Building the Impossible: Lessons from Deep-Tech Entrepreneurship

EpiBone's product is alive. It has to be grown for each patient, pass the FDA, survive surgery, and outperform titanium — and none of it came with a playbook. Nina has raised $50 million, built a cGMP manufacturing facility, earned first-in-human clearances, and kept a team believing through a decade-long journey from thesis to trials. The lessons translate far beyond biotech.

This talk is for anyone building something the world says is too hard: how to sequence impossible goals into fundable milestones, how to hire for conviction as well as credentials, and how to keep a culture creative under regulatory and financial pressure. Nina's story lands with founders and Fortune 500 teams alike because the constraints differ — the leadership physics don't.