Researcher Superpowers: What You Have That the World Needs

What you will learn

• Name the six transferable capabilities research training builds: comfort with uncertainty, systems thinking, deep domain knowledge, evidence evaluation, synthesis and communication, and learning new fields fast
• Reframe the classic gaps (accounting, legal, sales, marketing) as partnership problems rather than personal deficits
• Place your expertise in a global service economy where clients no longer need to be in your city or country
• Name, honestly, what is actually stopping you

This lesson is introspective. Read it slowly. Pause where things feel uncomfortable or surprising.

The Invisible Asset Problem

When researchers think about starting a business or building a career outside academia, they often begin by listing what they lack. They don't have business training. They don't know how to sell. They've never managed a profit and loss. They find accounting confusing and marketing uncomfortable.

We think this is the wrong starting point.

Instead, we encourage you to begin with an honest inventory of the skills you have from years of rigorous scientific training. We are asking you to come up with the assets, skills, mindsets and capabilities that have allowed you to conduct research, teach classes, write papers, give presentations and all of the things you have spent your career doing so far.

Our goal is to transfer these skills beyond the contexts that you have developed them.

Most researchers undervalue their skills by a significant margin. The market, in many domains, does value the skills that scientists have.

Your Superpowers: A Field Guide

We suggest starting with superpowers that most people who have spent time in academia and science already have. What are these superpowers? We think of these skills as the hard-won cognitive and professional capabilities that people from different backgrounds do not have and cannot easily acquire.

Below we have listed some superpowers that we see many people in academic environments have. Consider what maps onto your skills and ask yourself what you are already skilled in.

Read two of the six in depth. Each superpower below folds the rest of its explanation (the supporting detail and the "Is this you?" prompt) behind a "Read more" toggle; expand it for the two that feel most relevant to your own work.

Superpower 1: Deep Domain Knowledge

Because you have advanced training, you know at least one subject area in extraordinary depth.

Superpower 2: Evaluating Evidence

You were trained to ask: how do we know this?

Superpower 3: Synthesis and Communication

You have likely given talks to audiences ranging from specialists who knew more than you to lay audiences who knew nothing.

Superpower 4: Systems Thinking

Many of you were trained to understand complex interdependencies and to see the systems you're working within.

Superpower 5: Learning Quickly

Your academic training taught you how to read and absorb a new literature, identify the key papers, understand the methodological debates, and form a defensible view.

Superpower 6: Comfort with Uncertainty

You may have spent years working in conditions of deep uncertainty.

Addressing the Blind Spots

Every researcher we've worked with names a similar set of gaps or blind spots where they don't feel comfortable going into business for themselves as an entrepreneur: accounting, legal, sales, marketing, HR, and "business strategy." These can often feel to academics as though they were disqualifying deficits that don't allow them to participate in the corporate world.

They are not.

Almost all of these gaps can be addressed through partnerships, collaborations, and specialist services, most of which are cheaper and more effective than you expect. Below we've shared some ways in which you can find the kind of support you'd need.

Accounting and finance. A bookkeeper and a good accounting platform (Xero, QuickBooks) handles the routine aspects of finances. A part-time CFO or financial advisor handles strategy. For early-stage work, an accountant who specialises in small businesses or research spin-outs is often the only financial support you need. Cost: often $200-500/month for basic bookkeeping.

Legal. For most early-stage ventures, a startup-friendly lawyer on retainer or a fixed-fee engagement for specific tasks is sufficient. Technology transfer offices at universities often provide early-stage IP advice. Many countries have legal aid resources for small businesses. You do not need a general counsel until you are large enough to justify one.

Sales and business development. Sales is usually just conversation: understanding what a potential client is trying to accomplish and explaining clearly whether you can help. The researchers who struggle with sales usually struggle because they're trying to sell before they've listened, not because they lack sales skills. Listening carefully and asking good questions? You can do that.

Marketing. For consulting, the most effective marketing is usually publishing: writing about what you know in ways that demonstrate your thinking to people who might need it. A blog, a newsletter, a conference talk, a co-authored industry paper. You already do versions of this in academic form. The shift is in the audience and the framing, not the underlying skill.

