#022 Understanding my desire to be a biotech entrepreneur | Mauritz Venter

Mauritz Venter, guest · [01:02]I'm a, I'm a scientist, by training. I started studying human genetics pre-grad, and, I was always intrigued during those years when I studied, intrigued by the business of, of science, business of specifically biotechnology, and its major in-influence from the, from the US, from activities in the US, mapping the human genome and companies like that. So I, I decided this is something that I want to pursue, that I want to be in and be involved with, especially with this almost love for science that I'm, that I, that I realize I, I have. And, and yeah, so I, after, at the end of my post-grad studies, I, I started a biotech venture, a biotech startup, and, during that time, You know, doing science as well in the lab and also writing business plans and pitching to investors and raising, money and all the entrepreneurial startup, stuff that you do during the valley of, that they call the startup valley of death. You know, I, I, I've done quite a few short business courses that I thought, look, I've, I've specialized in, in science, but I really need some business expertise, and I've done these business courses at various business schools, but, two courses I did at UCT GSB, Finance for Non-Financial Managers, and the other one was a Project Management course, and, it was during that time that, I heard about the, the Executive MBA course, and I thought, this is very intriguing, you know, something different, and it was only ten years later that, yeah, I, I went to an information session on this course, so when they highlighted the idea that this is not just Information that you memorize and regurgitate to get a mark, this is something that you implement in practice. This is something that, that you really, it's real life, real data that, that they evaluate you on, in your business. I thought this is fascinating and yeah, I decided let's, let's go for it.

Mauritz Venter, guest · [04:59]Yes, that actually, it came out of a, a concept or phenomenon that I was intrigued with during our strategy block. The topic came out of a, a strategy assignment, and within this assignment, I, I focused while I was developing the, this, this, while we developed a theory of strategy, this whole idea of actions that are, that need to be taken in, in, to achieve a desired outcome or maintain a desired state in business. And this word desire, it was sort of, you know, I, I was intrigued by that because it's something that you want to achieve, but what is this? What is this desire? And I was drawn to this, to, you know, to this concept. So my theme for my, you know, I decided to take that out of, out of the strategy paper and, and, and, yeah, go further with that. And that was the, I wanted to know what this, I called it the clarity of desire. And, and how do you gain clarity of this desire? What is this desire? And, Yeah, it started there, Petro. It started out of that, and that was... I took a chance actually with this topic, and luckily the, the lecturers and, you know, they accepted this. Obviously, I had to add my whole bioentrepreneurial practice to this topic, the... And I've, I've added to the title, Finding Orientation with Growth, Meaning, and Resilience. And the resilience part was actually the important part because that came out of real... my real life experience, is why do you still stay in the game? How can you sustain entrepreneurial action if this oscillation between passion and fear of, fear of failure is consistently there? You know, what, what is it? And I called it the desire. it's, it's as if it was this constant line going through these oscillations of passion and fear of failure. And yeah, that's the topic that I thought, okay, this is what I want to take forward.

Mauritz Venter, guest · [08:19]I, I used a research methodology that was proposed by my, my supervisor. it was, it's called practical rationality. And it's actually a great concept. The idea is, and it's, it's, the idea is while you are in the flow of practice, and, we've, we've done, we've done now the, the idea of what is a practice, and strategies practice, leadership as practice, but actually anything that you are involved with, any activity that you, while you are busy with others, other people or things you take for granted, you are absorbed in it, you are immersed in it, you don't focus too much on necessarily on, let's say, I'm working on the laptop or this, here's my desk, all of this, these things. You don't f- you know, this is taken almost for granted, but there might be a temporary disruption or interruption, and they, the theory for practical rationality is, you can grasp the logic of your practice. Once you experience this interruption, they call it a breakdown. And it's in response to this breakdown where sense-making happens. And all that is actually that is, is a reflection. You stop for a moment, it's temporary. You stop, reflect on it. And it happens in business, it happens in with a, with a project that you are busy with. it can happen with anything that you are busy in the flow of what you are doing, and suddenly it stops. There's an interruption. And this, this interruption can be, something unin- unintended, unexpected. It can be a massive thing in business that happened, or it can be deliberate. It can be a deliberate intervention, that you decided, oh, no, I, I'm busy with this project or busy with this activity, but I'm, I'm deliberately stopping this. And due to that small interruption and you reflecting on that, The idea, the, the logic of this theoretical framework is, or the, the idea of the theoretical framework is, it's there where you make now sense of your environment, and it's based on the philosopher Martin Heidegger of his philosophy of, we are always in, he calls it entwinement, we are always entwined with others and things, and you are absorbed in that, and once there's a breakdown, sense-making happens while you are reflecting on that entwinement, and that is how you then grasp the logic of your practice. That was the framework.

Mauritz Venter, guest · [12:18]So the, the major themes in response to, to the breakdowns using my theoretical framework were willingness, willingness to accept what unfolds, willingness to, to be rooted in reality, significance and credibility, that was a theme. I would call it, I called it strategic management and leadership potential, but actually that is skillful coping, that was a, a theme that came out. very, some of them were quite surprising to me, relational connectedness. I found that during a breakdown, instead of holding it, you know, and, and go, almost going into a depression and, and, you know, not telling anyone, I told everyone. I, I told my stakeholders, I told my family, I, so I found that, that, that relieved the tension. So that was relational connectedness. Another one was emotional sensory and bodily expression. I, I didn't realize how powerful, that, that theme was in, in, in sustaining bio, biological action. The other one was love, love for, for science. I thought when I started out was love for the bio-entrepreneurial journey, the action, the stress, the excitement, the com- the combination of all those things, but it wasn't. It was actually the love for science. I had the same feelings when doing an academic project versus an entrepreneurial project. And then the last one that was the most surprising one to, to me, but it had, had mo- had almost the most basic themes to support it, was aesthetic and linguistic appreciation. The idea of something that is beautiful, something, something with, with beauty, leading, be leading beautifully. The beauty of the, the, the modern biotech lab, the, the, the articles that I read, you know, from, from business, from magazines that highlight, biotech companies in the US, just the linguistic piece there, the articulation of it, that, that sense of excitement when I read it, the photos of those labs of the, you know, the, the, the science, that was quite a s- something that, that was sig- significant of, of these findings.

Mauritz Venter, guest · [16:07]It's actually a difficult one because I'm, I'm, I sat with the same type of, you know, what you've mentioned now, you're in a mining industry, and then how do these things, you know, translate to that? And I sat with that same challenge, you know, in, in how do these concepts now relate to that? And so maybe a longer, long answer now to this question is, is also you cannot see these things in isolation. And to apply that was I need to look at the linkages. I need to look at the interrelatedness of these themes. And then out of that, they were unified into a global theme, because that's the only way I could, I could really orientate myself, to see that what, so what, answering that question, what does all of this mean? And I called it The performative manifestation of being. That's the major theme that came out of this, that, you know, symbolizes the active experience of my, what I'm going on inside of, with the ongoing search for, for this character development, and also fostering this clarity of, of by action and continuous reflection, which seems to sustain desire in a high-risk entrepreneurial endeavor. So, so through that, I thought it was not only for entrepreneurship, it was to any practice where you seek a desired outcome.