From Barrel Racer to Biotech CEO
Somer Baburek's path to running a biotech company is unlike anything you've heard before. She started as a professional barrel racer — competing in rodeos across the country. Then she moved into venture capital, learning the mechanics of dealmaking and company building from the inside. Now she's the CEO of Hera Biotech, a women's health company on a mission to revolutionize how endometriosis and other reproductive health conditions are diagnosed and treated.
Each chapter of her career, seemingly unrelated, built skills she uses every day: the competitiveness and resilience from rodeo, the pattern recognition and negotiation skills from VC, and the conviction to take on a massive, underserved market in biotech.
"People think my career makes no sense. Rodeo to venture capital to biotech? But every single thing I learned — the risk assessment, the grit, the ability to make split-second decisions — it all applies. Building a biotech startup is the hardest rodeo I've ever been in."
The Rollup Strategy Nobody Uses in Biotech
When Somer looked at the competitive landscape in women's health diagnostics, she saw something most founders miss: a fragmented market full of small companies with valuable IP, strong science, but no ability to scale. Instead of building everything from scratch and spending years catching up, she did something radical — she bought her competitor.
The corporate rollup strategy is well-known in private equity and mature industries (think dental practices or HVAC companies), but it's almost never used in early-stage biotech. Somer applied it because she saw that the acquisition math was more favorable than the build-from-scratch math.
"My competitor had three years of R&D, a patent portfolio, and a team of scientists," she explains. "I could either spend three years and $5 million duplicating that work, or I could acquire it for less than that and be three years ahead on day one. The choice was obvious."
Women's Health: The Trillion-Dollar Blindspot
Women's health has been chronically underfunded and underresearched. Endometriosis alone affects roughly 10% of women of reproductive age — that's nearly 200 million women worldwide — yet the average time to diagnosis is still 7-10 years. Somer's frustration with this status quo is what drove her to Hera Biotech.
"Imagine if any other condition affecting 200 million people took a decade to diagnose," she says. "It would be a scandal. In women's health, it's just... normal. That normalization of suffering is exactly what we're fighting against."
Hera Biotech is developing non-invasive diagnostic tools that could reduce that 7-10 year diagnostic journey to a single test. The technology leverages biomarkers that existing research has identified but nobody has commercialized — until now.
"I didn't buy my competitor because I was afraid of competing. I bought them because the women waiting for a diagnosis can't afford for us to waste three years reinventing what already exists. Speed matters when people are suffering."
VC Skills on the Operator Side
Somer's time in venture capital gave her an unusual advantage as a founder: she knows exactly how investors think. She's sat on the other side of the table. She's evaluated hundreds of pitches. She knows what makes investors say yes and what makes them pass.
"Most founders pitch their technology," she says. "I pitch the market. I pitch the economics. I pitch the speed to commercialization. Investors don't invest in the best science — they invest in the best business. If you can show that the science is solid AND the business model makes sense, you're already ahead of 90% of biotech founders."
She also understands the fundraising timeline differently. Instead of waiting for milestones to trigger the next round, she plans her raises strategically — always raising from a position of strength, never desperation.
Key Takeaways for Founders
1. Acquisition can be faster than building. Before spending years and millions building from scratch, evaluate whether acquiring a competitor or adjacent company could get you further, faster. The math might surprise you.
2. Unconventional backgrounds are a strength. The skills from your "unrelated" career — whether that's rodeo, military, teaching, or anything else — are more transferable than you think.
3. Speed to market matters in healthcare. When people are suffering and waiting for solutions, moving faster isn't just good business — it's a moral imperative.
4. Know how investors think. Whether or not you've worked in VC, study how investors evaluate deals. Pitch the business, not just the science.
