Celebrating 10 Years Supporting Scientists
This year Hello Bio are celebrating their 10th anniversary - 10 years of supporting scientists with their expertise, a ground-breaking blog and their famous low prices! We spoke to cofounders Steve, James and Sam to find out what the last decade has meant to them...
Steve: For me, the last 10 years have passed in a flash!
What have been your biggest successes?
Steve: So many things - where to start? If I have to just pick one, I'd say our biggest success has been the creation of our small, close-knit, friendly, clever, hard-working and funny team. From Daria and Katie in customer service, to Vishnu and Anna in our stock control and dispatch, to Alen, Matt, Paul, Matej, Rich and Fil, our IT, antibody and chemistry experts - they have all made Hello Bio what it is today, with their dedication, skill and enthusiasm.
James: For me, I've been particularly proud of our Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) with the University of Bristol which was initiated with the aim of bringing novel, uniquely-validated research antibodies to scientists worldwide, improving quality standards in the industry, and advancing research into Alzheimer’s Disease and neurodegeneration. As a result of this partnership we've been able to bring a carefully curated, comprehensively validated and affordable range of antibodies (our ValidAb range) to researchers. And, we were delighted to discover recently that we were awarded the highest grade of "Outstanding" by the KTP Grading Panel for our achievement in meeting the KTP's objectives.
Sam: One of my personal highlights was winning the Researchers Choice in the CiteAb Awards in 2023. We'd been highly commended for a number of years, but to actually win the award, which is voted for by researchers, was a real high point! We were all super grateful to our customers for nominating us, and we loved reading their comments - it's just a great reminder that what we do is having a real impact on researchers, and science. We love the guys at CiteAb too - they are like us, a small team, using innovation and passion to support scientists! At Hello Bio we celebrated with some rather fancy antibody decorated cakes and some fizzy pop (non alcoholic of course - alcohol is reserved purely for use in the laboratories!)
What’s changed over the years?
Steve: In 10 years, we've seen a lot of changes. Our facilities have expanded and evolved, with chemical and QC labs, and a biological department. Our USA and EU offices were opened to better serve our customers around the world, and we've also developed a network of great distributors to help bring our products to researchers in other regions, such as China, South Korea and Australia.
James: I’ve seen a change in the products that our customers are requesting from us, as they expand their research into new areas and targets. It's been exciting to launch a really broad range of novel products, such as Lac-Phe, Yoda2, LSL60101, Trpvicin and the JHU DREADD ligands and a range of products which are only available from Hello Bio.
Sam: I’ve been so proud to see the growth and development of our little 'baby' blog to a really awesome archive of resources for early career researchers. We pride ourselves in sharing content which is informative, entertaining and inspiring for life scientists, featuring valuable career advice and fascinating interviews, as well as more fun and light-hearted articles, like our 10 Funny Science Songs You Need to Hear!
What’s been your favourite special initiative launched by Hello Bio?
Steve: I really love our annual Lab Heroes competition which we launched back in 2017. Each year it’s a real honour to read about the inspiring scientists who are working hard around the world every day but perhaps don’t get the public recognition they deserve. It’s lovely to play a part in celebrating their achievements and the impact they have on their lab colleagues.
Sam: One of our newer initiatives that I’ve been directly involved in is our virtual LabLife Conference event. It’s been fantastic to be able to bring together STEM experts from around the world and provide them with a free platform to deliver valuable information and advice to early career life scientists. Since the launch of #LabLifeCon our YouTube channel has filled up with so many great videos!!
James: I’m particularly proud of our Free Trial program which began earlier this year. We’re all about making science research more affordable for scientists, so the Free Trial program is allowing researchers to try something new from our range for free! It’s such a great way to show how good our products are while supporting scientists at the same time!
What have been the biggest challenges?
Steve: So, yes - there have been a lot (and I mean A LOT) of challenges along the way. Setting up your own business comes with a unique set of challenges, and we had a rocky start for sure! We secured a site, but after working for nearly a year on it, we had to pull out, as it had a dodgy roof! That wasn't a great start to our big adventure, but we bounced back, quickly found a new building, and got to work bringing Hello Bio to life!
James: For me, just one word - Brexit! As our labs are UK based, we anticipated that there could be problems with importing to and from Europe - and sadly we were right. But I am very proud that within a short space of time, we had set up our European Sales & Distribution Office, so our EU customers weren't affected by all the political wranglings and issues in the UK. I like to think of us as very 'swan like' in those early days - lots of frantic activity 'under the water', with minimal impact for our European customers serenely gliding through on the top.
Sam: And then along came Covid... a scary challenge for everyone of course, not just businesses. I was especially proud that during this period of enormous challenges (staffing, resources, customer lab shutdowns etc), we were able to keep delivering our products where they were needed. Not only that, we quickly delivered a new range of Covid research products to help, and provided some amazing resources on our blog to help scientists with the real issues they were facing at that time, such as The Life Scientists’ Guide to Working Remotely and Tips for Presenting Research on Zoom.
And finally... how will you celebrate the 10th anniversary?
Sam: Did I already mention that we like cakes?! So our celebrations will definitely include one! For our customers, as a thank you for supporting us over the last decade, we have some special discounts and fun blog posts planned...
Steve: And we'd like to sincerely thank our customers for the last 10 years. We love to read their lovely comments and feedback about our products and service - we share them all with the whole team and with every 5-star review we get a warm fuzzy glow! It's been a brilliant journey so far, and we're all looking forward to seeing what the next 10 years will bring!
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If you enjoyed this article, why not check out the other resources available on our blog. We are passionate about supporting life scientists including early career life scientists and PhD students - with really low-priced reagents, antibodies and biochemicals, early career scientist grants, and resources to help with both personal and professional development. We know how tough it is - so we hope you find these helpful!
More General Support for Life Scientists
For advice on wellbeing, dissertations, presenting at conferences, wellbeing, PhD support, networking and lots more, we have a huge range of articles to help - just click below:
Save up to 50% on our high purity reagents...
When you get to the stage of planning your experiments, don't forget that we offer a range of low-cost, high-purity agonists, antagonists, inhibitors, activators, antibodies and fluorescent tools (yes - they really are around half the price of other suppliers!) You can use our Quick Multi-Search Tool to search for lots of products in one go, and the range includes:
- Enzyme inhibitors and activators
- Chemogenetic ligands
- Ion channel modulators
- GPCR & ionotropic receptor ligands
- Cell biology reagents & biochemicals
Technical resources
Try our Molarity Calculator: a quick and easy way to calculate the mass, volume or concentration required for making a solution.
Try our Dilution Calculator: an easy way to work out how to dilute stock solutions of known concentrations
We also offer a comprehensive range of technical resources including antibody protocols and methods, product guides and mini-reviews:
And finally, don't forget to check back in with our blog regularly for our latest articles. If there’s something you’d love to contribute to the community, whether that’s an interview or article, drop us a line at hello@hellobio.com
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