What I Do
Mr. Jones is an experienced entrepreneur, often creating scientifically sound consumer products, moving them onto retail shelves and building profitable businesses. His specific domain expertise is in nutrition science, and he has launched several of the first successful products in the arena of “food as medicine.” Mr. Jones has also led the turn-around of a food company that’s publicly traded on the Hong Kong exchange.
His hands-on experience creating, leading and turning around companies gives him a pragmatic perspective on what it takes to succeed in innovation. He has accumulated first-hand experience with the many hazards and seductive pitfalls that can prevent a successful outcome and he uses that experience to help other entrepreneurs accelerate their path to success.
Specialties: Finding your customer, sales fundamentals for the technical entrepreneur, building a team – hiring and firing, managing teams for growth, raising capital, negotiation of strategic alliances and licensing agreements, sales, marketing, product development. He also likes recruiting top-quality teams and leading them to sustainable success, while maintaining sanity (and even humor) in the workplace.
Biography
Mr. Jones is currently CEO of Scientific Nutrition Products, Inc., his fourth Boston-based startup. Their first product is Food for Sleep, a 2½ oz. beverage made from foods that have been clinically demonstrated to promote sleep. Their launch market is competitive athletes, who can achieve better performance and better recovery through better sleep.
Mr. Jones has long been interested in the intersection of food and medicine. From a background in clinical nutrition (intravenous amino acid cocktails sold to Intensive Care Units), he became interested in ways to address health concerns via nutritional solutions based on solid science.
In addition to this company, Mr. Jones has launched three prior companies in medical nutrition, working in areas such as diabetes, weight management and more. All of those companies were with staff and faculty at Harvard Medical School, and led to consumer products that were sold through retail pharmacies. At other times, he served as CEO of Vitasoy USA (a management turn-around), worked as a principal in a strategy consulting firm, and held sales and marketing positions at Abbott Laboratories and Baxter International. He has two awarded patents in the field of nutrition.
Mr. Jones is an active mentor with MIT’s Venture Mentoring Service and has served as a judge in MIT’s 100K Business Plan Competition. He teaches several units of “The Nuts and Bolts of New Ventures,” the largest and oldest entrepreneurship course offered at MIT. He is a National Advisor to Pipeline Entrepreneurs, an exclusive community of entrepreneurial leaders building high-growth companies, where he leads Module One: Finding Your Customer. Mr. Jones earned an A.B. in biology (cum laude) from Princeton University, and an MSM (MBA + thesis) from MIT Sloan. After hours, he’s an active musician in a blues band in the Boston area.