From Sleep Researcher to Consultant to Entrepreneur

Meet Els van der Helm the ‘Sleep Geek’; Neuroscientist and founder of Shleep - the sleep company

You hold a Master and a PhD in Neuroscience. Would you tell us more about your background?

I’ve always been fascinated by sleep. I read a book by Prof. Bill Dement from Stanford when I was in high school which taught me about the magic of sleep and also the taboo around it: that we associate it with being lazy or less ambitious. That really inspired me to study clinical neuropsychology and neuroscience. So during my Master on these topics, I started to do sleep research, first at the Netherlands Institute of Neuroscience in Amsterdam and then at Harvard, looking at the effect of sleep in emotional processing. And then I went on to do my PhD at UC Berkeley, looking at the effect of sleep on our brain.

Els van der Helm, sleep expert and founder of Shleep

 How was your transition from the PhD to becoming a McKinsey consultant?

I really enjoyed doing sleep research and learning about it, but at the same time I realized that doing neuroimaging is very technical and not necessarily my passion. I also missed working in a team and having a more direct impact. I really wanted to help people and the slow pace of academia didn’t fit me. So I decided to make a change and go into business and learn more about the rest of the world, beyond academia.

How was your experience as a business consultant for almost 3 years?

The beginning was quite rough in some ways and quite easy in others. Starting with the roughness: there is much more time pressure on what you are doing. I remember having meetings with my manager and instead of saying ‘I’ll see you in a week’, which was kind of the pace in academia, the answer would be ‘OK, let’s see in two hours where you are’. So, suddenly, you’re doing everything under time pressure. And for me it really meant that I still had a lot to learn about time management and organizational skills. I also had to share my documents with the rest of the team and the clients, whereas in academia it was much more individual: I could make a mess, as long as I could understand it. So the biggest changes for me were the change in pace and the level of focus that it required. It was much more intense. Also, I was at the client’s site the whole day and couldn’t for example go work out in the middle of the day if I wanted to, as I was able to do during my PhD. That was quite rough, to be honest. It was a very different way of working that I needed to learn. Different skills were required and these weren’t skills that you just get within 2 or 3 weeks. I would say I really got the hang of it when I was doing the work for about 9 to 12 months. And that’s quite normal, but coming in after a PhD or a post-doc as opposed to after a Master or a Bachelor’s degree, you expect more of yourself. So for me it was a humbling journey, having to develop all of those new skills, basically a 'consultant's toolbox'. This toolbox is not just critical in consulting, but helpful in any type of job. I also enjoyed the fact that you work in a team, you get so much feedback, training and support around you, which I didn’t really experience during my PhD. So my learning curve was a lot steeper than it had been in academia. I felt like I was using my time better. It was always a different project, team, manager, client, and industry. In consulting, every year feels like a ‘dog year’: it’s worth 7 years! (laughs) So it’s a rough transition but I’d say well worth it. You develop yourself very quickly and it’s a unique experience. There were things I loved and things I was less happy about, but overall, a very positive experience.

What motivated you to make the career change of leaving consulting in a big firm to starting your own company?

It was never really my goal to stay in consulting forever. For me, it was all about purpose. I really wanted to focus more on something I’m really passionate about. The funny thing is that when I joined McKinsey I didn’t think I would ever do anything with sleep again, but not working on sleep anymore made me realize how much I missed it, and how passionate I was about the topic. Perhaps in academia I wasn’t working on the topic in the right way: it was very technical and very slow, which I didn’t really enjoy. When I started as a consultant, I also quickly realized that, for me, business problems are really not as interesting as neuroscience and the brain. But I did really love being in the business world and interacting with people who are really smart, care about their own performance and are very ambitious. In McKinsey, we received a lot of training: in time management, stress, leadership... But never ever did the word ‘sleep’ come up. Knowing how critical sleep is for learning, attention, stress reactivity and developing new insights, I felt that was a major topic missing. 

 'IT STARTED AS MY HOBBY AND THEN GREW INTO A COMPANY'

That really inspired me to start giving sleep workshops for my colleagues and McKinsey clients. It was so much fun and there was so much interest. Giving these workshops made me realize how I could work with the topic of sleep in a way that fits me much better: translating science into practical advice (which I wasn’t really doing in academia) and seeing a direct impact on the people I was working with. That was something I cared about much more than being a consultant. It started as my hobby while at McKinsey but I really made that grow and carved out a space for myself, as the internal sleep expert. It was almost like a testing ground for me, or an incubator, where I could test my ideas, get feedback, and grow my network and skill set. So I decided to leave and started my own business, called Shleep, in 2016.

