#40 - From Bench to Buy-In: How Real Innovation Wins the Market

🎙️ Guest: Ali Glaser | Antibody Discovery & Cell Therapy Automation Strategist

🎧 Hosts: Mike Ouren & Sura Hadi

📺 Series: Science Means Business

"You can’t innovate in a vacuum." - Ali Glaser

In this episode, Ali Glaser shares field-tested lessons from the frontlines of lab automation, platform adoption, and scientific product strategy. From custom ClonePix setups to dead-cell disasters, we unpack why tools get abandoned, how to prevent it, and what makes a product truly usable in real labs.

🧠 What You’ll Learn:

• The hidden reasons scientists abandon expensive tools
• What customer-centric sales teams ask before the demo
• Why upstream/downstream compatibility trumps flashy features
• How bad onboarding can sink great innovation
• The real cost of skipping UX in life science automation

☕ Whether you’re building, buying, or pitching automation—this episode is a reality check.

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⏱️ EPISODE CHAPTERS - NAVIGATE THE EPISODE

00:00 – Intro & Cold Open

00:28 – Meet Ali Glaser

03:35 – Science vs. Business Thinking

04:48 – “You Can’t Innovate in a Vacuum”

07:48 – One-Offs, ROI & Internal Buy-In

10:38 – Career Journey: DIY Lab to Field Scientist

14:48 – Vendor Advocacy & Black Box Systems

16:32 – Tech Rollout: MVPs & Early Users

20:27 – Platform Adoption: What Really Matters

24:49 – Ecosystem Fit: Bandwidth, Labware & More

27:44 – Future-Proofing Scientific Tools

30:37 – When Automation Goes Sideways

33:21 – Empathy, Buy-In & Customer Trust

35:15 – MacGyver Moments in the Field

40:46 – Design-Build-Test with Customers

42:30 – Listening for Real Pain Points

43:45 – Upstream/Downstream Sales Fluency

45:18 – Python in the Modern Lab Stack

46:41 – Biology + Engineering Collaboration

48:32 – Picks of the Week

52:46 – In-N-Out vs. Shake Shack

54:05 – Wrap-Up & Where to Find Ali

🔗 Connect with Ali Glaser

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