How a PhD student turned a side hustle into a thriving medical writing agency

Starting a freelance career while pursuing a PhD might seem overwhelming, but for Dan Sheridan, co-founder of Co-Labb, it was the perfect way to stay engaged with cutting-edge science while broadening his career opportunities. His journey—from picking up freelance medical writing almost by accident to building a thriving agency—offers valuable insights for scientists looking to monetize their expertise beyond academia.

Dan’s story highlights the challenges and opportunities of transitioning from an academic mindset to a commercial one, pricing work effectively, and ultimately scaling from freelancer to agency owner.

In this interview, you’ll learn:

• Why the biggest mistake freelancers make is underpricing their work—and how to shift to value-based pricing.
• How to transition from a solo freelancer to running a successful science writing agency while staying lean and competitive.
• How traditional marketing isn’t necessary for business growth—if you focus on expertise and client relationships.

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The interview below is based on the transcript of our conversation but has been edited and rearranged for conciseness and clarity.

Starting out as a freelancer during a PhD

What motivated you to start freelancing during your PhD?

Dan Sheridan: Before my PhD, I worked in big pharma and biotech. I was a process development scientist at Amgen, which is one of the biggest biotech companies in the world. When you're part of a company like that, you feel like you're at the forefront of life science innovation and translational science.

Then, when I went back to do my PhD, it was quite the opposite. You're very early-stage, working on fundamental research. My project focused on stem cell biology in the pituitary gland. There was some hope that this research could have translational applications for treating endocrine disorders, but if that were the case, it would likely be 30 or 40 years down the line. I quickly felt that the PhD was almost too specialized—you’re working within such a narrow aspect of science that you lose connection with the broader field.

Even as early as my first year, I felt that I wanted to be more closely involved with innovation and bringing new therapies or products to market. Initially, I wasn’t freelancing in medical writing. Instead, I started working part-time in the evenings and on weekends at a contract research organization in London, where they were testing vaccines.

This was just before COVID kicked off. When the pandemic hit, we started testing COVID vaccines, and we also conducted a human challenge trial where participants were deliberately infected with COVID in a quarantine unit to characterize the infection. That work scratched my itch for being at the forefront of science, but it was quite repetitive—a lot of routine blood testing. It didn’t fully satisfy my scientific curiosity or my interest in exploring new areas.

That’s how I eventually fell into medical writing, almost by accident. At the time, my partner—now my wife—was doing part-time work proofreading theses for master's and PhD students who weren’t native English speakers. She suggested that I look for similar freelance work online. Since I was studying for my stem cell PhD, I did a quick Google search for "online stem cell writing job" and came across an interesting position with a New York-based stem cell company. I applied, got the role, and that opened up a whole new world of medical writing for me.

Medical writing satisfied all the things I was interested in—working at the forefront of science and contributing to innovative projects. That experience sparked my interest in freelancing while pursuing my PhD.

One thing I noticed early on was that, despite having around 10 years of experience—including a master's, an undergraduate degree, and industry experience—when you start a PhD, you're often treated like a student again. In contrast, with freelance positions, you're hired as an expert. Companies bring you in for your specialized knowledge and expertise, which was a nice validation of my skills.

Did you work with this first client for a long time?

D.S.: Believe it or not, they're still one of our clients. I’ve taken them with me from my early days as a freelancer all the way into our agency. So yeah, I’ve been working with them for almost five years.

Did you find more clients during your PhD, or did you just stick with this one until you decided to start a business?

D.S.: That first client was actually quite hard to find because I didn’t even know that freelance medical writing existed as a job. Now, I’d know to search for freelance medical writing positions in stem cell research or regenerative medicine, but at the time, I didn’t even know what keywords to use. I was just Googling generic online job opportunities, and that’s how I stumbled upon that first client almost by accident.

Now, of course, there’s a much more strategic approach to finding clients—using LinkedIn, for example, where you can directly target marketing managers or hiring managers at the companies you want to work with.

After landing that first client, I realized that freelance medical writing was actually a whole career field, a full industry in itself. So pretty quickly after that, I started picking up more clients. Now that I knew what to search for and how to position my expertise, it became much easier.

I think this all happened in my first year of the PhD—I started with that one client and then slowly grew my client base. My wife, Ellen, was also doing online proofreading at the time, and since she has a degree in health sciences, she started taking on freelance work as well.

Within a year or two, we had built up quite a lot of clients.

Many freelancers struggle with pricing their work when they first start out. How did you approach this in the beginning?

D.S.: Pricing projects—especially as a freelancer—can be super challenging. Even now, running an agency, it’s always a bit of a balancing act. You never want to underprice or overprice, and finding that sweet spot is tricky.

