From molecular biologist to CEO: A conversation with Henri Max Deda

Interviewer: Olya Vvedenskaya 

We spoke with Henri Max Deda, CEO and co-founder of scienceOS, about platform economics, scientific progress, salary negotiations he stopped caring about - and why he believes we are slowly building paradise.

Olya: Henri, can you start by introducing yourself? What is your role at scienceOS?

Henri: My role at scienceOS is that I am the CEO. And with that come mostly duties of administrative and business work. I take care of marketing, sales, and making sure that the information on the website is accurate. But aside from the business aspects, I spend a lot of time talking with scientists - primarily our users - and with organizations, collecting feedback, understanding what they are looking for.

And I get to test everything first. When Mark and Andre develop something, I test it. Once it passes my test, it goes to other people to be tested.

ScienceOS team: Andre, Henri, Mark

Olya: Okay, are you a scientist by background?

Henri: No… I would not say so. My background is molecular biology, but I only have a bachelor’s degree. During my thesis, I noticed that I am not made for the lab. I realized I do not enjoy pipetting sufficiently. I enjoyed talking about science much more than actually doing lab work. 

So I tried to find another way to contribute to science.

I went into scientific marketing. I started to work at Lipotype - back then, you could still consider it a startup. I was employee number 12 and started building up the marketing team. But after a few years, I felt that talking about science did not live up to how I wanted to contribute to science.

So I did another degree - an MBA - to understand business better. And eventually, that led to founding scienceOS to help more directly with scientific progress.

Olya: How did the idea for scienceOS come about?

Henri: It started during my MBA. There was one lecture at Columbia University about platform economics - how platforms work based on the premise that there are people who have something other people want. The question was: how do you bring these people together?

And through that, I noticed something obvious but powerful: researchers generate things that other researchers want. Data. Discoveries. Insights. But we share them through a very gritty, slow publishing process that takes a long time. And often, many things do not get shared. There is a lot of data lying around that people invested time and energy into, but they never use it again. Maybe they changed institutions. Maybe they changed research topics. Maybe their role changed. But that data could still create value for someone else. If you bring together the person who has the data and the person who needs it, you create a positive outcome for both.

That was very fascinating to me - connecting this economic principle with the reality of scientific research.

Olya: And how did it feel emotionally when the idea of scienceOS crystallized?

Henri: In the beginning, I felt like it was a huge idea. And from my perspective, it was brilliant - but I suppose most ideas you have feel brilliant when you have them.

Essentially, what I enjoyed most was connecting two things. One was platform economics - this idea that there is value in bringing people together who have things they want to share. And the other was realizing that there is an entire part of society - researchers - who are exactly in that situation.

And I deeply believe that if we work together as humans, especially in the scientific community, we can solve all the problems we face. That has worked in the past. I see no reason why that would not work in the future.

Henri's working desk

Olya: That sounds very purpose-driven.

Henri: Yes. I enjoy progress. I grew up without the internet. Then, suddenly, 15-20 years ago, the internet dramatically entered my life and completely changed it. And that is amazing - how fast things go.

Compared to 100 years ago, progress was much slower. Now we are living in a time where things accelerate constantly. And as long as we keep solving the problems we create along the way - climate catastrophe, exploitation of minorities, war are just on top of my mind - we are slowly building something like paradise.

In some medieval texts from Europe, the idea of paradise was: there is food everywhere, you can eat as much as you want, and you do not have to shovel animal shit all day long. And now, in some ways, we are getting closer to that. We solved sanitation. We are at a point where food is abundant, though there is severe inequity regarding distribution and quality. We are finding cures for diseases at an unprecedented pace. We are improving the quality of life. Of course, we also create new problems. But we are building the perfect life continuously.

There is also selfishness in that. I would like to live in a world where I do not have to worry about my health at all. And, I just love learning things and sharing learnings on the way.

Olya: Was there ever a point where you thought of giving up?

Henri: No. Because I do not see another way for myself to contribute that much to scientific progress. I do not know what else I would do that has this level of impact.

We always aimed for scienceOS to become our full-time job. That was clear from the beginning. The question was just how.

First, we tried raising money. For one and a half years, we talked to venture capitalists and business angels. But almost everyone said: If you are not already working without a salary, we will not fund you. The two of us are responsible for the kids. That was not realistic. Also, fundraising takes a lot of time - preparing pitch decks, conversations, while also building the product and talking to users. It just did not work.

So in April 2024, we launched the paid version. And we saw revenue. People were willing to pay. That was the turning point. Option one did not work. Option two - generating revenue - did.

Olya: Has building scienceOS changed you personally?

Henri: Yes. I can say my perspective on money changed. From 2023 on, I stopped negotiating my salary at my previous employer. I did not care anymore. The only thing I negotiated was reducing my hours. After leaving my previous job, I lost about 80% of my income. At the moment, I am getting less than minimum wage, if I recalculate it for the number of hours I work on scienceOS.

My focus is getting to a point where it is fair for everyone involved - the team, the customers, and the free users. My interest is in building something sustainable.

Henri's dog Monty

Olya: Was there anything you initially found uncomfortable?

Henri: Yes - sales. I somehow originally felt that sales would be cringe. Asking people to talk to me about sales felt uncomfortable at first. But then I realized: good sales are not selling. You do not convince someone of something they do not need. You listen to their problems and see whether you can solve them. If scienceOS cannot solve their problems, we take notes and may build it later.

We rarely even discuss price. We try to make it affordable enough that people do not have to think about price. That is how my view changed.

Olya: You are competing with venture-backed companies that flood social media with their ads because they have funds for that. Does that make you feel like an underdog?

Henri: From global media attention - yes, we are an underdog. But from the customer happiness rate? Maybe not. A high percentage of people who use scienceOS actually pay for it. That tells us we provide a product that actually solves the problems of scientists.

Instead of chasing global attention, we focus on the network effect. We looked at where our users are. There is a clear bias toward Germany. Even stronger toward Dresden. So we decided: if we want the network effect, we start where we are strongest.

Dresden. Then Saxony. Then Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Then Europe. Then the world.

If you focus locally, global media attention becomes less relevant. It is about people talking to each other.

Olya: How important is the community for scienceOS?

Henri: Everything is 100% community. Our interaction with users is basically our marketing. They are also our product managers: tell us what to build. They decide how scienceOS develops.

Olya: What would Mark and Andre say is your most annoying trait?

Henri: Probably that I am opinionated and detail-oriented. Maybe perfectionistic. We sometimes discuss minor details that, from my perspective, are important for perceiving the app as a good app. For example, how shared projects work, or metadata behavior. From my perspective, these details matter for trust and usability. From their perspective and the data, there is a good chance that not many users encounter that problem yet. So yes, I can imagine that can be annoying.

Olya: Are there things you refuse to compromise on?

Henri: Quality. We always go for quality first, then speed. For example, when processing PDFs, we first improved the quality, even though it took three seconds per PDF page. Later, we reduced it to less than 0.1 seconds per page.

Same with AI responses. Maybe it takes a minute for a complex question. We could make it faster - but not at the cost of quality.

It might sound strange that we are willing to compromise on our users’ time. But we cannot compromise on output quality.

And I would love to provide scienceOS for free to those who cannot afford it. I have not found a perfect solution yet - but that matters to me.

Olya: If you could leave readers with one piece of advice?

Henri: If something in software does not work, tell the people building it. They actually like that. Developers want to make things better. Feedback makes them happy.

We use other software too. When we report something, developers respond, ask clarifying questions, and improve it. Many people just want to make what they are building better for the people using it.

So speak up.