Doug Lockyer

Doug formed a small bioinformatics consultancy in 2002, called Riptide Bioscience. The first client was an Artificial Intelligence technology firm: BioMind.

The strategy adopted after due diligence, market research and other industry analysis was to make a collection or suite of tools available to large biotech, rather than to get caught up in research direct.

This approach is known among biotech as the Picks and Shovels approach. While some enterprises flock to areas of research to mine for data, much like prospectors congregating around the Black Hills of Dakota, or the Gold fields of California, other enterprises set up Hardware outlets to sell tools to the prospectors.

The productizing strategy of a creating a suite of specialized tools, rather than a one-stop-solution, helped scientists to recognize value related to their specific, topical needs, thus reducing customer education, and leveraging "point-of-pain" issues within the biotech industry. Also, of course it is easier and quicker to sell a pick, then a shovel, then a gold pan, than it is to sell an integrated gold mining collection.