As a freelancer, I had never worked in an agency before, which I’m sure many medical writers have. Those with agency experience might have a better understanding of standard pricing structures, but for me, I had to figure it all out on my own.

I think as scientists, we’re very passionate about our work. That’s often why people pursue a PhD—it’s a huge time commitment, but it’s driven by passion and interest in research. Because of that, it’s easy to undersell yourself financially. You think, I enjoy this work, it’s important, and it has to be done, so you don’t want to charge too much.

I think it’s fine to start out with lower rates. In the beginning, what’s more important than maximizing your financial gain is building experience, growing your client list, and establishing a strong portfolio. That foundation is more valuable than perfecting your pricing strategy right away.

At first, I’d recommend setting an hourly rate that you’re comfortable with—something that meets your needs and feels fair. Then, as you gain experience and develop a better understanding of how long projects take, you can transition to more sophisticated pricing models, like fixed rates per project instead of charging hourly. I think that shift is really important in the long run.

One of the great things about starting a freelance career as a side hustle alongside a nine-to-five job is that you don’t have a financial risk. You can work evenings or weekends, and if you misprice a project, end up spending way more time than expected, or undercharge, at least you still have your full-time salary to cover your needs. So I think it’s a really smart way to transition into freelancing.

If someone wants to move into medical writing or freelancing, I’d recommend doing it alongside their existing job for a few months. That way, you can gradually transition instead of taking a big leap all at once.

Once you gain more confidence in pricing, I think it’s important to shift toward value-based pricing. It’s not just about how much time you spend on a project. Moving away from hourly pricing is key because, as a PhD scientist, you might have 15 years of experience, and that expertise is what you’re really offering clients—not just the 10 hours of work you put into a project.

It’s important to think commercially about the value you're providing to a client. Take life sciences, for example—it’s a high-value, high-ticket industry. A DNA sequencing machine might cost £100,000, and if you’re writing marketing content for that product, the company is selling it at a significant price point. If they need a product page that helps drive sales, that content has a lot of value for them. So you should price your work accordingly, based on the impact it has rather than just the hours you put in.

Transitioning from freelancer to agency owner

When did you decide it was time to go from freelancing to starting an agency?

D.S.: It was quite an organic process.

I actually built Co-Labb into a full-fledged agency while I was still in the third year of my PhD. So I was balancing my nine-to-five PhD work while running the agency with my wife. There wasn’t a sudden moment where we decided, okay, now we need to quit everything and start this. It was more of a gradual transition.

The real turning point—the moment I realized we had something bigger than just individual freelancing—was when we started seeing consistent success with our clients. We weren’t losing any clients, clients were referring us to their colleagues and networks, and we kept getting more work.

What made our model stand out was that we offered highly specialized scientific expertise while remaining small, personable, and agile. We didn’t have layers of management, so we could work closely with clients, and they really valued that. At some point, it became clear that the demand was outpacing what we could handle as freelancers.

That’s when we faced a choice: either start turning down projects or hire people to meet the growing demand. We started slowly by bringing on part-time freelancers, and eventually, it reached a stage where we needed full-time staff.

When you made the jump to full-time, what were the first steps you took to ensure you had a sustainable business?

Funnily enough, the agency was already operating full-time before I was. I was actually the only part-time person in the company. By the time I finished my PhD, I think we already had five full-time staff. So I had to make key business decisions even before I personally went full-time with the agency.

I think the most important factor for sustainability early on was keeping costs down. If you have a slow month with fewer projects, you want to minimize your outgoing expenses. We avoided expensive project management software and other costly tools. Instead, we kept everything simple—spreadsheets, Word documents, Google Drive folders—focusing on free or low-cost software.

Another key strategy was handling a lot of tasks ourselves. In the first few years, I built our first website on Wix, which was super cheap and easy. I even acted as our accountant, filing our own end-of-year tax returns. That’s probably not advisable in the long run, but it helped us minimize costs. The goal was to ensure that if we had a slow month, it wouldn’t put the business at risk.

More importantly, keeping costs low allowed us to reinvest our revenue where it really mattered—into our team. Our focus has always been on hiring the best possible staff. Every member of our writing team is a PhD expert in their field, and we’ve been able to afford that by cutting costs elsewhere—like on marketing, sales tools, or expensive software.

Another critical aspect was providing exceptional customer service. In the early days, even if you don’t have as much experience, great service can make all the difference. If a project doesn’t turn out perfectly on the first try, a client is less likely to leave if you’re friendly, responsive, and proactive in addressing their needs.