Can you please tell us more about Shleep? What are its products and who are its clients?

Our mission is to help the world sleep better. We help organizations improve their performance by improving the sleep of their leaders and employees. For this, we offer a number of products and services. We design sleep programs for companies, which means that we help them develop approaches to put sleep on the map and really embrace it in their culture, so that all employees know how important sleep is and can prioritize it better. This way, they perform better, are happier and healthier. Some other services we offer are online assessments, in-person workshops, one-on-one coaching, webinars, and we’ve developed a digital sleep coaching app that will be launched soon in the App Store, so it will also be available for individual consumers. Examples of our corporate clients are McKinsey, Deloitte, Spotify, social network companies, pharmaceutical companies, law firms, startups, amongst others. Our startup team is quite international. The office is based in Amsterdam, along with our marketing guru, Tom, and myself. My co-founder, Jöran Albers (the ‘business guy’), is based in Munich, our developer is from Switzerland but lives in the Netherlands, and Elena, a circadian rhythms PhD, is based in Canada.

http://www.shleepbetter.com/

What advice would you give to current Master and PhD students in Neuroscience who would like to leave academia?

Join our company for an internship! (laughs) I’m laughing, but I’m actually serious! What is great about our startup is that we have experience in management consulting (two people in our team) and we really use these skills in the way we run our company and develop our employees, which we are very much focused on. At the same time, you can get the startup experience, where things change very quickly, we re-prioritize all the time, things are up and down, exciting, moving fast. And we’re translating science into practical advice and products on a daily basis.

 'YOU REALLY HAVE TO DO SOMETHING THAT YOU CARE ABOUT'

Other types of advice: you really have to do something that you care about, that you’re happy to wake up for in the morning. Figure out what it is that drives you. It’s not easy. It took me a while to figure out that for me it was sleep. But look back at your life and think about some of the key moments when you were really happy, inspired or content with what you were doing. Pinpoint moments when you really enjoyed or didn’t enjoy doing something, instead of trying to imagine what you would enjoy doing, because a lot of things aren’t really like what they seem to be. And focus on your own strengths. Ask people around you what you’re good at, what they think is special about you, so you can leverage those strengths. And reach out to people in different jobs, ask if you could meet them for a coffee or talk to them for a few minutes on the phone to ask some career questions. It can be incredibly helpful to get some inside information. I wish you all the best figuring it out!

by Mariana Cerdeira, PhD Student AG Harms

This article originally appeared December 2017 in CNS Volume 10, Issue 04, Sleep 

Your Lab Notebook Goes Digital!

Even though labs today have high-profile technical equipment and produce data mainly digitally, most of the documentation is still done on paper. Labfolder provides an electronic, web-based note book that allows you to store, organize, and analyze your scientific data in a digital format, accessible anytime and anywhere. We met with one of the founders, Florian Hauer.

What is the idea behind Labfolder?
Labfolder is a digital platform where scientists can capture, validate, collect, and also connect all the data and data sources in the laboratory. In most laboratories, scientists still use paper-based lab books. Labfolder transforms these labs into the laboratories of the future, where everything is digital and connected. The idea is that science will be better, more transparent, more reproducible, and more successful if the lab goes digital.

When did you start working on Labfolder?
I started working on Labfolder together with my co-founder Simon Bungers in 2011. It all started with writing a grant for the EXIST fellowship from the German government which awarded us 100.000 EUR to start. We started building the first prototype in 2012 and founded the company in autumn 2013.

You came directly from working in a lab and created Labfolder. What is your background?
My background is molecular biology and biophysics. I had done electron microscopy before I started with Labfolder; it is a discipline which is very data-heavy.

STAYING IN ACADEMIC RESEARCH IS AS RISKY AS FOUNDING A STARTUP

How did you get into this field? Why did you decide not to follow research?
It was curiosity. And then followed by possibility. My co-founder and I were curious to see what it would look like to have our own company. When we got the possibility to do it, we grabbed it immediately. We were often asked if this was not very risky, but our statement is that staying in academic research is equally risky. There is actually no difference whether you want to pursue the academic path, go to the industry or build a startup.

Did you have any training which prepared you for your adventure?
We had to learn everything right in the moment: how to do tax declarations, set up contracts, register a company, and so forth. Luckily, we were embedded in a network from the FU Berlin, which came with our funding. They gave us support in many ways. But I can tell you this: If you have done scientific lab work, then doing the bureaucratic efforts of founding a company is really not rocket science. For a scientist, I would say, it is not a big problem to figure out how to do all these things that are necessary to start and run a company.

