Being Courageous with Element Bioscience's Molly He

This episode explores the journey of Molly He, CEO of Element Biosciences, highlighting her experiences in entrepreneurship and innovation in the biotechnology sector.

1. Entrepreneurship is about work-life integration, not balance, emphasizing the blending of personal life with career demands.
2. Democratizing scientific tools is vital for innovation, making high-level research accessible to underfunded environments.
3. Transitioning from a corporate role to entrepreneurship involves embracing new challenges and learning to thrive outside comfort zones.
4. Personal backgrounds and experiences can profoundly influence professional paths and ambitions.
5. Resilience and adaptability are crucial for entrepreneurs, especially when shifting from secure roles to the uncertainties of startup life.

1: Introduction to Molly He and Element Biosciences

Molly He discusses her role as CEO and the mission of Element Biosciences to democratize genetic research tools. Key topics include innovation and accessibility in science.

• Molly He: "It's about bringing scientific tools to all, not just the well-funded."

2: Challenges of Entrepreneurship

Molly describes the intense nature of being an entrepreneur and the necessity of integrating work with personal life.

• Molly He: "Entrepreneurship is not just a job; it's a lifestyle that demands integration of work and personal life."

3: Roots and Motivations

This chapter explores Molly's upbringing in China and how it shaped her career and entrepreneurial approach.

• Molly He: "My upbringing in a small village inspired me to level the playing field in science."

4: The Decision to Found Element Biosciences

Molly shares her transition from working at a large company to starting her own business, driven by a desire to innovate.

• Molly He: "I wanted to build something from the ground up, to make an impactful change."

5: Reflections and Advice

Molly provides insights into the integration of life and work, offering advice for aspiring entrepreneurs on maintaining balance.

• Molly He: "Prioritization is key to managing both your professional goals and personal life effectively."

• Embrace challenges as opportunities to learn and grow.
• Prioritize tasks to maintain a balance that suits your personal and professional life.
• Seek inspiration from your background to fuel your ambitions and drive your career forward.
• Be open to new experiences and adaptable to change, essential traits for any successful entrepreneur.
• Utilize resources effectively, especially in environments with limited access.

Many expert women decide to take the plunge into entrepreneurship - but what are the realities of this decision? For today’s guest, Molly He, CEO and co-founder of Element Biosciences, it was never her dream, but something she saw as a means of pushing the groundbreaking scientific work she was doing forward.
Molly grew up in an economically disadvantaged village in rural China. She studied hard while at the same time developing her skills as a professional sprinter. At the end of high school, she decided to take a leap of faith and move to the US. In retrospect, Molly acknowledges that this was a courageous thing to do and that she used this courage and optimism throughout her career.

Join us every episode with hosts Suchi Srinivasan & Kamila Rakhimova from BCG to hear meaningful conversations with women in digital, business, and technology.

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Molly He

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Element Biosciences

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Molly He

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Molly He

A lot of folks wanting to have work life balance and all that. But really being entrepreneur is all about work life integration, not work life balance. And I think that's the piece I learned in the past. It's natural progression. It's all about prioritization to bring this work life integration to more of a balance point, but not really kind of this is work, this is life.

Because being an entrepreneur, it's very intense.

Suchi Srinivasan

This is in her element, a podcast from BCG. I'm suchi Srinivasan. And I'm Camila Rekkimoba. Each episode we have meaningful and vulnerable conversations with women leaders and allies in digital, business and technology.

Today we're pleased to reveal the theme of our new mini series. Every two weeks we're going to explore stories of VC's and startups. Camila, I know you have deep expertise in these two areas. What are you looking forward to hearing about in this new mini series? Well, I think we're going to be seeing a lot of variety in the stories we hear.

Camila Rekkimoba

Every sector has a startup culture these days, so I'm excited to see what we get into. That's very true. Now, early in your career you saw how much difference raising capital can make for small, meaningful initiatives. So you must be interested to hear that as well from our VC guests. I am.

