What inspired you to join the BioRender team?

Great mission + wonderful coworkers + best-in-class product. BioRender is a bootstrapped company made up of humble-smart people helping the world’s scientists communicate. What’s not to love?

The first time I collaborated with scientists was in college as a writing tutor for a bioanalytical chemistry class — and I got addicted to helping passionate people relay complex ideas to broader audiences. That’s been a thread throughout my product marketing career, building programs for data analysts, operations executives, privacy experts, and other technical professionals.

When the BioRender opportunity came up, I sent my MD/PhD-earning sister a text to get her thoughts. She used the word “irreplaceable” to describe the product. Ultimately I learned BioRender’s users and fans are among the world’s brightest, most creative thinkers — and getting the opportunity to amplify their genius is one I couldn’t pass up.

What are you looking to accomplish as Director of Product Marketing here at BioRender?

I’m building a full-funnel product marketing organization that establishes, upholds, and grows BioRender’s brand value. We are responsible for taking products and services to market, telling our scientist community’s stories, and enabling revenue teams with programs that generate pipeline and boost conversions. It’s a tall, delicious order.

Right now, this means operating very collaboratively: with Product and CS teams to fine-tune our launch process; with Sales, RevOps, and Finance to run new revenue playbooks; and with Enablement to establish positioning and train on value selling. (To support these efforts, we opened roles for two product marketing managers — let’s work together!)

What is the first thing you do when you start your workday?

Review my calendar. It’s helpful to know if there are new or changed meetings to prep for, and I can time-block for pressing action items. Also: coffee and oatmeal.

What methods/tools/techniques do you use to stay organized and focused at work?

I think the same advice for writing a good essay goes for your job: Say what you are going to do (strategize and align with stakeholders) → do that thing (operationalize and iterate) → say what you did (measure and retrospect). Running programs this way keeps the focus on quality of delivery, doing one thing well at a time, and laying the groundwork for scale.

What does the perfect weekend look like for you?

Hosting friends in the Pacific Northwest. Working on a landscaping project with my husband, monitored by our 90-pound dog. Going kayaking in the San Juan Islands. Catching up on podcasts while playing backgammon.

If you could learn a new skill or hobby, what would it be, and why does it interest you?

American Sign Language. I enjoy linguistics in general: etymology, foreign language dabbling, NYT word games… and the fact that ASL is a physical, universal language is compelling. I love that it’s become more common to teach kids ASL growing up, and I want to get on that bandwagon.

What's your go-to comfort food or favourite dish?

There’s a Sichuan place in Vancouver that serves a mean la zi ji. It’s chicken fingers for adults, plus chili peppers and aromatics. Yum.

What was your first job, and what valuable lesson did you learn from it?

I was in middle school for the first work-I-took-as-seriously-as-a-job, helping my mom laminate materials for her classroom. I learned to be patient as the laminator heats up.

My first “real,” post-college job was writing for and managing the website of an environmental magazine. I learned the value of adjusting tone and content for different audiences, and how to index web updates towards the primary goal of the company (gain subscribers); it was a helpful crash course in using engagement data as a driving input, rather than defaulting to personal judgment calls.

What is a piece of advice you give to new BioBuddies?

You’re surrounded by humble-smart coworkers, trained scientists, medical illustrators, domain experts, and people with solid work ethics. Leverage them, and our scientist community, as you onboard! As a fast-growing company, insights are often stored in people’s brains, and you get to be part of what democratizes their knowledge.

Don’t skip out on the team-building events that bring people together. Interactive games, interesting speakers, and weekly show-and-tells pepper the onboarding plan, which are critical for learning about and connecting with the rest of a distributed organization.

Oh, and use public Slack channels. (I keep DMing people, which does not keep that institutional memory alive. I’m working on it!)

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If you are interested in joining Piper and his Product Marketing team, head on over to our careers page to learn more! You can also try out our product for free by signing up for a BioRender account here.

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