Joe Matthews, MS

Coming-out-of-Retirement Rock Star Sales Guy, Children’s Author, Standup Comic

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States

About

Retirement doesn't suit me. I've been to Japan almost twenty times. Sixteen passport stamps, plus several overnights at Kansai Airport. I learned enough Japanese to get around Osaka, Kobe, Tokyo. I established a partnership in Osaka in 2006. I was recruited to lead a Delaware-Tokyo joint venture to build a life science products distributor that could bypass Japanese brokers. I export to Japan now. -At Hudson Robotics, I sold custom automation for laboratories all over America and thirty robots at Beijing Genomics Institute. I started as Applications Specialist, and then in sales I got a PO every month, from $0 to $1.5M in my first year. Then they gave me California and Asia. I repaired reputational damage and sparked life into Japan and China distributors, and I added Korea, Malaysia/Singapore, Australia and the Middle East. I sold direct in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Israel. Got Asia from $0 to $2M. -At Toyobo, I was Business Development Manager for North America, charged with building a footprint for Toyobo's polymerase enzymes in the US. I recruited a distributor and trained thirteen sales people. I found manufacturers to include our enzymes in their successful kits. Toyobo was doing $1.5M when I started, and I did $50M in three years. -In my first job in the late '90s, I built the laboratory and wrote all the protocols, trained all the technicians. I left the lab and built a global distribution network (China, India, Europe, South America, Australia) and made all of the DNA in Finland, produced oligonucleotides for both big US oligo companies. I miss selling. I miss international capital equipment sales. I miss every week being different. I miss providing solutions. I see some jobs for people like me, selling robotics components and satellite parts or flying cars. I think, "You'd have to be crazy," and I apply. I really want to bring business development to a young sales team in biotechnology or other hard-to-communicate tech space that isn't programming. Electric cars, VTOL. Very interested in selling solar, quantum computing...

Experience

  • Sales Engineer at Hudson Lab Automation, Inc.

    Helped customers visualize how the lab could work in ways that overcame objections to automation. My advanced skills helped experienced automation users build new capacity. Helped Sales overcome obstacles with customers, helped Engineering improve design. Researched, automated and validated applications such as NGS (Next-Generation Sequencing) prep. Taught bench scientists, management, and executives to use and troubleshoot robots.

  • Technical Sales Representative at Hudson Lab Automation, Inc.

    Grew U.S. territory from $0 to $1.5M, significantly over sales quota. Developed, sold, implemented capital automated laboratory solutions in Mid-Atlantic and Southern CA. Facilitated implementation with thruput and process consulting to raise QC and thruput, reduce costs. Top Seller 2015, 2016, 2017. Business Development- Hudson is Illumina’s OEM. C Suite, GMP.

  • Global Sales Manager at Cybersyn

    Made all the DNA in Finland. Francis Crick and James Watson bought my DNA. Three U.S. sales reps and a distributor on every continent but Africa and Antarctica, including Tata, Jinhe. First employee of this custom DNA laboratory. Eventually trained and managed 12 technicians in four labs; scaled up from small to large; built and moved lab. First laboratory I automated, in 1997- parsed DNA sequences from emails, downloaded to synthesizers. Maintained everything including DNA/RNA synthesizers, HPLC, spectrometers, etc.

  • Rithum Automation, LLC (16 yrs 7 mos)
    • Chief Scientific Officer
      2010 - Present · 16 yrs 7 mos

      Designed, installed custom laboratory robots, trained users, management consulting. Managed all the chemistry and biology.

    • Laboratory Automation Product Manager, Applications Specialist, Staff Scientific Advisor
      Feb 2012 - Dec 2013 · 1 yr 11 mos

      Build, program liquid handling robots (especially Tecan) and optimize them for various applications. Consult with laboratories to develop and implement automation methods. Project Management: Robots Without Borders: I had the opportunity to develop a solution which is now a product: a liquid handling laboratory robot capable of dispensing any amount of virtually any liquid anywhere the arm can reach. I used it to produce the Big Bird painting attached. HTS, SPE, DNA, Consulting, Project Management, Training, Application Development, Integration, Process Optimization

  • Monster Laboratories (26 yrs 7 mos)
    • President
      2001 - Present · 25 yrs 7 mos

    • Director Of Business Development
      Jan 2000 - Present · 26 yrs 7 mos

    • Founder
      2001 - 2014 · 13 yrs

      Founded this company in 2001 as a hobby. Grew sales to $300K (at 30% gp) 2003-2008. Refurbished, reconfigured, sold, installed liquid handling laboratory robots for countless applications around the world (Novosibirsk, RU, Oman, Japan, California). Built website, implemented CRM, marketing, Japan export, service contracts, C Suite Presentations. Provided management consulting, thruput, process, training services for GMP, CLIA laboratories.