Creating and Selling Your Story:
An Entrepreneurial Approach to Communication the Value of Your Research (Virtual)

Obtaining funding for research requires storytelling. One of the fundamental characteristics of successful scientists and entrepreneurs is the ability to communicate the story effectively, understanding that the success of the project lies in the ability to present the strategy and value proposition of the project. Chances are that your ideas and science are great – but in order to convince agencies or investors to give you money– you also need to engage, connect, and convince your potential stakeholders such as corporate partners, investors, and grant reviewers.

This workshop will introduce academic researchers to the process of developing a compelling story about their research or other ideas. You will learn specific communication tools that will help you to think strategically about your research (either hypothetical or real), to define key concepts such as value propositions and milestone-driven development, and to speak in the “language of business”. By the end of the workshop you will have developed an elevator pitch and a strategic presentation, and practice delivering these as memorable stories.

If you are an early-career scientist interested in the “how to” of building and selling a compelling story, or a later-stage trainee with an existing project that you’d like to get funded, this workshop was designed for you.

Course capacity: 30
Fee: $10

Date & Time

Dec. 1st, 3rd, 8th, 10th, 13th, 10-11:30 AM.

Course Instructor

Nancy Levy, PhD
Managing Partner, BostonLanding.us and Biohealth Management, LLC

Nancy Levy is a strategic and tactical business development and marketing consultant, facilitating growth of international companies. Her clients are entrepreneurs and executives and their small to medium size enterprises. She offers in-depth, hands-on consulting to define business and market strategies and their go-to-market implementation. Her firm works closely with clients to create quantifiable and tangible results from innovation. She has a clear understanding of technologies and markets, the economics of development, and strategies to commercialize them. She has had the privilege to be part of the innovation ecosystem in the Boston area, which has afforded her the opportunity to create a deep network of experts. She is hired by companies, boards of directors and governmental organizations to work one-on-one with their entrepreneurs and executives to understand their technologies and advise them on and help implement positioning of their technologies, financing strategies, and commercialization pathways. In addition to individual companies that have hired her she has been involved with many projects where institutions such as government agencies have hired her to work with their regional companies to offer strategic positioning, business development including partnering and financing, and to introduce them to experts that can help them build their companies. To address this need, she launched BostonLanding.us, which offers hosting at the Cambridge Innovation Center and similar to Biohealth Management, strategic and tactical support for international technology, life science, and cleantech companies.

She is on the board of advisers for Uninvestes, a venture capital company in Madrid, Spain and is a member of the Newton-Wellesley Hospital Board of overseers. She is a mentor at the Venture Mentor Service at MIT, Fast Runners program with the Canadian Consulate, the Platform Program from Massachusetts Technology Transfer Center and the MIT Poland Business plan prize and was selected as a judge for Pulse@MassChallenge.com. Other honors include: featured entrepreneur in the Wall Street Journal, Closing the Gender Gap. She is an invited speaker at numerous international conferences on entrepreneurs, innovation and the Boston ecosystem.  She is an adjunct professor at the Boston University School of Management and was on the faculty at Harvard Medical School, where she also did her fellowship. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.
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