PierceSchiller
Bioengineer turned serial founder. I take science out of the lab and into the market.
Harvard MBA. Innovation at IPG. Boston.
Email meLab bench to market
I'm a bioengineer who can't leave a good idea in the lab. Microbial fuel cells. A bacteria detector for food safety. A bio-electrical fix for sour gas. Each one started as research and turned into a company.
Then I learned the other side of the table: licensing Harvard research, an HBS MBA, early-stage investing at Applied Ventures. After that I built in hardware, blockchain and ecommerce, and ran a respirator materials maker through its sale in 2020.
Now I do it inside a manufacturer, working on innovation at IPG.
Fourteen roles, two acquisitions, one habit: find the science worth scaling, then build the business around it.
The work
Build
Companies I've started, run or been a part of.
Innovation IPG, Intertape Polymer Group
CEO Massachusetts Standard MaterialsAcquired
Domestic maker of meltblown polypropylene and converter of respirators.
Owner Giffen Brands
A collection of low-profile, internet-first brands built for ecommerce. Design, manufacturing and sales.
You have $18 to eat for the week: 12 meals. Rice is the cheap staple. Steak costs $4 a meal and it's the one you want.
Rice: 10 meals Steak: 2 meals
Raise the price of rice. Steak gets squeezed out of the budget, so you end up buying more rice. That's a Giffen good: an everyday staple whose demand rises with its price. Giffen Brands is named for it.
Founder Librium
A decentralized digital labor platform connecting oversupplied and undersupplied labor markets through tokenization.
CEO TarDisk
A plug-and-play hybrid drive that expanded MacBook storage.
Co-founder DriveForTheCureUSA
A cross-country road trip with the American Cancer Society that raised $10,000 and earned its Notable Service Award.
Capital
Finding, funding and commercializing new technology.
Investment Associate Applied Ventures
Early-stage science and technology investing in Silicon Valley.
MBA Harvard Business School
Business Development Associate Harvard University
Found commercially viable Harvard research and drove it to market through licenses, startups and industry partnerships.
Research Associate Trans American Investment
Recommended energy and technology investments.
Lab
Where it started: biology, electricity and instruments.
Founder BlackBoxBio
A bio-electrical platform for removing hydrogen sulfide from sour natural gas.
Visiting Scholar Harvard University
Research on bio-electrical systems and microbial fuel cells.
Founder, CTO ArguoBiotech
An optical instrument that detects bacteria through tryptophan fluorescence, built for food safety.
Senior R&D Engineer Trophos EnergyAcquired
A venture-backed Harvard spinout developing electricity-generating microbial fuel cells. Acquired by Teledyne Benthos.
Education
- Harvard Business School
- MBA, 2015
- Binghamton University
- Bioengineering, with biology and philosophy, 2008
Working on something hard?
I like problems where science and business meet. Email is the fastest way to reach me.