Again, there is so much variety and potential in that space. It's going to be a fantastic mini series. Sujeem. Well, let's get into it today with our conversation with Molly he, CEO at Element Biosciences. Element is a multidisciplinary startup focused on innovations for genetic analysis tools, targeting research in diagnostic markets.

Mali is a powerhouse of fearless resilience. Throughout her career, she's lived and breathed innovation, something which heavily influenced her decision to become a VC and a founder. Here's Camila's conversation with Molly. My name is Molly he I'm the CEO and co founder of Element Biosciences. And tell us what Element biosciences does.

Molly He

It's a really big question. I can talk about it for like two days. To summarize it, though, we're very passionate about decentralizing science and increased science, the accessibility of science to everybody, so that not just the people who are very well funded can get the tools necessary, but also a small, less well funded environment where people can also get those kind of science done. And why did you decide to found element biosciences? What was the problem?

Camila Rekkimoba

I think one of the problems you're describing is democratizing access, right? So that others can innovate and research and discover much faster. Tell us more about that. You know, it really has to do about my upbringing. So I grew up in a kind of small village in China.

Molly He

We can talk a bit more about that if you want to, but that's actually deeply rooted in my culture. I grew up, so I'm always having this kind of mentality of rooting for the underdogs. Right. And when I grew up and it came to us and getting education, I consistently met in these situations where there's a discrepancy between very well funded labs and less well funded labs, how much they can do for their science and for their research. So this always been our passion.

Like, hey, what if we innovate significantly so that this technology can be accessible to everybody, not just who are more well funded. This is really deep rooted behind elements brand. Incredible. I can empathize with that quite a bit, having grown up in a very poor country of Tajikistan myself, and in a family, shared this with our listeners, or my dad made $200 a month in most of his career. And so for me, passion in working with fintechs, in the practice that I lead here at BCG and over my career is driven by that same inspiration, to democratize access to financial services, and so can relate to that quite a bit.

Amazing. There is a part of your story that is about democratizing access to foundational blocks of research and innovation that repeats. Right? And so what I'm talking about here is you being a VC or working with Foresight Capital. And so we'd love to hear about that role and also how you decided to give that up and become a founder instead.

So I was very fortunate to be connected to foresight through a common friend when I was looking for new opportunities or new challenges. Cause, you know, I got bored very easily. That's probably part of a common feature of entrepreneurs, they get bored easily. So when I was at my last job, that was at Illumina, we had a great time at the beginning of these years, but gradually, it's a natural progression of companies. When company gets bigger and bigger, it starts to tone down on the innovation side.

It just becoming more and more protecting of the current business. So I got a little bit bored and I said, maybe it's time for me to explore something different and new so I can challenge myself. So I got connected to foresight, and then I interviewed there, they liked me, I liked them. So I started to work at foresight. That was a very eye opening experience because it's like drinking from the fire hose.

I came from a scientific background. I never knew how to read, for example, a financial statement, like a table, all these numbers. Right? And I never really know how to do forecast modeling and all that. So I learned quite a bit from there.

Obviously, I was also contributing my values by being on the industry side. So can I can basically do due diligence better for the venture firm. I did that for a while, and during that time, I feel like my passion is still in building something new from ground up and bring some concepts into a product. I like to make things. I'm a builder.

So I was wondering, like, hey, you know, how do I help these companies to build their own thing? But then I also realized as an investor, you don't interfere with their operation. So I had this kind of dilemma, how do we do that? How do we do that? At the same time, coincidentally, two of my co founders reach out to me and say, hey, I have a great idea.

I wanted to bounce it off. You wanted to brainstorm about that so you can tell us if it's worth to start a company. So that's how conversation got started and I got excited. That's really fascinating in the way that you're framing that career choice in wanting to build versus do something else. It's one that I encounter every few years in my own life, being an advisor and being a VC at Amazon.

