Welcome to The Looking Glass

Welcome to our blog. My fellow bloggers and I occupy a fairly unique position in the life science industry…here at BioInformatics, LLC (https://bioinfoinc.com) we help companies make better business decisions. Simply put, we work for companies that sell products and services to scientists. In our 13 years in business we’ve worked for every leading life science supplier on more than 500 projects. We’ve also provided actionable market research to Information Technology companies, scientific publishers, non-profit societies, venture capital firms, hedge funds and investment analysts.

We’ve helped them decide whether or not to buy a company or enter a new market. We’ve helped them increase their market share by identifying competitor weaknesses. We’ve measured the strength of their brands, tested their ads and helped them price their products at the point most likely to influence a prospective buyer to switch. Just to name a few.

While we’ve certainly got a lot of industry experience and knowledge we didn’t help them with all these decisions by relying on anecdotal evidence or “gut” instinct. Our recommendations were based on the opinions, experiences and purchasing preferences of the most important information source of all – customers.

We believe that the people who keep our clients in business. If a company is misinterpreting what the market wants and needs, it’s slowly going out of business. Or in some cases, not so slowly.

Through surveys, focus groups and in-depth interviews we provide our clients with a direct line to the people who are going to make or break a company’s success in the market. We ask questions that are carefully designed to provide precisely the answers our clients need to make wise decisions.

Market research is both a process and a product. This blog will address both. In this age of Google and simian survey software, the temptation to engage in DIY research can be overwhelming. It’s also lowered the bar to entry for firms who claim market research as one of their core competencies. The result is business decisions being made based on poor, and often poorly understood, data. In coming entries we’ll share with you tips and techniques for conducting sound research and what to look for in a vendor. In addition, our unique vantage point also encourages us to offer candid observations on the market we study each and every day.