Science Meets Startups | Roksana Khalid on Entrepreneurship & Founder Communities

I have to be real like I would never recommend you quit your job if you are going to be responsible for a kid and start a business unless you have all of the security in place for that kid to be okay. A lot of entrepreneurs are sleeping on their friends couches on their entrepreneur salary while they're figuring things out right and fixing things or you know you move in with mom and dad and maybe that's not something you want to do so you have to be really really clear that those are the realistic things that will happen. A lot of businesses they don't go anywhere from the ground up right they fail in a nine to five you have to listen to someone else and that becomes very much your conditioning right as an entrepreneur you're not actually supposed to be doing a job you're supposed to be building systems and hiring people to run them you're supposed to have a very high level of thinking you're not actually supposed to be doing the job i lost my back hey ali hopa and welcome to somewhere in stockholm a podcast production by experience stockholm i'm frankie your host and on this episode i'm bringing you a new voice as often we like to platform voices from Stockholm City, people who are doing some cool things that I think are worth highlighting. And in this particular episode, I'm bringing a special guest, Raksana Halid. And Raksana, she's very accomplished. So I'm going to just give you a little breakdown of her background. Your background spans from pursuing a PhD in science to working at one of Stockholm's leading startup accelerators, all while simultaneously exploring your own journey as a solopreneur experimenting with vibe coding. We're going to talk a little bit about that. And also being a mother. So, you know, there's a lot, there's a lot going on in your life. Her experience blends analytical rigor with creative problem solving, giving her a unique perspective on innovation, community building, and early stage entrepreneurship. Through her work, Roxanne is passionate about supporting fellow entrepreneurs in the startup phase, helping them navigate the challenges of launching new ideas while staying connected to their personal and professional values. Today, we're going to chat a little bit about her experiences, insights, and vision for fostering a community of emerging founders in Stockholm and beyond. Welcome, Roxana. How are you feeling now that we got a chance to chat a little bit more? Good. It's super good to connect with you. Yes, I'm very excited that you're here, and I'm excited for people to get to know a little bit about your journey and how you went from, you know, being in the sciences, as being, you know, very deep in academia to then navigating and bridging into startup and startup ecosystems and startup worlds. So I want to hear a little bit more about what drew you from the lab to the startup space and what did you discover by yourself along that way? So I love innovation. That was what drew me to science, to the lab in the first place. But I think that anybody who has kind of worked in academia for a while sees that, okay, there's a school of thought. a way of being. There's methodologies and procedures that have to be followed a certain way. And I had kind of by chance met a few people who were entrepreneurs and had startups. And I felt like these people are also pursuing innovation, but in such a different manner. Any founder can say, you know, that they can experiment and do what they want, essentially. And I thought that was really cool and interesting to have that kind of intellectual liberty, I guess, to test it out. So in my network, I had a few founders and a few entrepreneurs. And obviously with contact and things over time, maybe I got a little bit influenced. Yes. So when the opportunity came to be involved in the startup ecosystem in Stockholm, first it was digitally, actually. It was like an email about some group or some event where some people were talking about themselves and pitching. And I think it was maybe targeted to a scientist. And that's how it ended up with me. I don't remember exactly now. But I registered. I attended the event. And while I was there, a lot of people were talking about their ideas and what they want to do. And I liked the excitement. I liked the fire. And it really resonated with me. And at that point, I really felt like, you know, there has to be kind of a different scope within which I can be involved with innovation. So at that point, actually, there was a founder who wanted to work with me because we introduced ourselves. We said who we are. And that person said, I have a health tech startup and we could use somebody from science with a biology background to advise a little bit. So while I was doing my PhD stuff, I was also doing a little bit of advisory on the side. I love that. You're already using that expertise. That's when I started realizing, actually, there are so many overlaps in science and business, at least at the level in which I was operating, which was early stage founders and working with startups at that time. At that time of their career and their development, they were experimenting, same as I was. They were building hypotheses. They were questioning everything they're doing, wondering if it's going to work or not. And that's basically the experimental process. So I already had sort of the grit, that emotional