Camila Rekkimoba

Right. I love being able to gain the perspective and the distance by removing myself and looking at many different situations. Right. Your critical judgment sort of goes through many more revs and you take probably a less objective take on things, on problems at hand, than as an operator. But I also feel very much drawn back into, but how do I build?

How do I actually get a large team rallying around building and distributing the product? And so that's a really a great dilemma and a top of mind question, I think, for lots of folks exploring in early careers and then also later in their careers. So you founded Element biosciences. I think it would be fun to hear. How long were you thinking about doing something of your own?

Cause you mentioned that a few folks approached you about this particular idea. Right. And you decided to join forces as co founders. But how long has this been with you, this sort of desire to build your own company? I would say I have not specifically thought about, oh, I need to have a company of my own, but I have always been thinking about, what if I can build this thing?

Molly He

And not necessarily thinking about, okay, I need to be a CEO of a company. Right. It's more of the end result. What if I can build this thing, what kind of impact I can make and those kind of ideas naturally, actually becoming a starting up a company and raising money, those kind of more of a logistic operational side of things. But it's all coming out from started from a vision that I wanted to do something impactful and how we do it, it's really more of a logistic things that later on it will come out naturally, organically.

Camila Rekkimoba

I think that's a beautiful distinction in saying, in running your own startup, are you passionate enough to build a product? Understanding that one of the exits could be that, or one of the beginnings could be that you built this product within corporate space and private sector or elsewhere, public social sector, or it could be that you exit into another company that acquires your product. And so what surprised you the most in starting the company? I know it's going to be a lot of work, but I did not know I will have to embed my entire life into this work. And eventually you really have a work life integration.

Molly He

There's really no separation. I know a lot of folks wanting to have work life balance and all that, but really being entrepreneur is all about work life integration, not work life balance. And I think that's the piece I learned in the past. It's natural progression of me realizing that. And naturally you feel like, you know, that it's all about prioritization to bring this work life integration to more of a balance point, but not really kind of this is work, this is life.

Because being an entrepreneur, it's very intense. What does that look like day to day, like this integration of life and work. Because I know the listeners really want to hear practical tips. So what's that like on a daily basis? I have no like fixed hours of work.

I'm basically working all the time. But really very important is that we also do need to celebrate life, right? And work as part of life. What I do is prioritization. For example, if I know my daughter is going to have a very important dance rehearsal, I will block that calendar for 2 hours.

Hey, I have to make it, and this is my priority at that given time. I think it's all about prioritization of what's more important to you at that given time. And really there's no nine to five or nine to seven kind of work hour. You just work constantly because your work is part of your life, a significant part of your life. Would you say that it's easier to prioritize personal things that really matter when you're a founder versus when you may have been in leadership roles in the corporate space.

It's not easier because you always feel like I need to be at work constantly. So you just have to know you have different priorities at a given time. I will say I spend probably less time with my daughters or family after I became a co founder and CEO of the company. But I never miss one important event of their lives. And this is something I committed to do.

Camila Rekkimoba

I want to talk a bit about your upbringing. You mentioned that you grew up in an economically disadvantaged village in China. Tell us a bit more about those beginnings. So my parents only had me as an only child and my parents were maths teachers. They're really strict on me.

Molly He

So when they graduate from college, it's the cultural revolution time. So usually those intellectuals were sent to countryside or remote places to be re educated. So they're part of that kind of force to be re educated in a remote fishing village. So they both chose to be there because apparently these are the only two spots they got. They can be together because they were college classmates.

So I was born there. Growing up is actually, I think was really exciting. I wish my kids will get to see the nature the way I saw. And we were so poor. We don't have enough meat or egg or milk.

I've never seen milk. When I grew up until probably high school. All these things are rationed so you have a ticket to buy certain amount and we never really get to have enough. So my daily life is very much structured, very disciplined. So I have these clocks running through every day and nothing changes from day to day.

