Gajus Worthington, co-founder of Fluidigm, talks about how the three members of the founding team of Fluidigm met in Stanford Physics professor Doug Osheroff’s lab. Though the men went in separate directions after college, the bond that had formed between them remained. When one of the...
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Worthington talks about how the founders understood that the key to creating a successful company was picking only the very best people at every level of the company, especially the VCs and Board of Directors. Gajus sacrificed time (it took a year and a half to recruit some board member...
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After bringing together the best team, raising money in tough environments, and establishing and living by core values, says Worthington, Fluidigm focused on launching the product. The product development went much faster than anyone could have hoped and soon they had a product with man...
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Worthington relates an anecdote about how renowned intellectual property lawyer Bill Smith joined Fluidigm as general counsel. Worthington gave Smith the pitch before Fluidigm was even funded. Nonetheless, Worthington notes, Smith decided to join the team with the idea that it was going...
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Though Fluidigm is essentially a tool company, which is not very glamorous, says Worthington, they were successful in raising funding because they were a real, functioning company that already had customers and were able to prove a real market. Worthington recommends not wasting time wi...
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Fluidigm started the wrong way, notes Worthington. Instead of discovering a market opportunity and then finding the technology and team to take advantage of it, they invented the technology first, realized its potential, and then searched for an application for it. Worthington suggests...
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Worthington talks about how Fluidigm relied on two assets to help them recruit top talent: breakthrough technology and chemistry. Obviously, the technology was a big draw for many people to come to Fluidigm, he says. Chemistry was not as obvious an asset. Worthington got along well and ...
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If Fluidigm had not decided to market the crystallization chip, says Worthington, they would have developed a platform for doing large-scale parallel PCR. However, they decided against it because the market was already firmly established by major companies and Worthington was not optimi...
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When in search for a market, Worthington advises not to focus the company too early. Though there is tremendous pressure in the beginning to focus, this is dangerous; once a company has defined a focus the decision is very hard to undo. Worthington suggests waiting it out and seeing ho...
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Worthington answers the questions: Will the stock price of a company keep going up? He discusses Fludigm’s financial history and how the company was able to continue to provide investors with a nice return.
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The applications for the Fluidigm technology may be far from being realized, says Worthington. Fluidigm is currently working on high-throughout methodologies, like genome screening and protein-protein interactions, as well as what could turn out to be breakthrough science: using rubber...
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If Worthington could start the company over, he would hesitate less in firing people. Firing is one of the hardest things to do as a manager, but unfortunately is necessary in some situations and important to the future of the company.
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