component in place from science for that. And the deeper I went, I realized the more I thought about it, the more I compared it, the more I got exposed. We are in science ultimately producing a product. When I do research and I produce data, I put it in the paper and then I go to different places. I talk about that work that I've done. And all of that is, you know, productization, promotion, marketing. At some point, it even becomes sales, I guess. Yes. Yes. So, and I saw how there's just so many overlaps, right? Before coming here, I was thinking a bit deeper about it, you know, because the worlds are so separate, you know, they wouldn't be so separate if it was 100% overlap. So I realized that, you know, at the meta level, it's the same. A lot of the operations and behaviors and emotional component are the same, but the spheres that they encompass, business is really more in the social world. It's really more out there and it has a greater impact in many ways. Sometimes science is actually behind, you know, when the world was already adopting AI, right? When I was doing this vibe coding stuff and testing these things out, a lot of academics I know were still questioning whether AI is, you know, okay to use and what do we do with it? And they were, they're still kind of stuck on the cheating problem. To me, we're past that. There's nothing to do about it. You can't, you can't stop it the the tools that are used to prevent cheating are not working that well that's already been shown right and sometimes they're catching people who are not cheating which they're they're speaking and writing the way that ai does because it's just ai has been trained on human language you know so it's like and that's so that's very bad that's crazy that's really bad if you like you know accuse somebody of cheating when they didn't she has absolutely not done it that yeah to me that is one of like the worst things. I know, it is terrible. It's terrible. So, you know, to me, we're past that. This whole cheating question, that's gone, you know. And a professor I was discussing this with, I think made a really good point. And he said, I think the only thing left to do is oral presentations. That's the only way you can test people's knowledge. Exactly. You can test knowledge anymore. And that's going a little bit back in time. That's how my mom used to get tested in the university. But yeah, so all of these overlaps, all of these experiences, and I felt like I do have a lot to give. I think scientists in generally have a lot to give to the startup ecosystem, not just in the R&D space, which is what we are typically thinking about, but in the entire operations, in the mentality of it, in the grit that it takes to go from the bottom towards something that is a real product. And a lot of scientists don't realize that they are producing products when they produce papers also, or that their stuff is promotional materials. and the way that we produce papers is also branding. The way that we produce figures, the colors that we choose, right? The amount of discussions that we have had about styling, that's also a brand that you carry with you. And one of my colleagues, when she was, this is the last thing of my rant about this. One of my colleagues was looking at my paper and she's like, oh, you have a style. So I have, that's my scientific brand, the colors that I'm using, right? So, and all of the formatting thing, the line, the spacing, blah, blah, all of this, the way that I describe things, right? The logic that I want to take in my language. It's honestly, there's so many overlaps, but it's just, yeah, in one area we are in like an ivory tower, the way we operate, right? In academia. And the other space is like out in the social world and having impact on a much larger scale. So I would say that's been kind of my biggest like epiphany, kind of like aha moment that yes, I can do this. You can transition and you can bring a lot of clarity to people's operations. With of course, also the pure technical skill set of being a scientist and being an analytical thinker. So that's how we have ended up here today. Beautiful. Frankie here reminding you that if you enjoy this podcast, the one thing you can do to help us out that doesn't cost you a single thing is to subscribe or follow us. Please. That's the one thing you can do. Easy, easy peasy lemon squeezy. Click that button. Subscribe today. before. And I believe that a lot of the communication skills, a lot of the kind of synthesizing, experimentation skills, the methodology of being a scientist, understanding data, understanding data, the data analysis, a lot of that, and even resource allocation, resource efficiency, you know, all of that I got I got from my scientific you know like academic background and and I felt that especially for as much as I loved you know basic research the biggest thing missing in that academic context for me was seeing the real-life impact of the research that I was doing exactly and that is something that if you extrapolate to the business world it is one of the most immediate and kind of rewards of being an entrepreneur is that you actually whatever product whatever service you're developing you're going to have to talk to your customers sooner rather than later and you're going to hear from them whether you want it or not the feedback is there and and they're going to be more critical than any peer reviewer of any publication