You’ve mentioned that your marketing costs were close to zero. So, how do you find new clients?

D.S.: We only hired a marketing manager about six months ago. For the four years before that, we had no formal marketing—just whatever I was doing on LinkedIn, which, to be honest, wasn’t a major driver for us.

Our success, growth, and value offering have been built on the expertise of our team. As I mentioned, we only hire PhD experts for our writing team. Now, I don’t necessarily think a PhD automatically makes someone great at dealing with clients, nor is it always essential for medical writing. But for the niche services we offer—especially in fields like neuroscience and oncology—we’re confident that we have the highest level of expertise.

And that, in itself, has been our biggest marketing tool. The foundation of great marketing is absolute confidence in what you offer. I’m quite comfortable saying that we’re probably one of the most specialized agencies in the UK, simply because of the caliber of our team.

As a result, we haven’t had to do much outbound marketing. Clients find us—they see our website, they see our team’s credentials, and they recognize the value we bring. That reputation and expertise have been the driving forces behind our growth.

So people found your website easily when searching for medical writing in the UK, for instance? Were you ranking well in terms of SEO?

D.S.: We’ve never really done any SEO. It’s actually something we’re looking into now.

To be honest, I’m not exactly sure how new clients found us in the early days—it just seemed to happen. It was likely through referrals and recommendations from other clients.

One way we’ve consistently acquired new clients is through marketing managers we’ve worked with in one company. When they move to a new role at a different company, they often bring us with them while we also retain the contract with their previous company. So over time, as people move around and our network grows, it naturally leads to new business.

The first few jobs were definitely the hardest to land, but after that, things became more organic. Whether clients found us through LinkedIn, our website, or just word of mouth—I’m not entirely sure. But our growth was definitely very organic.

It’s really just a byproduct of focusing on our two main values: exceptional expertise and outstanding customer service. If you deliver both, clients are happy to recommend you, and everything else falls into place.

Avoiding the race to the bottom when it comes to pricing

In medical writing—and scientific writing in general—there’s quite a lot of competition. Is there any pressure on your pricing? And if so, how do you manage it?

D.S.: There’s always that concept of a "race to the bottom." If you compete purely on price, the only way to win clients is to keep undercutting the competition.

For us, as I mentioned earlier, it’s all about focusing on expertise. We don’t sell ourselves based on price. We don’t try to be the cheapest agency, and we never advertise ourselves that way. We don’t say, Hey, we’re the most affordable option or We can do this for less than a competitor. Instead, we position ourselves based on the value we provide and the deep expertise of our team.

If you pitch yourself and price your services based on expertise, you’re not competing on speed or cost—but of course, you have to genuinely have that expertise. You can’t claim to be the best in your field if your team and operations don’t actually reflect that. We’re confident in our team, the experience we bring, and the sectors we work in.

Now that we have high-profile clients, we don’t get pulled into that race to the bottom. Most of our leads come inbound, and if a potential client tells us our pricing is too high, we know they likely approached us because of our expertise in the first place. That gives us confidence in our pricing.

Beyond just the time required for a project or the final deliverable, we factor in the years of experience we bring to the table. Each of our scientific writers has around 15 years of experience, which holds a lot of value in itself. We understand the products, the science, the companies we work with, and the target audiences. That means when we take on marketing projects, for example, we can craft content that effectively reaches niche scientific audiences and delivers real results for our clients.

Scaling an agency while staying lean

How do you approach hiring? You mentioned PhD-level people, but is there anything else behind it?

D.S.: We’ve grown quite slowly and organically, and one of the main reasons for that is being cautious about hiring the wrong people. We’re still a small team, so if someone doesn’t fit well, it can impact the whole company.

We do prioritize PhD expertise because it ensures a high level of credibility and subject-matter knowledge. But transitioning from academia to more commercial projects—especially content marketing and marketing-driven writing—can be a challenge. A PhD doesn’t necessarily prepare you for that kind of work. We’ve found that some PhDs or freelancers we’ve trialed struggle with the commercial and marketing aspects. They may not fully grasp how to integrate scientific accuracy with marketing techniques, which is a crucial skill in our field.

Another challenge with hiring from academia is the difference in pace. When you’re working on a PhD, you might have months—or even years—to write a research paper. In our work, clients have fixed deadlines, and they’re paying for high-quality output delivered quickly and efficiently. The speed and efficiency of writing are critical, and that’s something we actively assess during hiring.

Our typical hiring process often starts with freelancers. We might trial a freelancer for a month or two to see how well they fit with the team before offering them a full-time position. That approach has worked really well because it allows us to evaluate both their skills and how they integrate into our culture before making a long-term commitment.