What were the milestones in the development and growth of Labfolder?

Our first important milestone was the release of the alpha version in 2012. After only 3 months of development, we released the first very basic prototype of Labfolder, which was already good enough to ignite the interest of some users here at the Charité. More milestones were the steps of publishing new features and available languages. Among the milestones are also the partnerships that we made both with other startups like Mendeley and investors, but also our agreement with the Max Planck society, and very recently with the BIH to roll out Labfolder here at the Charité and the MDC.

FOUNDING A COMPANY IS REALLY NOT ROCKET SCIENCE

 

Who is using Labfolder already and how many customers do you have?
Around 14.000 scientists are using Labfolder. Most are from Germany, but also from the rest of Europe, the US, and Asia. Our customers are 60% academic research laboratories, the others are companies. However, the number of customers does not necessarily reflect the number of users, as for example the Max Planck society is one customer with many users. We also have customers that are using Labfolder in analysis labs with routine testing.

Andrea Claes (l) and Florian Hauer (r) from Labfolder, Photo: Claudia Willmes

How is Labfolder going to evolve in the coming years?
Very soon we will release a few features that will allow scientists to manage their data even better. One feature will allow you to control the experimental parameters in a more structured way, and run queries on your experimental data. Another feature will allow you to link all the material you are using by introducing a material database.
In the long run, we are interested in implementing all the features that allow scientists to get a better grip on their data and make more out of it. The promise of digitalization is not only to have everything digital, but to also do something with the data: To make connections that were there but were not visible before. In the age of big data, it is important to make it possible for scientists to easily store and access it.

What do you like the most about your job?
I like that I have to do something new every day. It never gets boring. There are no normal work days!

What are some of the challenges of your job?
Well, the challenges are also that there is something new every day. But I think it is the challenges that make us grow stronger. I would say that it is probably not the easiest of all jobs, but in our team we are all equally hungry for challenges and for the success that comes with mastering them.

Do you sometimes wish you would be doing experiments in a lab?
I actually still do lab work as a guest scientist! It is very important to me to stay connected to the laboratory and science. Of course, I do much less. I usually take 2 weeks holiday per year which I spend in the lab. I have never lost the connection to the lab and I also plan to keep that in the future.

IN TIMES OF BIG DATA IT'S IMPORTANT TO EASILY STORE AND ACCESS DATA

 
To what extent can Labfolder contribute to better “scientific practice” and data availability?
Labfolder makes it easier to follow the guidelines of good scientific practice, as it is just done automatically without you needing to do anything. Today the main problem of science is that the data are just not accessible to others. If you write up your thesis, you finish your lab notebook and put it on the shelf in your lab: And the data are practically gone! With Labfolder, we want to make sure that future generations of scientists and also the general public will be able to follow your experiments and make use of your data. What ends up in the paper is maybe 5% of the data you have generated, and the rest is lost. It is our mission to provide the technical possibility to share the data in an easy way, and not to share only the tip of the iceberg which is the paper, but also the hidden bottom. These data could be used by others to come to new conclusions and to combine different datasets in order to find new things. With the digital platform for scientific data, there are going to be a lot of possibilities to exchange data. Funding agencies such as the DFG want scientists to share their data, including the raw data. There is a trend to open science and we would like to offer a platform where this trend can become reality.

LABFOLDER IS AN IMPROVEMENT OF  DATA SAFETY AND SECURITY

What about data security? Would it be possible to hack the Labfolder data?
This is a very valid question, but there is no system in the world that is 100% safe. Your paper notebook is also not safe. If you look at large industrial companies that fell victim to espionage, the port of entry never has been the system, but a corrupted person. The risk to be attacked by a hacker is especially high if you have your data on your personal computer or unsecured hard drive. Having your data on Labfolder, where the communication is encrypted and data are stored behind a firewall means security is a lot higher. Also, the Labfolder servers regularly undergo scheduled backups. Even if your computer bursts into flames, your data is still safe in Labfolder. Compared to the many other ways of data storage, Labfolder is actually quiet an improvement of safety and security.

What can our readers do if they want to start using Labfolder?
Using Labfolder at the Charité is now possible! You are very much invited to contact us, either me or Andrea Claes. Andrea will help finding the right strategy to transition from paper based lab book to Labfolder to make it seamlessly easy to jump into the digital lab notebook.

Thank you very much for this interview, we are looking forward to the new features of Labfolder!