right so i think there there lies a core strength of a scientist it's like this ability to truly be analytical critical of of the product or of the thing you're doing but then for someone like maybe like us what I'm hearing from you is that we want to see the effect we want to see the impact it has on people and for me I think the biggest the biggest limitation of academia was that it was always very abstract sometimes it was like it wasn't really about the people or humans or a science but you know it wasn't I think people say that it is about the knowledge and about the the beauty of of life. But honestly, a lot of times it is just the office politics of academia. It is not about the actual patients. I think when you go into the clinical setting, as opposed to basic research, clinical research, it is a bit more, you see the human touch, you do get a little bit closer to it. But I always felt in the context of the lab, that it was very, very much not just a bubble, but it was detached from the social, the reality of what does the research actually mean when you convert it into the real world? And maybe perhaps if you work as a research and development scientist in a pharmaceutical company, maybe there is a more immediate connection. But I think in academia, that is not the case. And like you said, bringing that into the business world, I definitely think that that is one of the best advantages of impact entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship in general is that it gives you the ability to see much faster the effect that whatever you're producing, product, service, you know, has on the world. And that has been, I think, one of the greatest joys for me of going from being a scientist to being an entrepreneur has been that I get to see much faster and much more immediate. And perhaps that gives me a lot more fulfillment. I think a lot of my scientist friends who do these, you know, PhDs and postdocs, they go all this career in academia. They enjoy it because they enjoy the process itself, but they actually are not impact driven because I've always been very impact driven. So to them, the actual joy is being in the lab, is just being in the details of things. And I never, that was not what I enjoyed about science. What I enjoyed about science was the advancement of impact and exploration of knowledge so that it would affect positively the world. The business aspect, I also realized recently I was in a conversation with my colleagues. We're working on a manuscript. It's a long, slow process, I guess, as it happens in academia. But, you know, every time I look at this paper, I love this project. I love it so much. I want it to grow. I want it to live. I want it to be out there. You know, again, this visceral experience with science. But in between, there's these long phases where we don't work on it because there's review processes, blah, blah. And I'm doing my business activities in that period. And the things that I learn and practice in that space also feed into it and make me better. Like the resourcefulness, it goes both ways. Yeah. Definitely in terms of decision making, but also understanding the depth of your consequences. Because in business, right, in academia, there's a bit of cushion. A lot of the decisions that people will make won't necessarily ruin someone's life. But in business, people can go bankrupt, like there's big money involved. You know, there's like people are... People's livelihoods. People's livelihoods are there, right? So it's, I mean, in science as well, people's careers are involved and careers can get ruined with the poor decision making poor leadership and all of this of course but that happens much faster in that space and it makes you um it makes you like hard you know so before i'd be like oh you know we can discuss this and now when i go into talking about the paper i'm like what is the point of this conversation yeah we don't have time for this we need to publish this people are dependent on it we need to move forward you know like there's people are also publishing this work that we have spent all this time doing you know this whole thing about being scooped like there's there's a sense of urgency that maybe in science there is some but not often a constant pressure um the sense of urgency from in the business world taking that into science actually i feel um is quite productive yeah so it's get people get stuff done yeah we need to set deadlines otherwise we're never gonna get it done I mean, you know, all of this stuff that was really clear in that space, you know, the way people work, the way that people interact and operate. Feeding a bit of that into the, for me, feeding a little bit of that into my scientific operations has been quite productive. So, and the mom aspect, like the sensitivities that come up from there, the absolute lack of time. Yeah, you have to prioritize. Yes, and you have to be efficient. You need to make good decisions faster. so I think also when you know a bit I also when I was younger I could be like you know maybe if this is not a very good decision I have time to make a different one or you know what if I'll make this decision I'll test it out today if this doesn't work I can come in on the weekend and work on it I can work on it at night I can skip a couple nights of sleep and just focus on this and get it none of that right you have your hours for me it's like nine to three within which