Two of our earliest employees, Sarah and Hope, both started with us this way. Sarah was finishing her PhD while working part-time with us, which helped her transition into a full-time role after her PhD. Hope was working as a postdoc while freelancing for us, and when her contract ended, she joined our team full-time.

This method has really helped us build a strong, cohesive team. In fact, we just had our Christmas party last month in Poland, and one of the things I’m most proud of is that everyone from the previous year’s Christmas party was still with us. We haven’t had anyone leave yet, which I think speaks to both the quality of our team and the culture we’ve built.

Do you work remotely with your team, or do you have an office?

D.S.: We’re still fully remote. This ties back to something I mentioned earlier—investing our finances and revenue into areas that directly improve the quality of work we provide to clients. Renting an office in the UK would be a huge expense, and we’d rather use that money to hire the best possible scientists and team members.

So we’ve kept it fully remote. And honestly, given how much the workplace has changed in the last few years, I think a lot of people prefer remote work now.

Our team is quite spread out. Most of them are in the UK, but we also have Owen in France and Catherine in Ireland, so we’re fairly distributed.

That said, we still make an effort to stay connected. We have a team call every morning, and since we’re still a relatively small team, that works well. Everyone can be on the call, discuss their projects, share challenges, and collaborate on solutions.

Actually, the name Co-Labb originally came from the collaboration between me and my wife—she brought healthcare expertise, and I was the scientist. Now that we’ve grown, we’ve kept that collaborative mindset.

Finding clients and building reputation as an agency

What’s your strategy for building long-term relationships with your clients?

D.S.: I think that’s been one of our biggest strengths in scaling the agency—building long-term relationships. We very rarely lose clients. In fact, we’ve never lost a client due to dissatisfaction with our work. Sometimes a client may bring a service in-house or hire someone internally to replace what we do, but we’ve never actually lost a client because they weren’t happy.

I think that comes down to providing exceptional customer service. Of course, delivering high-quality science, content, and writing is crucial, but it’s also about being friendly, responsive, and making sure clients enjoy working with us. A client call shouldn’t feel like a chore—it should be a positive experience. They’re paying us, so we need to make sure we’re providing outstanding service in every aspect of our work.

Being responsive and consistently meeting—or exceeding—deadlines is also critical. One of the biggest pitfalls for freelancers or new agencies is poor project management. If you don’t accurately estimate the time a project will take, you risk missing deadlines, which can seriously harm client relationships. You never know what internal deadlines a client is working toward, so if you delay your delivery, it could create major issues for them further down the line. That’s why we always aim to deliver ahead of schedule whenever possible.

Another key part of our approach is avoiding a purely transactional relationship. It’s easy to fall into a pattern where a client sends a project, you complete it, send it back, and that’s it. Instead, we take a more consultative approach. We actively engage with our clients—identifying new trends, forecasting potential challenges, and proactively offering solutions.

Rather than just fulfilling requests, we aim to be strategic partners, thinking about their long-term needs and how we can support their growth. That’s been a major factor in maintaining strong, lasting relationships with our clients.

Something that can be tricky in writing is managing client expectations. Let’s say you’re working on a draft for a client, and for some reason, they’re not happy with it. How do you handle that situation?

D.S.: I think the only time you run into issues with client expectations is when you don’t fully understand their project from the beginning—things like their timeline, their exact needs, or the specific outcome they’re looking for. That’s why having a strong onboarding process is so important.

We always take the time to really understand the client’s company, how they operate, their technology, their product, the science behind it, and what they’re aiming for with the project. All of that gets built into a detailed scope of work. Having everything clearly outlined—what they need, what we’re delivering, timelines, expectations—helps reduce the risk of misunderstandings later on.

For freelancers or those just starting out, I’d say a big takeaway is to anticipate potential issues and structure the project properly from the start. It’s easy to want to jump in quickly, especially if a client sends over a half-completed brief and you’re eager to get started. But skipping the step of clarifying expectations can lead to problems down the line. A solid onboarding process and a well-defined scope of work can prevent a lot of that.

Of course, no one is a mind reader. There will be cases where we misinterpret something, or the client didn’t provide enough information upfront. If a first draft doesn’t quite hit the mark, that’s okay—it’s a first draft, not the final version.

The key is to be open and proactive. We always present the first draft and invite detailed feedback. We also like to schedule a post-draft review call with the client so we can go through their comments together and refine the work accordingly.

Navigating difficult client situations

Have you ever had to manage difficult clients? For example, I’ve experienced situations where a project is nearly finished, and then someone new—maybe a senior manager or the boss of the client—jumps in and wants to change everything.

