This is Sylvia from WordifyScience. In this post, I share a mix of personal and professional background and stories, some insights from collaboration projects with R&D clients, and 7 key lessons learned during my journey as Founder and Scientific Director of WordifyScience.
Let me take you on a journey of how WordifyScience took shape from an idea to a now well-established company. 2022 marks the 7-year anniversary for WordifyScience: in these 7 years, a lot has happened. It all started way back in February 2015, when I was on a holiday in Portugal…
At the beginning of 2015, I was going through a challenging time in my professional life. I had been self-employed for a couple of years at this time, yet my business to manage Scientific Advisory Boards in Switzerland did not bring in enough revenues to support me and my very young daughter. I knew I had to change something. When I then was on holidays in the Algarve in Portugal in February that year, I made a bold decision: I wanted to move to Portugal, and I urgently needed a job which would allow me to relocate to a region, where jobs at my level were very rare...
Drafting a business plan
Back in Switzerland, I dedicated about 6 weeks to develop a business plan and how I could bring it all together. The entire month of April was a full-on month of thinking, reflecting, generating ideas, developing concepts, calculating budget and target revenues, speaking with mentors; then also the exciting parts like coming up with a company name, registering my business entity and working on the first Wordify website. On 15 May 2015 the first website was live and WordifyScience was officially launched.
The path that led to new terrain
In 2015, stepping onto a new path as an independent, self-employed business entrepreneur, I was looking back onto more than a decade of being employed, mainly in big corporations like Philip Morris International in Switzerland, or Sandoz Biopharmaceuticals, a Novartis division, in Germany.
The foundation for my interest in science was laid in 2002, when I started working in a smaller pharmaceutical company called Arkopharma. During my time with Sandoz as an Office Manager, supporting a R&D entity with an on-site lab, I decided to give my education a booster by doing an executive MBA while continuing working full-time. The program started in August 2007, and I handed in my last assignments in December 2008. June 2009 marked a long aspired big milestone, when I attended the big graduation ceremony at the University of Toronto, where I officially received my MBA certificate.
Global Masters and Doctorate
The business studies and exchange with like-minded professionals and academics from all around the world – I studied in North and South America, China and Europe during my MBA program – inspired me so much that I signed up for a DBA program, a doctorate in Business Administration, run by the University of Reading in the UK. As a requirement for the DBA, I needed to complete another Masters course; however, this time, it was a Masters of Science, where I learned all the essentials of carrying out high quality Business and Management Research. During my studies from October 2009 until July 2011, I learned how to do a Literature Review, how to perform quantitative and qualitative research, how to do statistical analysis, how to conduct interviews in research, how to run a pilot study, and last but not least, how to write up my scientific research in a report, making sure I used appropriate scientific references to support my thesis. I was able to celebrate my next big achievement MSc graduation in September 2011 at the Henley Business School in the UK, where I was proudly cheered on by my mum and my then 2-months old daughter, who was the reason for me not further pursuing the planned DBA degree.
Like waves in the ocean
In fact, being a new mother, I soon realized that I could not go on at the previous pace. My priorities shifted, and in April 2012, I turned my back to my career as an employee and have been a self-employed entrepreneur ever since. Of course, the journey has been a rollercoaster, and I have seen exciting and good times, but also very challenging times, when I did not know from where and when the next project would come. In fact, this has turned out to be a repeating pattern, just like the waves in the ocean, a coming and going.
My first 2 years in Portugal, 2016 until 2018, were just that: waves of projects, coming and fading. I often questioned whether I was doing the right thing. Long-term planning seemed impossible. I remember working through the end-of-the-year period in 2017, as that was when I had work. I even worked on New Year's Eve, welcoming the year 2018 quietly working away on my computer, while my still young daughter was fast asleep.
Magical 2018: the turning point
2018 then seemed to be a magical turning point. After a quiet summer, a new project appeared at the end of October. An R&D client performing qualitative research in public health asked me to map out the skip patterns on a survey instrument via MS Visio. My partner Richard was the perfect companion to help me on this project, not only because of his advanced computer knowledge, but funny enough because his commitment to only working on Windows turned out to be the missing puzzle piece in my Mac-dominated world. We enjoyed working together so much that it was a natural step to bring Richard into WordifyScience, and he has ever since contributed to the growth of WordifyScience in numerous ways.
Milestone limited company 'Lda.'
July 2019 marked a very big milestone for WordifyScience: the creation of a limited company, in Portugal called 'Lda'. Richard and I both took on the responsibility of co-directors, with me acting as Scientific Director, and Richard acting as a General Director, wonderfully bringing on board and managing our team of freelancers, which we needed for one of our so far biggest projects for a big tobacco corporation.
Corporate Style Guide project
The biggest hurdle in the beginning was to hire 3 additional staff members, who would be knowledgeable about scientific writing and editing and be available at very short notice. We managed to contract 3 freelancers, who were all coming on board within 1-2 months.