a space within which I have to make a good decision. So the kind of research that goes into that also, the thinking behind that is actually quite helpful towards a scientific mindset as well. So all of it works really well together. And I think it's quite a cohesive system to be in, a scientist, mom, entrepreneur. Why not? But you need really good support structures in place, I think. So I'm very grateful for like my family, right? And the kind of just literally support that comes from it. You're mentioning a support system and how that's really important for you. How did you go about finding a group of people or be it, you know, having these conversations with your family, right, as well, or your friends when you decided to transition and you decided to, I want to go all in into the solopreneurship path? and how did you navigate that and for anybody out there thinking okay I'm a mom I'm I already have a full-time job like I do I even can I handle this you know for anyone out there give give some some some clarity on how did you navigate this phase and and how did you find that support absolutely people can handle it like moms can handle it for sure but you have to be realistic about the logistics because clearly you have a mouth to feed you know you can't just mess around if you don't have money to meet rent. You can't just like crash on someone's couch with a kid. Your kid needs a home and food, you know? And so there's some realities in place that I think are a very real hindrance to risk-taking and that's perfectly, perfectly fine and not something to be like ashamed about or feel less than or something. So of course my husband has been financially very supportive in the sense that we need to eat and pay rent and things. So he has taken on quite a bit of that space while I go through my process of getting set up. And the process of getting set up can be longer or slower based on how you operate. So those things you can be careful about and tweak. So I was very shameless when I started. So before I even started, right, while I was doing my PhD stuff, as I mentioned, I was already getting involved and learning about it. So I was already preparing myself for this phase that was coming and I was talking to him about it like this is coming and he really liked it he likes to listen to a lot of entrepreneur talking and like social media things like this he likes the way they are he he's very curious about that space and that world um so for him it was very interesting and exciting so we were already kind of aligned in our interests and curiosities in this space so that's the first thing obviously if someone's like business is stupid that person is not it's just not gonna work if that's just an absolute of course you want a supportive partner and yeah that's the first family unit yeah the very first thing the second thing is i was also realistic about uh the fact that i'm going to take a major financial hit if i don't have a traditional nine-to-five job during this period um so we talked about that as well and i make sure that before i started this journey i had savings that were quite good to get me through you know at least a year of this phase and this time. So that is absolutely important. So I would not say quit your job, start your business unless you feel that you have all of these kind of realistic things aligned. A lot of entrepreneurs are sleeping on their friends' couches on their entrepreneur's salary while they're figuring things out and fixing things. Or you move in with mom and dad and maybe that's not something you want to do. So you have to be really, really clear that those are the realistic things that will happen. A lot of businesses, they don't go anywhere from the ground up, right? They fail. So I don't think that, I think of course you can dream about it and have fun and enjoy those thoughts and feelings and that excitement. But at some point you have to be grounded if you are a mom. No, you do not have the same privileges of a, you know, I always go back to my 21 year old self. I don't have the same privileges now that my 21 year old self had where I was in university. I could just test things out, do whatever, make up time later, whatever. So all of that realistic stuff needs to be in place. I do have someone I'm working with who is entrepreneur and also has a full-time job. Younger woman with a kid has that capacity to make things up later in time. But thinking about, you know, having a family. So, and I have to be real with her like you know if I'm gonna kind of coach that aspect into her life I have to be real like I would never recommend you quit your job if you are going to be responsible for a kid and start a business unless you have all of the security in place for that kid to be okay you know I'm gonna drag that kid from couch to couch exactly I would never recommend that someone do that if you already have a job if you don't you're already there then you need to buckle down right and get that business moving and working. But if that kid already has a pretty comfortable life, definitely do not do that. But what I told her, what I would recommend is you can try to cut back your responsibilities. Maybe you can be part-time so you can give more time to your business. And also, if you have a full-time job, you have pretty good money already, which means you can hire people to also work on your business and get it up to a level that's sustainable for