CGsquared
CGsquared helps companies and nonprofits, especially those in the life sciences, medtech, and healthcare sectors, tackle business challenges. Our pro bono initiative pairs ambitious businesses seeking a competitive edge with advanced-degree candidates and postdoctoral fellows ready to hone their business skills.
Since we began in 2014 as the Carolina Graduate Consulting Group (CG2), we’ve leveraged our skills in critical thinking, research, data analysis, business principles, and cutting-edge science. As a result, CGsquared can help your business:
Get clear ideas out of a sea of information.
We help businesses gain a better grasp of where they are and where they’re headed. CGsquared can stress-test your needs and assumptions, prioritize your ideas, and design business models that fit your missions and values.
Draw critical insights based on thorough analyses.
Our consultants perform due diligence, market analyses, revenue projections, competitive landscape assessments, and data visualization.
Bring forth recommendations you can act on.
CGsquare maintains a diverse portfolio of projects involving primary interviews, opportunity prioritization, go-to-market recommendations, and technology landscaping. We tailor our research to client needs and deliver them to be ready for your immediate use.
Consultants at CGsquared have graduated and launched successful, healthcare-adjacent careers including those in McKinsey, BCG, ZS, LEK, and many more places.
If you’re interested in working with CGsquared or would like more information, please contact Kéita Yokoyama and Glory Dan-Dukor for a free consultation.
Frequently asked questions
What services do you offer? Who are your typical clients?
CGsquared offers a wide range of services to help businesses decide how -and whether- to launch and grow. Our historic expertise is in early-stage biotech and life science startups. However, we also have experience in nonprofit expansion, digital apps, and due diligence for venture capital firms.
Our services can give your business a helping hand throughout its life cycle:
Ideation
- Assumptions analysis
- Idea prioritization
- Business model development
Research
- Due diligence
- Primary research
- Secondary research
Analyze
- Opportunity analysis
- Revenue projection modeling
- Data visualization
Deliver
- Executive reports
- Go-to-market strategies and recommendations
- Trend forecasting
- Data sources and interpretations
How much do your engagements cost?
We perform all consulting projects at no cost to clients.
This is because:
- We believe that better-running businesses are better for our communities – and that cost shouldn’t preclude that.
- You’re providing us a service by giving our consultants the chance to learn and grow.
- Legal reasons exist that we must comply with (e.g. grad students can be employed under scholarships or teaching/research positions that can restrict outside employment).
Can CGsquared help me with writing patents or making regulatory filings?
Unfortunately, those activities would be considered practice of law – and as our consultants are (mostly) not lawyers, we cannot provide legal advice. While we can’t directly help with those documents, we can help you understand what your future obstacles are, articulate your goals, and design strategies to get through them.
I’m very early in the business-forming process. Will CGsquared hurt my chances at getting a patent or venture capital funding?
No. If anything, our goal is to strengthen your idea and business to reach those goals! Our clients include several startups that have evolved to win patents, equity-based funding, FDA clearances, and more.
Why should we rely on advanced degree candidates and holders?
Graduate students and postdoctoral scholars have years of training in tackling complex problems with a scientific, deliberate, and solutions-oriented approach.
By way of our experience, CGsquared consultants offer:
Top-notch critical thinking and data analysis
Through their academic training and research experience, our consultants collate multiple sources of information to derive actionable hypotheses every day. Digging through large amounts of data to clarify uncertainties is our standard practice.
Soft skills sharpened by a complex world
Through our consultants’ experiences in leading clinical studies involving diverse teams of specialists, inventing new technologies, and experimenting across multiple countries, we excel at distilling complex topics into accessible formats. We deliver informative summaries, concise results, and aesthetic visualizations for actionable, easy-to-understand results.
Cutting-edge technical skills crossed with business savvy
CGsquared consultants are armed with firsthand knowledge of the healthcare ecosystem, clinical practice, and regulatory affairs. On top of these high-demand skills, our team offers practical knowledge about business best practices that’s directly applied to your business.
Who tends to work as consultants for CGsquared?
As of November 2023, 85% of consultants are candidates or holders of MBA, MS, PhD, or PharmD degrees, with many of those specializing in the natural and life sciences. However, we have also led successful engagements with consultants trained in other specialties including public health, literature, philosophy, and law. Regardless, we accept graduate students and postdoctoral scholars of all academic backgrounds with an interest in strategy or life sciences consulting.
CGsquared welcomes potential consultants from all backgrounds – even those from outside of the Carolina community. However, staffing for some engagements may be restricted to current UNC-Chapel Hill affiliates due to intellectual property restrictions.
Many of our consultants have prior experience with business-related topics, though this isn’t a prerequisite. Typical additional qualifications include:
- Prior coursework in business, innovation, leadership, and/or project management
- Participation in consulting case competitions
- Involvement in technology transfer initiatives, including UNC’s Innovate Carolina division or the NSF I-Corps program
- Regional startup and entrepreneurship programs, including involvement in Nucleate Bio or the Research Triangle Park community
- Other initiatives led by the GBCC, including the Consulting Boot Camp