While Richard was mainly busy interviewing potential candidates and then onboarding the selected freelancers, I dived right into one of the main tasks, which was the development of a Corporate Style Guide. The general structure and content layout was standing within a couple of weeks, and then I was busy writing up chapters, describing various elements, such as formatting, language and grammar, use of technical terms, Latin abbreviations, mathematical formulae, styles for scientific references, etc.
At the very peak of this project, we were managing a team of 8 freelancers, who were spread across various countries in Europe. The workflow had to be managed with perfection, and often we would work during the night times and early morning hours so we could have a new draft ready for our client, when they started their workday 8 hours after us. Team meetings occurred at 10pm at night Lisbon time so we could accommodate the best time slot for our client who was based in San Francisco.
Prepared for the storm
When the Covid pandemic spread and everybody was shifting to a new work model, WordifyScience was already ahead of the game. This was the principle work model that I had chosen for WordifyScience right from the start: working remotely from home, in order to have the least possible distraction from the actual job. I did not lose time commuting to work, as I was able to just go upstairs into my dedicated office area, and work from there. This model has also allowed me to perfectly combine work and family life, as I love working in the very quiet evening and night hours, when nothing else needs to be done, and the pure focus can be on the review at hand.
While everybody else seemed to slow down in the first quarter of 2020, we at WordifyScience were as busy as ever. I remember not knowing how, all of sudden, I should juggle looking after our children who needed support managing their remote school access and schoolworks, while still being 100% available at work, and continuing to deliver the best quality; in fact, continuously delivering high quality is one of the most fundamental values for me when providing detail-oriented services such as proofreading, where sometimes just the place of a comma makes the biggest difference in the meaning of a sentence.
With patience, we soon got into a new kind of rhythm, and saw again a lot of night shifts, which meant the daytime was more dedicated to our children, and the night time was focused working time.
New expertise: AI & Deep Learning
Luckily, at some point, our children were able to go back to school in person. The re-gained liberty of more available working time coincided with a natural downtime in the business, due to one of our bigger projects having come to an end, as the compilation of scientific study reports had been submitted with the FDA. All of a sudden, we had a lot of time at hand, and not so much work.
Richard took advantage of this freedom and pursued a Master's degree in Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning. In September 2021, Richard defended his Master thesis and with that successfully completed his MSc degree.
Ahead with confidence
2022 has started well for WordifyScience. We are proud being able to continue the collaboration with one of our cherished long-term clients, and look forward to providing more support to our beloved Masters and Doctorate students. I personally always find the inspiration from such a diverse group of clients very enriching, not only because of the exposure to different scientific areas, but also because I am meeting new personalities from whom I can learn.
At the end of the day, it has been the lessons learned that helped me make the biggest leaps forward. I live and work by the motto 'it is okay to make mistakes, but you should never make the same mistake twice'. Here below are some of my key takeaways from my personal journey and achievements as an entrepreneur.
Good business plan – be thorough and diligent when writing up your business plan. It is also worthwhile talking about it with a mentor or people you trust, and to take your time to really think it over. However, be prepared that many things can turn out differently than planned.
Network network network – make sure to not miss out an opportunity to connect with new people, especially when you are not in a business mindset. I made some wonderful connections while being on holiday. Also don't forget to keep in touch with your network. Make sure you reach out on a regular basis to keep the communication going.
Don’t hesitate to take on short or smaller projects – you never know what they will lead to down the road… I once took on a very short proofreading project and I was able to turn it around within 48 hours. On that project, I was introduced to a new person I had never worked with before. Half a year later, this person was the initiator of a big collaboration project, which is still ongoing.
Be bold – and put yourself out there, know your own worth. Especially when starting out, it can seem difficult to ask for a specific hourly rate that you have in mind. But remember, once the rate is set, it is difficult to change it. Don't be too shy - set your rate in a way that makes you feel good about it. This is an important factor contributing to how you relate to and value your job. In the end, it will show in the quality of your work, and it will create a win-win situation for you and your clients.
Negotiate well – be prepared to walk away if the conditions don’t fit. We accepted a big push down in one of our contracts in terms of hourly rates and agreed upon budget. It did not feel right to agree to these worse conditions in the first place; however, we did not want to let the client down and accepted. However, this resulted in lost income in 2 ways: we lost out on income from potential new clients, and on promised income from the new contract. When asked to renew the contract yet again, I refused to continue at the same conditions and negotiated for a better rate. I was ready to walk away if the client would not have accepted. In the end, we succeeded.
Be kind, humble and grateful - kindness always is the way. After all, I want to be there for my clients, and support them in every possible way. This also means being there at short notice, and sometimes working through the night. I appreciate the great working opportunities I keep receiving. I love showing my gratitude for the wonderful work and trust that I receive from my clients.
Give back - I have received so much support from mentors, friends and family along the way. For me, giving back is very important. One way for me to give back is when I provide free mentoring to master students or anybody else who needs and asks for it.
If you would like to work with us at WordifyScience, contact us today, and we will be happy to assist you and reach new milestones together.
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