you, at which point you can quit. Yeah. Which is what a lot of people do. Quite a few entrepreneurs that I follow on social media when they talk about their life and how they got started. They were in their full-time job. It's just, you know, they didn't have a kid or they found the time or somehow the support to do a little bit of the kind of enterprising on the side until that gave them enough of a revenue stream that they could quit that job and transition. So if you have a kid, you should absolutely be smart about it. I don't, I would never say like jump all in and have fun. It's such a huge responsibility. You have to take it very, very seriously. It's not like a, I'm just gonna test it out decision. Yeah, I'm percent and I think conditions the conditions that you're in circumstances definitely define your journey as an entrepreneur and The risk that you're willing to take on and yeah again, I think it's a completely different situation if you have dependents it be it We're talking about kids now, but let's say that your parents rely on you to send the money. I think there's a lot of Circumstances that play a role into this decision and how you approach it and you need to make it sustainable for yourself in the long run. Yes, exactly. But if that's something that people really want to do, because entrepreneurship is also like the spirit, right? It like takes over you and you really, I want this, I want this. And you also maybe want to quit your job and do that or something you really feel passionate about instead. Like I said, you are already have an income. You can definitely afford to hire some freelancers. You can definitely afford to pay for some services. Again, taking business into academia. One of the most awesome things I learned when I entered that the business space is how many tools there are digital tools that you don't even need to spend there is a tool for everything really like you just have if you pay for a service you can have if you have enough money to pay for certain services you'll just have to wake up in the morning brush your teeth and live your life and at the end of the night your business has already been run like yeah so you have to also this is one of the barriers for this kind of person that you're describing who wants to do it but isn't sure doesn't know maybe has dependence but you have some capital yeah um you can pay for stuff yeah but they have this emotional barrier of scarcity delegating or of delegating or not being able to yeah i i think it's more the latter definitely because even if you do have the security of full-time and full-time payment then you have this idea of either yeah scarcity of that oh but you know say for a rainy day or what if this happens or they have this sort of like inability or limiting, you know, beliefs of if I delegate, my business will not be my own anymore. My idea will be stolen. They have a lot of these complexes around finding or seeking help and also being able to take help. But those are one of the first complexes that you work through as an entrepreneur. So in a nine to five, you have to listen to someone else and that becomes very much your conditioning, right? As an entrepreneur, you're not actually supposed to be doing a job. You're supposed to be building systems and hiring people to run them. You're supposed to have a very high level of thinking. You're supposed to have an overview of what is the problem, what are the pain points, and how do we approach it. You're not actually supposed to be doing the job. So if you're going to go through this entrepreneurship journey, that is your journey. Yeah, you need to be willing to delegate the operational aspects of the job to improve. You're supposed to hire people, ultimately. Once you are, to me, that is, that is when I feel like I am succeeding when I am hiring a person to do something that I do not want to spend time doing. And I have given that job to somebody else who wants to have that job. Yes, yes. Who wants to build a system right together with this person or on my own to do something. So either through a digital product that I'm paying for that's running some aspect or that aspect where, you know, I've hired someone to do something to fix it and figure it out. That that's entrepreneurship. So would an example of that, we spoke a little bit about this in the pre-recording call, would an example of that kind of thing that you're like, this wasn't for me, would it be vibe coding? Tell me a little bit about your experience with vibe coding, because a lot of people are talking about vibe coding and if you can just define it first. Oh my gosh, yeah. I feel like there should be like a bit of PSA with vibe coding. It's been an awesome experience. Really awesome. I have a lot of positive things to say. you just like put in a prompt and you see you know your ideas just pop up right there within seconds it's such a great feeling you're just like you feel like this relief like oh my god this is actually going to work but the deeper you go into developing it when the vibe coding you know program reaches its functional limitations and then you break more things through your prompts than you actually build at that point you have to realize like this is not actually going to work And that was my experience. The product I wanted to build was way larger than the AI was able to actually do. The capacity for them to build. Yeah. Exactly. The lines of code must