Happens, right? There's like what, 40,000 schools in the country. And that means there's 40,000 valedictorians and they're all going to be applying to like Harvard and Stanford and stuff. You know what I mean? Chances are against you. So just play the numbers, play the lottery. But there was nothing super controversial about how I did grad school applications. I applied to a bunch of places, got accepted to some, got rejected from many more. Cornell accepted me and I went there for a visit and I was like, this is amazing. This place is so good. It was just small town. This was up in upstate New York in Ithaca. Easy living, lots of hippies, very lovely kind of agrarian vibe. I called it the Shire. And, you know, real estate was cheap. If you get out of town, you can buy a house as a grad student and stuff like that. And then pay, you know, $300 a month for heating in the wintertime.

Jon - 00:29:08: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And did your wife also go to grad school at Cornell?  

Ivan - 00:29:15: Yeah, so she went with me. So she moved with me when I went to grad school and she got a technician job in a lab. The same department. And then after two years, she started out as a grad student too. So, so we were in this program, we were staggered by two years. So then I graduated and I stayed in the same lab for a couple of years as, you know, one of these fake postdocs where like, don't leave your lab. And then when she finished is when we moved to Seattle for our postdocs.  

Outro - 00:29:43: Thanks for listening to this episode of The Biotech Startups Podcast with Ivan Liachko. In part three, we explore Ivan's graduate research at Cornell, his move into high-throughput genomics at UW, and the discoveries that led to the founding of Phase Genomics. He talks about translating curiosity into commercial opportunity, the importance of scientific collaboration, and how a clever trick in 3D genome mapping became the foundation for an entirely new way to study microbes and viruses. If you're enjoying the series, follow the show, leave us a review, and share it with a friend. See you next time. The Biotech Startups Podcast is produced by Excedr. Don't want to miss an episode? Search for The Biotech Startups Podcast wherever you get your podcasts and click subscribe. Excedr provides research labs with equipment leases on founder-friendly terms to support paths to exceptional outcomes. To learn more, visit our website, www.excedr.com. On behalf of the team here at Excedr, thanks for listening. The Biotech Startups Podcast provides general insights into the life science sector through the experiences of its guests. The use of information on this podcast or materials linked from the podcast is at the user's own risk. The views expressed by the participants are their own and are not the views of Excedr or sponsors. No reference to any product, service or company in the podcast is an endorsement by Excedr or its guests.