How Branding and Marketing Were Key to This Life Science Startup's Valuation
A life science startup that isn’t thinking so much about branding and is focused only on technology, might be missing an opportunity.
Echo Laboratories manufactures a revolutionary microscope that works in both an upright and inverted configuration. But like any startup, a great product doesn’t always ensure success. They were working out of the CEO’s apartment when they came up with a great idea for telling their company’s story and leaving a lasting impression of their product in the minds of their customers.
They put careful thought into how they would tell the story at a trade show and how they could connect it back to their website so customers could learn more and share it with others.
That’s the difference between the engineering and the marketing aspect of it…What we didn’t expect was that there would be lines and word would get out and people would tweet about this, and at the show we would very quickly run out of these wooden scopes. – Eugene Cho, CEO of Echo Laboratories.
Eugene was kind enough to share with me the thought process behind their marketing and what it’s done for them. We talked about:
A unique giveaway that branded Echo Labs very effectively
A co-branding effort with Chroma Technologies expanded their reach
How their first few productions runs were sold out even prior to getting the parts
How first year orders exceeded expected projections
How all of this combined to influence their valuation from investors
About My Guest …
Eugene Cho is the founder and CEO of Echo Laboratories. He is an industry thought leader with 15 years expertise in microscopy. Highly experienced with developing and selling capital imaging equipment to life science professionals in multiple markets including academic, clinical, pharmaceutical, and government.