have gone so big that at some point it found like change the line spacing on page five. It would change the navigation along with the spacing. It was to mess up everything, all the bugs, all the bugs that come to life. All the bugs. Exactly. You know? And so some people have, so the thing I was doing was not that high risk. it was for a language app, which is also a whole other thing that we can talk about that everything that I've learned about just human nature and behavior in relation to this language learning and, you know, all of the social things that are happening in Sweden with language stuff. This is a whole other, whole other talk. But at the program level, at the product level, that was the main thing that it's just not able to handle the size of the product and the functionalities that were needed it just couldn't do it so that's not a very high risk thing but did you realize that you needed help with then you outsource that definitely would have to be like developed from scratch by a person with you know human thinking and learning and capacities definitely this is not something that i would be able to vibe code for sure and in the future i would come back to it and like there's a whole there's a whole aspect behind it and there are developers and things I've talked to about it. So there's a whole aspect to that side of the work. But in terms of the vibe coding itself, I think a lot of people have ambitions for health tech products with vibe coding. And the security features for this are not known. And AI's capacity is just being evaluated and understood. There's a lot of regulations that are not in place. So that's why I think it should be a bit of a PSA. Yes, there are some people who are making massive amounts of money through vibe coded products i do not think that they're handling anything beyond like a booking system i don't know i haven't gone into it too deep but you know or if they are they are not maybe aware or communicating the the risks of in terms of privacy and uh and like confidentiality i don't see how that product would pass gdpr like vibe coded product that has you know the capacity to take in that level of private information i just don't see how that would go. So I would not if, you know, I had a client who was talking about a product, developing a product and getting my support towards that, I would never recommend, you know, going down that line. So yeah, that has been, it has been a huge learning journey. And definitely, the product itself in this language space was also a huge learning journey. But now I want to wrap up our conversation by talking a little bit about how you're building a community of early stage entrepreneurs. And I want to hear a little bit about what inspired this idea and what kind of space do you hope it to become? So I love that question and it's a great wrap-up question because it goes all the way to the beginning the first thing we talked about which is a love of innovation and the different spheres in which innovation lives right scientists researchers academia and also entrepreneurs and more of the social world being out there in the world of more impact kind of maybe which is a bit like difficult to say also as a scientist because I do feel like I'm impacting, but we got it. So for this community, actually, I wanted to focus more on neurotech. I think it's important to niche down and to be able to draw from my experiences and my knowledge to support people in this space. And I want to have a space in which, you know, these worlds collide. So there is a world called NeurotechX where these spaces have collided previously. It was quite successful. And I believe the founder was Canadian. Okay. So I'm wondering if this desire for building a community. It's Canadian. I actually have a theory about, we're not going to go into it, but I have a theory about this. The Canadians are the ultimate community builders because honest, honest to God, the communities I had in Canada were so strong and we actually knew each other's neighbors and were supportive of each other. And I think I brought that to Sweden. I literally think, okay, I don't want to claim all of community building. But I think I reignited this fire in a lot of community organizers in Sweden, because they recognize that that is exactly what is missing in societies that have become hyper individualistic. But I do think it's a Canadian thing. It is a Canadian, because we care about our neighbor. Like we, I remember like ever since I was very little, we learn to talk to each other, help each other, share tools, share resources, And you cannot judge me because I am Canadian. Exactly. I miss the cue about being awkward with strangers. I am not self-sufficient. No, no, no, not at all. The cue about being awkward with strangers. Oh, that's right, that's right. I just chat with everyone in the queue. But people are so friendly when you do it because they're, like, surprised that you actually are a human being and you want to have a conversation. It just goes back to that conversation about stereotypes and not being true, right? Yeah. If you open up and if you make the first step, it's just, like, their entire world. Yeah. And they're, like, trauma dumping on you. a while after five minutes it's happened a few times i think i also have one of those faces like even bartenders will find me no no yeah i do and i think it's this girl next door thing and i really don't know why