HR and people management. Early-stage: you probably don't need HR. As you grow: fractional HR consultants, employer-of-record services, and good employment templates handle most of what early-stage companies need. This scales with the business; it doesn't need to exist before the business does.

Strategy. Advisory boards, mentors, peer networks, and experienced collaborators all provide strategic input without requiring you to become a strategist yourself. This is exactly the function that workshops like this are designed to start building. Consider your colleagues in this workshop part of your work.

In all of these areas, the gap in your knowledge may be real, but it is a partnership problem, not a personal development problem. You do not need to become good at accounting. You need to find a good accountant.

The Global Service Economy Question

There is a structural reality that many researchers are not fully aware of. In the current global service economy, your clients do not need to be in your city, or your country. A bioinformatician in Wellington can advise a pharmaceutical company in Boston. A statistician in Dunedin can consult for a clinical research organisation in Berlin. An ecologist in Auckland can design monitoring frameworks for conservation organisations in Southeast Asia.

The barriers to working across the world are much, much less than they used to be. Video calls, asynchronous collaboration tools, international payment platforms, and globally connected professional networks have made geography largely irrelevant to expert services.

This particularly matters for researchers in small countries. The New Zealand domestic market for specialised scientific consulting may be limited, however the global market is not. The question of whether to build something here is now different from the question of whether to sell here. You can do both.

Instead of asking: "is there a market for what I can do?" you might consider asking: "What would I need to believe about myself and my work for this to feel like a real possibility?"

What's Stopping You?

It's worth taking some time to consider this question sincerely as we go into the shared conversation. Many academics and scientists can believe themselves to be alone in the kinds of blocks they see. We share these common blocks to make it clear that you aren't alone in feeling the blockages you feel.

We suggest walking through each of these blocks and pausing when something feels relevant to you. Your situation may be slightly different, but we strongly believe that each of these blocks is surmountable.

Common blockers for scientists:

Identity. For many researchers, being a scientist is more than their profession, it is who they are. The idea of building a business can feel like a betrayal of that identity, a demotion or something that threatens their ability to be themselves. If this is true for you, notice it and consider how you can affirm and retain the identities that do matter to you. Is possible to continue being a scientist in a new way? Is there a way to affirm your scientific identity while doing work that is different?

Imposter syndrome. "Who am I to charge for this?" is one of the most common things researchers say when they start thinking about consulting or commercialisation. It is almost always unfounded. The people paying for expert scientific advice are looking for rigour, honesty, and depth they don't have internally. Often this expertise is something that academics believe is commonplace, or routine. This can mean that you under-value what you know and are able to do.

Stability and risk. Academic positions, even insecure postdocs, come with infrastructure: a desk, a computer, an institution behind your email address, colleagues, and a salary (small as it may be). Building something new can mean giving up some of that infrastructure before the replacement exists. This is a trade-off. We suggest facing this head-on and asking yourself what you can do to make things feel less risky. Perhaps working with others, getting partnerships or asking for mentorship can help the shift feel more stable. Each person has to contend with this in their own way.

Not knowing where to start. This can feel challenging, but the overwhelm becomes manageable when broken into specific next steps. That is partly what this programme is for. What is the first small step you can take? How can you try something out? Who can you talk to who might have an interesting perspective on doing something different?

Visa and immigration status. For international researchers in New Zealand, and in many other countries, work visa conditions may restrict independent consulting or business activities. This is a real constraint and worth getting specific legal advice on before making any commitments. It can be more flexible than people assume. But the fears are real.

Partner and family expectations. Building something new affects the people around you and may have impacts on relationships and family expectations. We suggest having open conversations with your family and those around you, insofar as it is possible, to work through what those expectations look like.

Reflection Prompts

Come to the session having thought about these questions. You won't be asked to share anything you don't want to share.

