The QuickChip sounded like a killer idea: a gadget about one inch square that could, in just 15 minutes, identify bacteria, fungi, and viruses at a patient's bedside. Instead of sending samples to a lab and waiting hours or days, physicians would know immediately what they were dealing with and how best to treat it.
In 2011, Doug Weibel, an assistant professor of biochemistry at UW-Madison, was developing such a device — but instead of plunging ahead with prototyping and marketing, he hired Adam Siegel as an "entrepreneur-in-residence" to figure out whether and where a market existed. In startup lingo, this process of figuring out the market is called a needs assessment.
