last updated on 3 January 2023
中文在文末
作者Writer: Ariel Ho 何思瑩 營養師
The thing that I have done that is different from other visiting scholars is that I am not a person who goes to academia. The difficult part is that social networking skills. Although I have done and doing great compared to the days back in Taiwan and U.K. among friends. That is among friends when it comes to business, the things are different…
From a medical professional to a dream maker
營養專科 ARIE.CC
Before I went to the U.K., I thought that was just a degree. I wanna prove that a Taiwanese Dietitian or a girl from Taiwan can make things different. Not only those educated from USA or U.K. can do these things. After returning from the U.K., I thought I gained more energy and courage to change my expertise in Taiwan.
You can see I might think it too easy. However, that makes me have ARIE.CC. As a founder of the nutrition education website, I know to keep writing can gain more like-minded people to build this dream and promote sustainable eating. Yes, that’s the simple reason to build ARIE.CC. just that simple.
DIAITA-營養APP
Luckily, I made many choices to work with various app companies, projects, and so-called start-ups. Participating as one of the dietitians, I saw the importance of diet and the need of building an application that helps patients or clients change their behaviour. I know diet-changing can increase self-efficacy easily just through the project at UCLH. That also brought me to think of ARIE.CC and DIAITA. Now, coming as a Berkeley Taiwan Biomedical (BTB) engineer, I figure out it’s not the same as I thought.
Business
It’s a business. And It’s making a project into a product. And no matter this is the project that works better in this world. Haha, why I said that? It is a different mindset. I am becoming a dietitian and coming to find a way to make a more suitable product for patients. However, as a CEO or co-founder of this product, business plan, story elaboration, and investment.
I might still be new to this, but it might change the whole purpose of coming here to build this product. One time I had a Taiwan medical delegation visit BioDesign at Stanford, and I asked the same question to the founder Jared. ‘ the purpose of medical professionals joining our program is to solve the problem. Whether going to the market, is not what we are concerned about.’
Suddenly, I just realize that there are parallel worlds doing the same thing in different ways.
In academia or medicine, you must keep updating new knowledge and reading papers established from thousands of people’s case studies and research, which have been studied and published for years. With data and burearcury approval, with millions of dollars to build up, with phase 123, medical professionals are confident that It can be used in humans. Or even not confident, just be able to resecure in certain circumstances.
You have to do things like a case study in the business world. Trying to use one story, to touch the hearts of judges and VC, who might not be experts in this field but have experience in investing in the Bio or Medical field which had a profit that kind of experts. Also might have experienced start-up and see-through the vibes between your team. They all know that team vibes cause a 60-80% failure from start-up. Not how fancy your start-up technic is.
These are the note-taking in this half year. Keep updating…
I tried so hard to visit these places,
- Industries: Amazon/Microsoft/Boeing/Google/Striker
- Accelerator: IndieBio, Draper U, BerkeleySkykdeck, StanfordStarX, StanfordBioDesign, UCWacclerator, UBCacclerator.
- Forum/Event/Symposium: CES, Nature Product, Select USA, BIO, UTBES, CalHackthon
- Hospital: AHMC Seton Medical / Washinton Healthcare Hospital
- Our team get in: NSF / Health Tech coLab/ / Skydeck Pad 13.
來矽谷一年了，因BTB計畫的訪問學者而來矽谷，身為最後一位的BTB計畫訪學，Ariel是計畫中少見的醫事人員。不同於其他訪問學者，此計畫特色是學術界內的新創專案。最不同的是，可能你社交技能反而比做實驗技能重要。在台灣以及英國的經驗，社交，讓我覺得很有趣。但如果是為了生意的社交，一切又變得不一樣了，以下是我一年的想法。
從一個醫事人員，變成一個夢想家
營養專科 ARIE.CC
一切源自於英國，我本是為了證明國外來的並不是比較香，而去了英國唸書。其中帶回了很多新的想法利用推廣永續飲食改變世界(永續飲食-延伸閱讀)。當時回台的熱忱，天真的認為自己有能力、能量改變這個世界改變台灣。
當然我想的太簡單了，或者我用錯了方法。但這帶領為創立了營養專科 Arie.cc。身為創辦人，這個線上營養諮詢網站，是我一點一滴上網查如何建立網站、如何架設一直到現在，找了不少志同道合的專業人事一起創造這個價值，並推廣永續飲食。這也是營養專科的成立初衷。
DIAITA-營養APP
另一個創立的是營養app，是我在做訪問學者成立的團隊。也感謝我之前愛打工，在不同科技公司、專案、新創合作。成為各不同團隊中的營養顧問，再加上英國當時做digital health，讓我將自信心、動機、維持等都是真正病人需要解決的困難，而這些其他app做不到。因此我才把做了營養專科以及起心動念，做一個線上app。這也是我在美國的原因，也是成立diaita的開始。但一切沒有這麼簡單…
商業
創造一個新的app，能成功並非只是需求，而是有這個價值。全人類的健康，並非價值，多少人願意挑錢出來預防自己的疾病發生，才是價值。這是完全不同世界的思維。從一個醫事人員，來找詢一個醫療軟體產品，幫助病人。然而，成為一個產品的CEO，或是產品的共同創辦人，煩惱的是商業模式、如何說出動人的故事、如何吸引投資。
我在這幾乎是0基礎，甚至原本所學還跟這個有點衝突，簡單來說，口耳相傳的個案建議，比起大數據的理論，他們在乎的是前者帶來的生動活潑及感動。在柏克萊，這樣的思維太濃厚了，一直到了史丹佛，我才理解加速器跟課堂教的理論，又跟你參與不同學校、不同的加速器理念不同。我當時問了創辦人Jared ，他說了他們是鼓勵新創來解決問題，並非新創來去創立公司。
就從這一趟繞過後，原來這只是存在的學習平行時空
可能在醫院或者學術久了，新的論文、新的研究、連我們的醫事人員證照更新都規定要修滿多少學分才能讓你維持證照。包括醫藥的部分，研發數年、經過不同FDA認證研發的才能使用。我們在醫院教的、醫學院教科書上寫的也是至少十年經年累月的醫學證明，甚至在這樣的醫學證明下，也不一定是100%的保障 (例如副作用、多重症狀、各種病因等等)都需多方考量。
但在這個新創環境下，他們看的是一個「個案」。用一個故事紓述，幾秒內感動評審及VC，甚至這些並沒有在你這方面的專業，但是是在你這方面的投資經驗。尤其是做新創的人也知道，看的不一定是你的點子、你的公司多棒，看的是你的團隊。而今天的我剛好去看了Black Adam，也突然了解到為什麼Draper 用這種英雄改變夢想改變這個世界的行銷，但也是團隊間的合作才能共同創造未來。
總結
這是大概這一年的紀錄，我在這段時間也造訪了這些地方。
- Industries: Amazon/Microsoft/Boeing/Google/Striker
- Accelerator: IndieBio, Draper U, BerkeleySkykdeck, StanfordStarX, StanfordBioDesign, UCWacclerator, UBCacclerator.
- Forum/Event/Symposium: CES, Nature Product, Select USA, BIO, UTBES, CalHackthon
- Hospital: AHMC Seton Medical / Washinton Healthcare Hospital
- Our team get in: NSF / Health Tech coLab/ / Skydeck Pad 13.
大概，是一個小小的里程碑了。