but then i end up becoming everyone's confidant and sometimes it's a lot to hold uh but it is really funny because my friends started to notice that for in bars the bartenders literally like talking to me about their problems you know and the stereotype is that bartenders are supposed to listen to you talk about your problems but then my friends are always like how do you get them to talk about their lives in like I'm like literally I this is I'm a therapist everyone will know but then tell me about community building why is it important why do you feel that there's a need for this connection between early-stage entrepreneurs like what is missing right now niching down into near attack first of all I have already talked to so many people and they have so many cool ideas and they have you know commercialization limitations they maybe don't know the market or I'm A lot of it is go-to-market, so that's kind of typically what I focus on and kind of doing the research, user research, like market research, you know, evaluating their competitors, seeing where do they fit in, helping them with positioning. A lot of that has come up, even though I'm a bit flexible and adaptable with the type of work that I will help with as a consultant. It's just a trend that I've noticed. And that has also led me towards understanding that this community could be a very helpful solution. On the other side, on the academia side, a lot of people don't know where to go, where to take their passion for their particular topic. Yeah. How to commercialize it. Yeah. How to commercialize where to go. So there's a whole, you know, group of research people that can do R&D stuff. And there's a whole group of people who need R&D stuff. And it's just logical for me that they should come together and meet. So those people learn about all the opportunities and spaces that are being inhabited by the people who are more out there, more out in the world. And maybe they can also pick up a bunch of business stuff and learn about it. Maybe they can build their own product. There's also innovation offices in universities that very not a lot of people take advantage of and it could be if they had that kind of i think uh spark you often don't know it's in you until you talk to someone or meet them yeah so there's so many levels to this but the main main thing the thing that's actually i think you know um market applicable is the sheer statistics of mental health issues yes and burnout and burnout out yes I think it's at this point it's probably like the leading cause of disability related unproductiveness so there's a lot of investment and interest in solving a lot of these problems and there are people who are producing a lot of solutions that are not going to market and if these spaces come together I think that a lot of the issues with tackling these issues with tackling mental health issues can be solved if people kind of put their minds together. And the reason I believe that that's true is because when COVID happened and so many people abandoned what they were doing and there was a collective agreement that we are working on the solution, that solution was built within record time. Yeah. So I do have evidence from the real world that when researchers and the commercial space, when academic and commercial spaces collide in a structured, organized way, really beautiful, magical things can happen. Solutions can be produced. But the main thing that I have to think about in this is that it has to be founder first. So whatever aspect of it that happens on my side in terms of commercializing this community, I'm always going to be thinking about how does this community actually give back on the financial side as well. So the main thing that I want to do right now is to figure out the financial stream that actually awards grants for tackling the different, you know, blockers that people face, because at the end of the day, on the entrepreneurship side, money is the limiting factor that stops people from getting to the final stages. At some point, they're like, we run out of money, we need to hire this person to finish producing this thing. They can find all sorts of help. They can talk to me about the position of the product. Is this the right product for this problem? I will do the research. I'll use my scientific background. I'll figure it out and help. But at some point, you have to pay to fix it or to build it. Cashflow is always the killer of any business. It's the king and it's the killer. And it's the main thing that I would want this community to ultimately address and offer. So other than all the network and all the typical things that communities offer, that's what I would ultimately wanted to give to people. Obviously, there's no way that 100% of people involved in the community would get grants or stuff. Yeah, but it could be like even micro funding and some and also, again, channeling resources into grant application, things like this. I think that's part of it. And I do know a founder who has a relatively new startup and they already have huge demand for it that is helping entrepreneurs with funding aspects. So, you know, there's so many so many resources that are so disconnected around me. And I want to have a space where all of this is just there, you know, so people can overcome those milestones. Yeah. And I think that for me, having it on such a large scale would be very exciting and interesting. That's like a huge challenge, you know, because... It's a lot of stakeholders that you're managing. