Types of Discord User
The ASeq Discord is really interesting. Discussion can get… heated sometimes, but overall it’s kind of the Biotech/Sequencing meeting place that I’ve always wanted. Somewhere where people can meet to discuss technologies, companies and research semi-anonymously and freely.
One of the interesting things about the Discord is the wildly different backgrounds and communities users come from. This sometimes causes a certain amount of confusion when users ask what seems like the same question… but one which means very different things to different people.
A simple question might be “What do you think of company X?”. Let’s consider how 4 different users might respond to this question:
The Researcher
This user will I suspect mostly be interested in how well company X helps them progress their research (and ultimately get publications out).
A novel technology is life a gift from heaven. At the dawn of next-gen sequencing a new sequencer was a paper machine. Throw samples on it, get data out and you’re almost guaranteed publication. Almost everything is by definition novel here…
For larger projects researchers will also be considering costs and how reliable the platform. Beyond that, the researcher isn’t really looking at market sizes or other metrics. Just… does this solve interesting research problems for me.
Sometimes this gets users in trouble (like when Riken bought 4 Helicos machines). Because novelty sometimes doesn't last as long as you’d hope it would.
So “What do you think of company X?” here often means… “do the companies products provide useful research output”.
The Investor
I get a lot of stock traders interested in the Substack and Discord. These folks are looking for buy and sell signals for sequencing stocks. This is of course a pretty complex question.
Some look to the fundamental technological approach. Where is the technology now, and where is it going. Can the fundamental approach overtake the competition.
Other are looking for short term buy/sell signals. Are they running low on cash, are layoffs coming.
Yet others want to understand the market better. If the company lives up to its promises what is the market size? Is the market expected to grow? At what point does the company overtake the competition etc.
“What do you think of company X?” means “Is the company a buy or a sell?”.
Outside of stock traders there are of course private investors. They may be considering an investment in a competing startup, and asking many of the same questions.
The Industrialist
Someone who works in industry is asking a slightly different question again. They may be interested in using the companies product to drive a research pipeline. Or they might be interested in building a platform on top of the companies products.
In these cases they are not so much interested in the novelty of the platform. Being able to reliably get high quality data out of the products may be important. A stable platform will be supported over a number of years may be an important consideration.
Too much variation in output, requiring rerunning samples may be a huge pain. Significant batch effect will skew the results of long term projects, or could require redesigning and revalidating pipelines.
If a company deprecates a platform or consumable, it can cause huge problems for them so they’re looking for longer term commitments.
“What do you think of company X?” to them means “Do they produce products I can rely on to build my company?”
The Employee
Finally the employee. This is someone considering which company they should work for. They’re asking a question that’s somewhat different from any of the others.
While most users are thinking about the products they’re thinking more about the internal culture of the company in question. Are they nice people? Is the work interesting? Will it progress my career? Is the company going to be around next year? Are the benefits good? Do they allow remote work? What’s it like to live where the company is located?
“Is this a company I would enjoy working for?”
Confusion…
There are probably as many different perspectives as there are users. And almost certainly the archetypes above don’t exist in their pure form. People are in general nuanced and complicated.
But I’m going to try and remember the following:
That when someone asks a seemingly simple question they may not mean what I think they mean and it’s worth asking for clarification.
Thanks for reading my first bitsofbio post! If you’re a paid subscriber on the main aseq substack, I’ll happily add you as a paid subscriber here. If you’re not… paid subscriptions here are much cheaper and help support my substacking in general.