This interview was edited for length and clarity
 
Interview by Claudia Willmes, PhD Alumna AG Eickholt / AG Schmitz
This interview originally appeared June 2017 in  CNS Volume 10 - Issue 2

You are very much invited to contact Andrea Claes,
Project & Account Manager, and contact partner for the BIH andrea.claes@labfolder.com

How Wearing a Fitness Tracker Can Change You

Lately, a big market for fitness trackers has emerged. Different wearables and apps can measure a number of fitness-related parameters, including heart rate, GPS tracking, steps, distance covered, pace, calories burned or even sleep quality. In many cases, you can also log your caloric intake to get an even better profile of your performance. But the psychological aspect of fitness trackers is just as important as the technology behind them because they do more than inform: they reinforce, motivate and reward.

The Advertised Effects
Fitness trackers and apps are advertised as beneficial for your health and lifestyle. They provide an objective measure of your activity so you can’t lie to yourself. Wearable trackers should get you to be more active, motivate you during exercise and provide information about your daily routine or workout without requiring manual calculations or notes. Furthermore, they should help you to reach your fitness goals.
These devices and apps are becoming increasingly popular in personal healthcare and promise easy lifestyle changes. These promising words fall on fertile soil. Most adults are aware of (or at least suspect) not meeting their recommended daily activity guidelines. However, there are no objective research results to bolster up their promise of improving physical activity levels.

Do They Work?
Fitness trackers are great for those who really have no idea how many calories they burn during an activity and can help those in need of a motivational tool to keep them going. However, one study found that using a pedometer did not significantly increase step count among overweight and obese adults [1]. Another study with overweight people showed that after 18 months, those who had used a device that tracked steps and calorie expenditure lost on average five pounds less than people without self-tracking [2]. Thus, devices that monitor and provide feedback on physical activity may not offer an advantage over standard behavioral weight-loss approaches after all.

A FITNESS TRACKER INITIALLY INCREASES MOTIVATION

 

From personal observations and a (non-representative) survey among colleagues, it became apparent that a fitness tracker motivated us to be more active initially . For nearly all it was fun to log and track our own health data and progress with colorful charts and badges for achievements. However, the excitement – as with all new toys – had died away at some point and most of us were back to our previous activity levels after a while. Until now, not a single long-term study has analyzed the effect of constantly wearing a fitness tracker on the average consumer.

The Author's Personal Records

What Else Do They Do?
However, many users also observed that they developed a guilty conscience if they had not moved enough. In some cases this led to abandoning the device altogether. Thus, wearing the device alone is not enough to lead a healthier life. Many devices and apps offer an online platform where users can compare themselves with others or even challenge a friend. This additionally increases the motivation, but also the pressure to perform and reach your goals as the wearer is held accountable by the device, app and group members. The motivation to be at the top of a ranking can also be amplified by the ability to broadcast your exercise statistics via social media.

USING A FITNESS TRACKER CAN WORSEN EATING DISORDERS

This can, for obvious reasons, also have negative consequences for some people. One study examined the relationship between use of calorie counting and fitness tracking devices with eating disorder-related behaviour in college students [3]. Participants using calorie and fitness trackers manifested higher levels of eating concern and dietary restraint. Interestingly, fitness tracking, but not calorie counting, emerged as a unique indicator of eating disorder symptomatology. These findings suggest that for some individuals, these devices do more harm than good.

Should I Track?
It is nice to know your daily step count, heart rate, caloric intake, and the like, but wouldn’t you also have an approximate idea about these parameters if you simply reflected on your daily routine? Depending on how important it is for you to know the exact parameters, it makes sense to wear such a device... or not. Many devices have a built-in alarm that goes off if you have not move for a certain time. This might come in handy, but can also be annoying if you are at work and just can’t go for a walk right now. In the end, it always depends on the individual who wears the device.
If you are not prone to being overly critical about your weight, tracking your workouts and food intake can be motivating. But tracking everything might become obsessive for some, as the numerical focus of the trackers is akin to the obsessive fixation characteristic for eating disorders and exercise addiction.
It's true that these devices make you be more aware of your health. However, this can also be achieved without fitness trackers but instead with good education about lifestyle and health.

[1] Takahashi et al, Clin Interv Aging. 2016
[2] Jakicic et al, JAMA. 2016 
[3] Simpson et al, Eat Behav. 2017

by Claudia Willmes, PhD Alumni AG Eickholt/Schmitz

this article originally appeared June 2017 in CNS Volume 10, Issue 2, Digital Health and Big Data