Life sciences is rife with very experienced, high value people who, perhaps at the 10 or 20 year mark, decide they don’t want to continue as a full time employee. They embark on independent consulting but don’t particularly like contracting, invoicing and other business administration minutiae. Traditionally they have 2 choices: hire someone or bite the bullet and grind through it.
The former is expensive for any small business, especially someone just starting out. Junior admins are too inexperienced. Savvy, experienced contracts and operations people can command lawyer-like billable hours.
As for grinding through it- this is doable, and many small business owners don’t mind it at all. Others find it unpleasant to varying degrees. Some small businesses have an aversion to business administration activities, so much so that BA can feel among the most challenging aspects of running a small business. .
Introducing a new option: The LifeSciHub Business Administration Support Model. Taking a cue from the gig and sharing economies, LifeSciHub “shares” it’s business administration tools and expertise with small businesses. Included is contracting, invoicing, payment processing, SOW QA, free time tracking software, budget management and reporting, project governance tools, and coaching.
“In addition to being an independent small business SME myself, I’ve collaborated with countless other SMEs. Some staunchly individual, others that expand by bringing on employees or subcontract other independent SMEs. Anecdotally speaking, it seems to be relatively easy to subcontract one or two other SMEs. But there’s a precipitous cliff at around the 3+ mark that the SME begins to spend a lot less time on project work and more on profit & loss administration.” Sheila Mahoney, MBA, Current LifeSciHub Administrator.
LifeSciHub has created these tools and processes for its own operations, and makes them available to other SME small businesses as a service. LifeSciHub is also exploring “white labeling” the platform for SMEs who want fit-for-purpose software, not ongoing services.
For more information: sheila@lifescihub.com