What Has Been Learned From A Controversial Startup’s Fall?

In business, the biggest and most useful lessons come not necessarily from success but from ambitious failures, and many successful people adopt a mindset of either succeeding or learning from everything they do.

There was a lot to learn from the dramatic rise and sudden calamitous collapse of biotech startup Theranos, particularly when it comes to marketing in the life science sector.

It has been nine years since the initial exposé in The Wall Street Journal, six years since the company collapsed and two years since its founders were imprisoned for fraud, and the life science industry has gotten more robust and learned from the mistakes of believing in a moonshot.

The first lesson is the most obvious, which is that in life science you can only go so far without evidence that your concept has any merit to it. 

Whilst the writer Jonathan Swift once eloquently noted that “falsehood flies” whilst the truth stumbles far behind it, ultimately there is only so far you can go before a lie catches up to you, and the consequences are devastating.

A more pertinent lesson is the power of marketing outside of conventional channels, and something founder turned convicted fraudster Elizabeth Holmes was particularly skilled at.

Inspired by Steve Jobs, arguably one of the very best marketers in the history of the computer industry, what Theranos did right was to present a vision of what their product could do to people who were not technically or scientifically knowledgeable.

The iconic and later somewhat ironic image of Ms Holmes holding up a tiny vial of blood conveyed clearly the vision of what the company set out to achieve, and marketers in the sector should consider not only the fundamental selling points of a MedTech product but also what it means for doctors and patients alike.

Finally, it emphasises the importance of help over hype in marketing, which often means collaborating, submitting to peer review and contributing to the achievement of the vision being sold, even if that means not being the only one to benefit from it.