🧬 Nathan Clark - Ganymede - Part 2 | Moving from Goldman Sachs to Fintech | Exploring Product Management at Affirm | Leveraging Data & Building Tech Solutions| Impacting Scientific Progress at Benchling

The Biotech Startups Podcast

Part 2 of 4.

My guest for this week’s episode is Nathan Clark, Founder and CEO of Ganymede. Ganymede is the modern cloud data platform for the life sciences and manufacturing. Their Lab-as-Code technology allows you to quickly integrate and harmonize lab instruments and app data, automate analysis, visualize all your data in dashboards built over a powerful data lake, and ultimately speed up your operations to accelerate science or production.

Prior to founding Ganymede, Nathan was Product Manager for several of Benchling's data products, including the Insights BI tool and Machine Learning team. Before Benchling, Nathan worked at Affirm as a Senior Product Manager and was also a Trader at Goldman Sachs.

Join us this week and hear about:

• Nathan’s move from Goldman Sachs to a Product Management role at Affirm
• His experience managing several data products at Benchling
• The importance of understanding user needs, aligning product development with real-world problems, and accelerating scientific progress by addressing the challenges researchers face today.

Nathan’s extensive background in machine learning and data systems across financial and lab technology and knowledge of their applications in the life sciences offers unique insights for founders to benefit from. Please enjoy my conversation with Nathan Clark.

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro: Recap & Episode Overview

01:51 Nathan's realization at Goldman Sachs; transitioning to Affirm

04:05 Discussion on securitization and capital markets

06:28 Differences between Fintech and Wall Street

10:31 Nathan’s introduction to product management and data infrastructure

14:18 Understanding user needs; aligning product development with real-world problems

18:14 Nathan’s decision to leave Affirm

19:35 Frustration with scientific progress; wanting to help accelerate Biology research

24:28 Joining Benchling: new responsibilities and experiences

26:33 Outro

Find Our Guest, Nathan Clark, at these links:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathan-clark-4b850134/

https://www.ganymede.bio/

Find Our Host, Jon Chee, at these links:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonchee

https://www.excedr.com

Social & Website

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/excedr/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@excedr

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/excedr_inc

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ExcedrInc

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/excedr

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@excedr

Podcast Website: https://www.thebiotechstartupspodcast.com/

Enriched Notes:

Topics Mentioned:

Goldman Sachs https://www.goldmansachs.com/

Affirm https://www.affirm.com/

UC Berkeley https://www.berkeley.edu/

Benchling https://www.benchling.com/

Collateralized Loan Obligations (CLOs) https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/clo.asp

Capital Markets https://www.stlouisfed.org/education/tools-for-enhancing-the-stock-market-game-invest-it-forward/episode-1-understanding-capital-markets

Securitizations https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/securitization.asp

Product Management 101 https://www.atlassian.com/agile/product-management

Moore's Law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law

Automated Liquid Handling https://www.excedr.com/blog/guide-to-automated-liquid-handling

Funding Markets & Stages https://visible.vc/blog/startup-funding-stages/

Product-Market Fit & Solving a Problem https://stripe.com/resources/more/what-is-product-market-fit-what-startups-need-to-know

The Slowing of Scientific Progress https://phys.org/news/2023-01-scientific-breakthroughs.html

Cost of Developing a New Drug https://vial.com/blog/articles/drug-development-costs-explained-why-is-it-so-expensive/

People Mentioned:
Patrick Collison (Founder of Stripe) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Collison

The Biotech Startups Podcast gives you a front-row seat to the business and science of building a biotech. Hosted by Jon Chee, CEO of Excedr, the show features honest conversations with founders, execs, and investors about their work, their companies, and how they got there. From scientific breakthroughs to startup lessons, each episode explores what it really takes to grow a life science company—from pre-seed to IPO.