07:00 we start this kind of physical exercise. And 730, you go to the classroom to self study, if you will, and make up your homework if you have any. The class starts at 08:00 all the way to 04:00 p.m. So you have all these different classes, including music and physical education. But because we're being poor, music is just kind of singing songs.

Camila Rekkimoba

Voice has your instrument. Yeah. And pe is just running around in the dirt. Right. There's no other things.

Molly He

But it was very simple but very fulfilled life, I would say. And then at night you just do homework. It's a very rich kind of schedule. I did do sports. I was very good at it.

I was a sprinter growing up. So my time is spent like academics and sprinting. We're going to talk about your us based life in a moment. But since we're still on the topic of your childhood, I'd love to hear what did you bring from your childhood into your adulthood that is really dear to you and serves you well daily. One of the things you mentioned was nature that you've seen and being in touch with it, which is fascinating.

Camila Rekkimoba

What are these things? Yeah, so other thing is, you know, I also touch a bit on that is being disciplined. I think it's really important. A lot of times I feel like we're too tired and don't want to go to the gym or something, or really want to eat this piece of dessert, but I already have three cakes or something. So those kind of things, it's tiny little things, but really helps you to stay on a path, mentally and physically.

Molly He

And that's really important, being disciplined. Is that a mindset or is that a routine or both? I think it's a mindset, and routine is less important to me. It's really more of a mindset, because my life is now far away from very regimented routine I had when I was a kid, because I think it's much easier to have a structured life when that's all you do every day. But now, you know, you do all kinds of different things and things can change, and there's surprises every day.

You just can't actually do very regimented schedule. So it's more of a mentality that we need to be disciplined. These are certain things that we want to do. These are certain things we don't want to do. I think that's really important.

Camila Rekkimoba

I love this, this idea of how even in a less predictable day to day schedule and routine, that the optimization isn't around. How do I structure my day so that it's repetitive? The optimization is around the mindset, right? Yes. What's driving that mindset of discipline for you these days?

Molly He

I think really coming down to the impact again. Right? The principle again. What is the impact I wanted to make to the rest of the world? What is the impact I wanted to make to the company?

What is the impact I want to make to the family? I think always coming down, do these kind of impact questions. How do I change or impact the lives of the people surrounding me more positively? I think that's the mentality. I always work around my schedule of conflicts.

Always think about the North Star. Right? That's my north Star. Let's continue down this path. Sometimes we are not in the environments where we can drive that impact.

Camila Rekkimoba

And so I'd love to hear about some of the recurring challenges that you faced in your career. Especially in my early days, being first generation immigrant asian woman, I was very quiet. And I don't like conflicts, and I don't want to confront anybody. So when people ask me to do things, I usually say yes, even though sometimes I don't like to do it. And I say, okay.

Molly He

You know, I figure out a way to do it. And gradually, without these kind of communication, you build kind of certain resentment. And once you have certain resentment, then things become a little bit more sudden because you suddenly, at one point, it gets over your threshold. It's like, I'm done, right. And it actually will surprise other people.

Like, really? Is that you? So I think that the lesson I really learned is that it's okay to confront as long as you're being respectful. And it's okay to say, no, I cannot do this. And these are the reasons, but I can do that.

Is that a compromise? I think those kind of skill sets are really important to have, I think. Ties back to the need for clarity around your purpose. Right. It's easier than to say, I can't do this because I'm committed to these couple of things that I must do for me in life.

Exactly. You started down the path of your early career, so I think it would be really fun and great learning to hear about your move to the US and those early years. So we talked a bit about my regimented schedule and daily life when I was a child. I think there was a part of me that is or was rebellious, right. Because I wanted to do something new and exciting.

It's not part of the routine. So that really is the driver for me to say, hey, parents, mom and dad, I love you, but I wanted to go away from you and to explore my own space. And this is why I came to us. And to be honest, I did not come here to become a CEO. I did not know anything about that.