1. Which superpower above do you have the clearest real example of? Name one specific moment from the last two years, not just the label.
2. Name one capability you use regularly that is not on the list above, and the specific situation where you used it.
3. What are the real blockers for you? What is keeping you from trying something new?
4. Finish this sentence: "If I knew it would work, I would..."

Before You Begin

Discussion 1: The Superpower Inventory (15 min)

Discussion 2: The Deficit Reframe (10 min)

Discussion 3: The Visibility Exercise (15 min)

Discussion 4: The Blocker Circle (10 min)

Discussion 5: The Today Question (10 min)

This challenge is personal and cumulative. It feeds into your 90-day plan at the end of Day 2.

Part 1: Your Superpower Statement (15 min)

Write a one-paragraph description of your core research superpower. Focus on your the underlying capabilities that your research training has given you that most people don't have.

A useful structure:

"I am unusually good at [capability], developed through [specific experience]. This means I can [concrete thing you can do for someone] in ways that people without this background typically can't."

Write at least two drafts. Try to avoid sounding like an academic bio. The second should sound like something you'd say to a smart non-scientist friend who just asked what you're good at.

Examples to calibrate against:

"I am unusually good at finding patterns in messy, high-dimensional biological data, developed through six years of building analytical pipelines for whole-genome sequencing studies. This means I can help companies make sense of genomic datasets that their bioinformatics teams are struggling with."

"I am unusually good at synthesising conflicting evidence from large, methodologically diverse literatures, developed through systematic reviews and meta-analyses in environmental toxicology. This means I can give companies and regulators a reliable picture of what the science actually shows on contested questions, faster and more rigorously than they could build internally."

"I am unusually good at designing experiments that isolate causal effects in complex systems, developed through a decade of field ecology research. This means I can help organisations design evaluations and studies that produce credible results in complex situations."

Part 2: The Blind Spot Audit (10 min)

List the three gaps that feel most significant to you (the things you'd need to build or find before you could offer your superpower commercially).

For each gap, answer: who already does this professionally? Could you hire, partner with, or collaborate with them?

How can you reframe these as a partnership map rather than a to-do list.

Part 3: One Customer (15 min)

Describe one specific potential customer for your superpower. Be as specific as you can:

• What kind of organisation are they? (Not "biotech." A small biotech company developing RNA therapeutics that has just moved into clinical trials and doesn't have the internal bioinformatics capacity to handle the data they're generating.)
• What are they trying to accomplish?
• What problem does your superpower solve for them?
• Why can't they solve it internally or with a generic consultant?

If you can't name a real organisation, name the type in the same level of detail.

Part 4: The Blocker (5 min)

Write one honest paragraph about what is actually stopping you. Be honest, you don't have to share this with anyone. But naming it clearly is the precondition for addressing it.

Part 5: The Sentence (5 min)

Complete this sentence:

"If I knew it would work, I would ..."

Bring Parts 1 and 3 (superpower statement and one customer) to your next group session. Bring Part 4 to your next one-on-one mentoring check-in.

Key Concepts Reference

Superpower: a capability developed through rigorous training that is scarce in the broader market and valuable to people who need it. Distinct from a skill (narrower, more learnable) and from domain knowledge (content rather than capability).

Complementary partnerships: collaborations with people whose skills address your gaps, rather than attempting to develop those skills yourself. The most effective early-stage businesses are usually built on complementary partnerships rather than solo capability development.

Expert services: a business model in which the core product is knowledge, judgment, and expertise rather than a physical good or a software product. The researcher's natural domain. Sold through consulting, advisory roles, research partnerships, reports, training, and expert testimony.

Imposter syndrome: the persistent, usually unfounded belief that one's competence is insufficient for the task at hand, combined with fear of being exposed as a fraud. Exceptionally common among high-achieving people, including researchers. Worth naming because it shapes decisions in ways that aren't usually visible.

Niche: a specific, well-defined market segment where your particular combination of expertise, experience, and approach creates value that generalists cannot match. Counter-intuitively, a narrower niche usually produces more business than a broad one, because it makes you the obvious answer to a specific question rather than one of many answers to a general one.