The Honorable Entrepreneur

Description

THE HONORABLE ENTREPRENEUR is the unvarnished memoir of physicist Philipp Baaske, who—together with fellow PhD student Stefan Duhr—turned a benchtop prototype into NanoTemper Technologies. This €56 million global biotech-tools leader remains 100 % founder-owned and VC-free.

From a near-fatal Swiss Disaster that almost stole their patents, to selling 29 hand-built instruments before a product even existed, to walking away from a US $60 million buy-out while still a 35-person firm, Baaske shows how trust, focus, and a seven-point Code of Honor can beat venture capital and power sustainable deep-tech entrepreneurship.

WHO IT’S FOR

•       Scientists and engineers turning research into biotech startups or deep-tech ventures

•       Founders bootstrapping global companies from Europe and beyond

•       Leaders scaling technical teams without losing culture, control, or profitability

•       Readers of The Hard Thing About Hard Things or Lost and Founder seeking a European twist

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

•       Funding & ownership: how pre-selling, grants, and disciplined reinvestment financed growth while keeping equity

•       Product & customers: why real pain, not clever tech, drove every pivot and launch

•       People & culture: lessons from a 24-hour lay-off, firing a toxic star, and running a company on a Code of Honor, not bureaucracy

•       Crisis leadership: daily pandemic calls that lifted revenue to €56 million without Kurzarbeit abuse

•       Global sales: the messy reality of exporting lab instruments to 45 countries from a Munich basement

•       M&A reality check: the SAW Instruments deal that flopped and why culture fit matters

TRUE STORIES INSIDE

•       A fraudulent family “partner” nearly tanks the company before it begins (the Swiss Disaster)

•       Christmas Eve 2009: a data-driven all-nighter wins the first €10 000 pre-payment and sparks 29 prototype sales

•       Saying “No, danke” to $60 million and betting on independence instead of exit

Written with self-deprecating humor and Michael-Lewis-style narrative drive, The Honorable Entrepreneur offers scar tissue, hard data, and repeatable frameworks you won’t find in any MBA classroom.

Ready to build a deep-tech company that lasts and stay honorable while you do it? Start reading The Honorable Entrepreneur today.