Right. I came here because I'm excited to be outside of my routine and there's something new and a brand new world for me to explore. And I'm always excited about new things. So I came to us, went to graduate school at UCLA, still did not know what I wanted to study. I did the rotation in three different labs.

But in the back of my mind I was always thinking, like, what if I don't do science? What if I go to a law school? What if I go to business school? What can I do? So I actually did explore quite a few different options within UCLA and went to talk to people, talk to professors.

But then, you know, this protein lab really struck me as the thing I really want to do. So because it's so fascinating. I've never run out of problems. There's so much courage that's coming through in the way that you talk about making the decisions to leave home come to the US, the courage to continue down the path versus considering and opting out and into alternative paths. So what's the role of courage and in overcoming fear?

Camila Rekkimoba

Tell us a bit more about that for you. I think in retrospect, I know I had a lot of courage every single step away because, you know, every choice I made was very risky when you think about that at that particular time. But I didn't think of that when I was making the decision. When I was making a decision, it's always, wow, that's so fun. I really want to do this.

Molly He

It's a lot of fun. Forward looking, like how exciting it's going to be if I do this, instead of if it's going to be a lot of work, it's going to be risky. I have no idea what I will expect. So it's more of excitement over fear that drove me through all these different decisions and I just chased my passion. I will say I'm also ultimately optimist.

I always believe things will work out. I want to talk a bit about the mentorship program that you've set up at element biosciences. Curious to hear what it's about, why you set it up, and what it looks like. Yeah. So the mentorship program currently in the past two years, we're limited to women.

I'm convinced that we need more women in our leadership roles, and also I'm convinced that these women should be in these leadership roles because they're qualified, not just because they're women. So in order to do that, we have to have a strong pipeline of women leaders in training. And this is really is why, you know, I wanted to start kind of women leadership in training so that we can build a strong qualification in them and then build them up to be in the leadership role. Because I not only start this mentorship program within the company, was also very passionate about growth in STEM research, in STEM education. So I was part of volunteer team in my daughter's school when they were younger, scientific Olympics and all that.

I think it's really important, going back to my pipeline point to have a strong pipeline of these future woman leaders in training. Otherwise, even when we wanted to put women in the leadership team, sometimes we don't find enough people qualified to be in those roles. What are some of the common questions that they ask you in the program or generally, your mentees, for example, how. To deal with the perception we're being too aggressive if we are assertive about what we wanted or what we can bring to the table. And my advice to them is that think of being aggressive as a compliment because your voice is being heard.

It is okay to be aggressive as long as you're making a positive impact to the project or to the people surrounding you or to the company's product. Right. So I think it's always coming down to kind of North Star, what is the impact you're bringing? And if you're bringing that kind of positive impact, never be afraid of being caught aggressive. I'm learning from you.

Camila Rekkimoba

I'm going to start applying that mindset in my own life as a person who receives some of that feedback throughout my career. Molly, tell us about a time when you felt you were in your element. Interesting, because I actually grew up afraid of public speaking. But now I start to get more and more fond of it, and I think when I speak, especially if my words resonated with people, it can be useful to the audience. I feel I'm in my element.

And how did you go about it? Like, how do you gauge if you are scaling your voice efficiently in any given, let's say, year or quarter, if you should be doing more or less? And how do you push yourself to do that? I always think I should do more regardless. So that's really just my personality, always pushing for more.

Molly He

And obviously, you only have limited time in a day, so you have to prioritize what you think is the best activity to maximize your impact.

Suchi Srinivasan

Well, that's all for today. This has been in her element, a podcast from BCG. Join us next time to hear more meaningful and vulnerable conversations with women leaders and allies in digital business and technology. Thank you so much for listening.

Camila Rekkimoba

Thank you so much for listening.

Suchi Srinivasan

Thank you so much for listening.