One of the most critical—and overlooked—skills in building a business isn’t perfecting your pitch; it’s learning to truly listen.
Go where your users are—not just your investors.
Too many early-stage companies spend all their time on the investor conference circuit and never enough time understanding the end user. We’ve found the real insights come from places like the 3D Tissue Models Summit in Boston, where you’re shoulder-to-shoulder with scientists, pharma R&D leaders, and actual customers. You’re not there to pitch—you’re there to ask the right questions and really listen. The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick is a great book on this. The key takeaway? Ask better questions so you can…
Put yourself in your customer’s shoes.
Your customer doesn’t wake up thinking about how many electrodes are in your organ-on-a-chip. They wake up thinking about how to de-risk a preclinical program, get cleaner data, or hit an IND deadline. Whether your platform has “flow,” “vascularization,” or “multi-organoid interconnectivity” is irrelevant if it doesn’t solve their workflow or give them a faster, cheaper, better readout. Focus on the minimum viable model that delivers the output they care about. Novelty is nice—but utility is essential.
Impressions don’t build companies – conversions do.
Marketing should be targeted, not loud. You don’t need to be famous—you need to be known by the right 200 people in the world who make decisions in your market. Flashy campaigns and polished websites are great, but only if they drive conversations with the right subset of users who can validate, adopt, and advocate for your tech. That’s how real traction starts.
At RocketBio, we’re looking to work with tissue engineering and regenerative medicine companies that prioritize long-term value over short-term hype—built on customer insight, disciplined execution, and earned credibility.