D.S.: We’ve definitely encountered that before, but we’ve developed a process to help prevent it.

The main issue in those situations is that the new person providing feedback wasn’t involved earlier in the process—during the briefing or onboarding stages—so they come in late and suggest major changes. We’ve adjusted our workflow to minimize the chances of that happening.

During onboarding, we always create a detailed project brief. One of the key things we emphasize to the client is that everyone on their team who will be reviewing the final work should review and approve this brief upfront. That way, we avoid surprises later on.

Another issue we’ve faced is when a first draft gets reviewed by one or two people, but then, by the time we submit the second draft, two new people come in with conflicting opinions. To prevent that, we now ask clients to ensure that everyone who will be providing feedback does so on the first draft. We won’t move forward with the second draft until all input is collected.

Do you cap the number of reviews?

D.S.: We usually allow two major reviews and then a third minor review if needed.

In the agency world, there’s a big focus on avoiding scope creep—where a client keeps requesting changes or additions beyond the original agreement. That’s definitely important to manage, but at the end of the day, our main goal is to ensure the final work is as high-quality as possible and that the client is happy.

If scope creep is minimal and helps get the project across the finish line, we generally accommodate it rather than pushing back or immediately asking for extra fees. Strictly enforcing scope limitations can sometimes create friction with clients. So, if it’s just a small amount of additional work that ensures a great final result, it’s usually worth doing.

The need for high-value content in life sciences

Scientists are known for being a bit skeptical. How can companies create content that actually convinces scientists?

D.S.: Selling to scientists is quite unique because we’re trained to question everything, interpret data critically, and validate claims ourselves. So if a company’s marketing department says, Hey, we have the best product—it can sequence five times faster!, you can’t expect a scientist to just take that at face value.

It’s absolutely critical to show the data and let scientists come to their own conclusions. That’s how we operate—we’re researchers. We always tell our clients, You have to provide the receipts for your claims. You can’t just say something is the best; you need to back it up with solid data.

That’s why technical content marketing is so important—things like application notes, in-depth white papers, and detailed product pages on your website. These materials should integrate compelling data and case studies to guide scientists toward realizing that a product is the best fit for their needs, based on evidence.

One of the most effective yet unconventional marketing techniques is leveraging academic publications. If you can validate your product through peer-reviewed research, that’s incredibly persuasive for a scientific audience. Instead of saying, this is faster, cheaper, or more effective, you can point to a published study in a respected journal that demonstrates its performance in real-world use cases.

The role of AI in medical writing

A topic we can’t avoid when talking about content in 2025 is AI. What’s your view on AI in medical writing?

D.S.: When AI started gaining traction, people were saying, “it’s going to replace your job or shut down your company”.

But we actually see it in a different light. In a world flooded with AI-generated content—where companies are churning out three blogs a day using ChatGPT or similar tools—it’s now even more valuable to have expert-written content created by scientists with firsthand experience.

A lot of what we write about comes from real, practical experience—knowledge we’ve acquired firsthand in the lab or through our previous roles as scientists. That kind of expertise isn’t easily accessible on the internet or through an AI tool. So in a way, AI-generated content has actually made high-quality, human-authored content stand out even more. Scientists want content that provides real value—insights they can implement in their work to improve their workflows.

That said, AI tools are undeniably useful, and we do use them in our agency. I’m not saying they have no place—they help speed up certain tasks like research, grammar fixes, and streamlining parts of our workflow.

People often think of AI in writing as just ChatGPT, but for life sciences, there are more specialized AI tools emerging that provide better quality results. One we use is Causaly, which is an academic research tool that pulls information exclusively from PubMed and peer-reviewed papers. It doesn’t generate the writing for us, but it allows us to conduct in-depth research more efficiently.

So overall, AI tools are great for assisting medical writers and experts, but I don’t think they’ll replace us entirely anytime soon.

Recommended resources for agency success

Last question—do you have any resources or books you’d recommend?

D.S.: As I mentioned earlier, I entered the agency world without prior experience working in an agency, so I had to learn a lot about the operational side as I went. One book that I found useful was The Seven Figure Agency Roadmap by Josh Nelson.

Now, it’s a bit corporate and cheesy in parts, and some of it is very financially focused, but it provides a lot of solid insights—especially on things we discussed earlier, like managing client expectations, setting clear scopes of work, forecasting potential issues, and delivering great customer service.

For example, in the book, he suggests sending a gift or hamper to every new client. We haven’t gone quite that far, but there are plenty of practical takeaways, particularly for freelancers looking to transition into agency work. It also has some useful project management tips.