Alexis Rovner, founder of 64-x, on genome design, research driven innovation, and leading startups
I spoke with Alexis (Lex) Rovner, co-founder and CEO of 64-x, a biotechnology company building a platform that aims to radically advance the way genomes and living systems are engineered. 64-x is using this platform to create cells for advanced biomanufacturing and therapeutics applications, and was a part of Y Combinator’s Summer 2018 batch.
Lex grew up hoping to become a musician and composer, but in college, at the University of California, Berkeley, she discovered the small but growing area of synthetic biology and was immediately fascinated by the world of possibilities. She worked in Dan Portnoy’s lab there, which started her career in the field.
She went on to complete her PhD in molecular, cellular, and developmental biology at Yale University in Farren Isaacs’ lab. At Yale, she collaborated with George Church, a major figure and research leader in the field of genetics. He is currently the Robert Winthrop Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School. Through Church and Isaacs, Lex learned more about recoded genomes, a type of genome with many modifications that collectively impart enhanced and specific properties to the organism.
Passionate about the radical engineering of genomes, to further this research, Lex later joined Church’s lab at Harvard as a postdoctoral fellow and had the opportunity to work more closely with him. Church became her close mentor. She joined Church’s lab with initial interests in developing new tools and technologies either as a professor or entrepreneur, and eventually realized that her heart was solely in entrepreneurship. At this point, Lex abandoned an academic path and with Church and two Harvard professors (Jeffrey Way and Pam Silver), cofounded 64-x to create a platform enabling radical genome engineering at scale for the commercial generation of advanced cells and organisms.
“After realizing I wanted to focus all of my energy toward starting the company, it does then take a leap of confidence to believe you can do it, and George really gave me this confidence. I think this is the power of the Church lab. He really pushes his students to pursue their passion. He was extremely patient while I found mine and I’ll be forever grateful for that,” Lex recalls.
Reflecting on advice she would give to other founders, particularly those pursuing more technical ventures, Lex shares the following.
Learn as much as possible about the real world need for your technology across different markets before seriously thinking about starting a company. Through cold-outreach, Lex engaged in over 800 customer interactions for in depth market research before refining her preliminary plans for application.
Stay actively engaged in the sales process — don’t fully delegate this role to someone else in the early stages of the company. As a founder, most of your time should be spent focusing on truly understanding your market, your customers, their needs, if your products are meeting their needs, and morphing your platform and products around these data, before hiring someone to fully take this over.
When connecting with customers, be honest and tell your story. If someone is trying to forcefully sell something, it’s obvious, comes off as disingenuous, and isn’t the right way to build a relationship. Relationships are everything for a startup, whether it’s with customers, investors, advisors or employees. No matter who it is, these are all long-term partnerships that are built on trust. Just be yourself, always be honest, share your passion for what you’re building, and you will never go wrong.