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Having all of this kind of come together in one area in a successful way, I think would be like a very good feeling for me. Sounds very exciting. Yeah. So there's so many different layers to why I want to do this. Yeah. So if people want to support or maybe they want, they have their own, you know, medtech startup and they want to reach out to you and seek support or help or resources, what's the best way for them to contact you and reach you? Currently, it's LinkedIn. Okay. We'll link below everywhere. LinkedIn is definitely the best place currently. Other areas like my website, for example, there's a form that people can fill out is a little bit limited because I don't spend that much time working on my website. to be honest, but if that's something that people want to do, that's, that's an option on aimbreak.se, but LinkedIn would be the best. Perfect. All right. So, uh, we're very excited that you got to share a little bit of your journey and, uh, of your ideas for this community with us. I think, um, I'm excited to see you grow and see where it goes. I think we always need Canadian community builders in Sweden doing the mostest, you know? And I think that these are the types of projects and spaces that we do need, because I agree with you as a community builder myself more in the urban design space. I really do believe that if people come together, we can solve a lot of issues in record time again and against these pressures that we're feeling from the systems that we're in. But I also think you can find that solidarity, like that support, inter-support, interdependence. It should be inter help should be something we advocate for, not just something that we see as a weakness or as a vulnerability of, oh, why do you need to rely on others and rely? I think it's actually a strength whenever you can. You can have a community of people to back you and to support you and to build you up and to raise you up and and be there for you through the good, through the bad, through the ugly. And I think we have a need, a deep need, especially in Swedish society being hyper individualistic. But in general, in the world, we have a deep need for community. And I'm happy that now some early stage entrepreneurs can also reach that with you. So, yeah, exciting. So I'm looking forward to seeing how this develops. We're going to link all the links below to make sure everything is good. But this has been Frankie and Roxana. and we are trying to bring you new voices here in somewhere in Stockholm. So stay tuned, keep listening, leave a comment if anything resonated with you. And otherwise, we'll see you on the next one. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you as well. Really nice, lovely conversation. So we'll see you on the next one, everybody. Okay, heedoa! So I hope in 10 years you or anyone else can go into a store to buy new shoes and you will see, all right, I'll pick the shoes with Resilo Outsoils because I know the conscious choice basically of choosing that one is good for the environment and it's good for the performance of the shoe. So impact, I think that's what I want and that's what the team wants, to have an actual impact on people's lives.

In this episode, we sit down with Roksana Khalid, whose journey spans from pursuing a PhD in science to working at one of Stockholm’s leading startup accelerators — while also exploring her own path as a solopreneur experimenting with vibe coding.

Roksana shares how scientific thinking translates into entrepreneurship, why science has so much to offer the startup ecosystem (especially in the age of AI), and how founders can build meaningful communities in the early stages. We also talk about balancing motherhood and entrepreneurship, redefining the role of a founder, and why connection matters more than ever for early-stage entrepreneurs.

👉 Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe to support the conversation

*GUEST LINKS:*
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roksana-khalid-651035191/
Website: https://aimbric.se/

*FOLLOW OUR WORK*
Website: http://xperiencesthlm.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/xperiencesthlm
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/xperiencesthlm/
Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@xperiencesthlm
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/xperiencesthlm/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2zxHjP8wd9XKotiDtqFsZc?si=225cc5c0631744d5

Video-editing by Francisca Pereira
https://franpostproduction.wixsite.com/portfolio

*IN THIS EPISODE*
00:00 Teaser
00:52 Hej allihopa
01:13 Introducing Our Guest
02:34 From the Lab to the Startup World
04:37 The Overlap Between Science and Entrepreneurship
06:03 Why Science Is Falling Behind in AI
07:19 What Science Brings to the Startup Ecosystem
08:52 Support Our Podcast
09:10 How Science Skills Transfer to Business
10:04 Science Can Be Detached from the Real World
13:06 Science and Business as a Cohesive System
16:29 Motherhood and Entrepreneurship: Finding Balance
23:21 Entrepreneurs Shouldn’t Be Doing All the Work
25:23 Vibe Coding
28:47 Building a Community for Founders
29:49 Canadians Excel at Community Building
31:57 The Need for Connection Among Early-Stage Founders
37:03 How to Reach Roksana
37:41 Thank You for Being Here