Moving across an ocean changes everything. I know because I’ve done it.

When I arrived in Chicago to start my PhD in Biochemistry, I could understand written English well but struggled with conversation. Learning American culture and lifestyle while tackling graduate studies was quite the challenge.

After completing my postdoc at UCSF in San Francisco, I made the leap from science to business. The transition required learning an entirely new language and mindset — almost as challenging as moving to a new country.

And on top of everything, I ended up in sales — even though I thought I could do anything but sales. My body was in constant pain. Frozen. I couldn’t breathe. It took two hours to write a simple follow-up email. I was terrified of “troubling” people.

Then I joined NanoTemper and started selling a tool I truly believed in — one I wished I’d had during my PhD. I knew the pain because I had lived it, and I had to tell everyone about it.

It didn’t matter that the company was a startup or the technology was unknown. I knew it worked. Suddenly, the purpose of helping people overshadowed my fear of selling.

NanoTemper Technologies was a small German scientific startup, with two brilliant CEOs — Stefan Duhr and Philipp Baaske — who, like me, were obsessed with selling and getting the product into customers’ hands as quickly as possible. Together, we built NanoTemper into a U.S. market leader in protein characterization.