Mini Episode: 3 Things You Can Do Now

In this episode, I share three actionable steps for physicians who are curious about stepping into the startup world. First, I talk about the importance of self-discovery., getting clear on your motivations, values, and what truly drives your interest in innovation. Then we explore strategic networking, not just meeting people, but building relationships that align with your goals and values. And finally, I walk through what it really means to understand the startup landscape, from clinical consulting to advisory roles to founding something of your own.

My goal is to help you recognize how much value you already bring, and how to pair that with the right knowledge and support. If you're feeling the pull toward something more, something creative, impactful, and aligned with your expertise, this episode is for you. I’ll show you how to get started, and how to find community as you build momentum in this space.

Episode Highlights:

[00:00] - Introduction to Startup Opportunities for Physicians
[01:28] - Self-Discovery: Understanding Your Motivations
[05:50] - Strategic Networking: Building Valuable Connections
[10:37] - Understanding the Startup Landscape
[12:30] - Encouragement and Community Support

Transcript

Alison Curfman: 0:24

No one can give you an exact blueprint of what you specifically are going to chart as your path, because that is so deeply personal. It's related to your specialty, yes, but it's also related to your motivations and what, what sorts of things you like to do, because I've described a lot of different types of work you can do on this podcast, whether it's, you know, pitching to investors and to payers, or, like a deep dive, data assessment or operations workflow, you know, review, those are very like different types of work. Welcome to Startup Physicians. Please like and follow our show to join our community of physicians who are reimagining healthcare delivery. Hi everyone. Welcome back to Startup Physicians. I'm your host, Dr. Alison Curfman. I introduced the concept last time of doing a mini episode of three mistakes to avoid when entering the startup space as a physician. And as a follow up to that, I have another mini episode today that is about the three things you can do now, and this is regardless of your level of training, your specialty, your readiness to enter this space, the amount of capital or time you have to invest in this it's really universal. So I want people to understand that, you know, no, no matter what direction you're interested in growing, there's always things you can be doing now. And I like to really encourage people to go beyond what I consider passive action, which is a lot of listening and maybe reading things or or even taking courses, if they're, you know, really absorbing a lot of information, and to now convert that into starting to actually take active action. So whether that means creating something or connecting with people, or, you know, building a business plan or getting started. So we will start with the first action that you can do right now, no matter what phase you're in which is really focused on your own self discovery and learning, and you might be doing that right now as you listen to these podcasts by really starting to look inside of yourself, of what draws you to this work, what sorts of things interest you. I talk a lot about the impact that you can make, the scale at which you can make impact, compared to the one to one impact of seeing patients. I've talked about how fun it can be to be creative and to really be energized by working with founders. I've also talked about really the concept of life design and career design in a way that meets your personal goals of how you want to spend your time here on this earth. And in full transparency, the reason I'm doing mini episodes is because I am trying to get some recordings done because I'm leaving for London tomorrow with two of my older kids, just for fun. So I am trying to demonstrate to you that you know this, this concept of really designing your career, designing your life, trying to find how you want to spend your time, is something that might really be part of your why. But it's important to know why you want to do this, because if you don't have a why you don't really have that emotional fuel to keep to keep going if it gets hard. So understand why you want to do this, and also starting to understand what sort of problems you see in the healthcare system that you feel like need to be changed, need to be better for patients, and if you have ideas about that, and really performing a self assessment to identify your clinical skills, maybe digging back into your CV and thinking of all the different like projects you've worked on, or committees or Qi work, or different clinical perspectives you have, maybe there's specific patient populations that you're really drawn to, or really well experienced with, or maybe you have some policy background, or you've helped with external communication, like marketing a clinic or something like that, really understanding what you're drawn to. So this is, again, the first action which is really focused on self discovery, understanding about you, because this is work that no one can do for you. No one can give you an exact blueprint of what you specifically are going to chart as your path, because that is so deeply personal. It's related to your specialty, yes, but it's also related to your motivations. I. What, what sorts of things you like to do? Because I've described a lot of different types of work you can do on this podcast, whether it's, you know, pitching to investors and to payers, or, like a deep dive, data assessment or operations workflow, you know, review, those are very like different types of work. So if you're not, if you don't enjoy public speaking, and if you don't like, you know, being put on the spot, like maybe business development is not the type of consulting you want to do. So this self discovery is something that you guys can really be doing now. It doesn't take anything but your time and your energy. I do have some resources. I have one free download on the website that's called 50 ways that physicians can contribute to startups and sometimes that can kind of spur your thoughts about like what you might be drawn to. So that's action. One, this self discovery and creating, doing a self assessment and really understanding what motivates you and what sort of work you'd be interested in. The second action is strategic networking and communication. So this is something that is constant, continual, no matter long, how long you spend in this space and how much experience you have, building your network is always going to be something that you'll be investing in, and you need to be able to learn how to communicate your personal value. And so when I start to work with people on how to find opportunities, there are some like baseline ways to start strategic networking that's very curated to what I said in number one, which is understanding what you're drawn to and what's your why and what sort of work you're you're wanting to contribute to, because there's unlimited people that you can reach out to. So you want to be reaching out to the right ones, and so building your unique network is how you will find and grow opportunities, and if you don't even have time to like take on consulting gigs right now, or maybe you're in training, or some of you have a employment contract that doesn't allow consulting, that's okay if your employment contract does not prevent you from meeting people and Growing your network, that is nothing is preventing you from doing that, and so your unique network is what you need. You don't need my network. You don't need someone else's network. Yes, that you do absolutely start to grow each other's networks and make introductions, but you need to find and grow opportunities by sort of doing your own research on on companies in your field that you find interesting, starting to do some outreach and asking what they're working on, and really honestly, communication wise, I find that giving positive feedback is is so universally well accepted. So I often will reach out to companies that I just like what they're doing and I don't even have an agenda, it's just to tell them, like, I like what you're doing and like, Congratulations on starting this. And one of the things that I hear from founders is something that sets doctors apart at times, is the ones that reach out. So you may not be the very, very, very top expert in your field that's published in Nature and JAMA, but you might be a well qualified person in your field who reached out, and all of these things are based on relationships, so reaching out and having conversations, even just virtually, is important. But then you can also really leverage the conferences you go to, even if the conferences you go to are your like, specific specialties academic conference which a lot of us go to, those sorts of conferences every year, you can absolutely walk the the expo hall or the vendor assess vendor booths, because those people paid, like 1000s of dollars to get in front of your exact demographic and your exact specialty. So likewise, they are likely looking for people like you and I have had multiple students who used this strategy at conferences that they were already going to really searched the vendors ahead of time and used their action number one of identifying their why and what they're drawn to, to try and look to see, are there any vendors here that could be a good fit for me and what I'm I'm considering doing and just have a conversation. You don't you do not have to have an agenda. People are always worried about, like, Oh my God, I don't want to feel like I'm selling anything. Well, guess what? You're not yet like you're just meeting people. And then beyond your academic conferences, there are a lot of great health tech conferences to go to that have just a ton of opportunities to meet people and connect. And I have gotten many, many, many consulting and advisory positions from literally walking around. The floor and looking for things that were related to what I like to do, which is population health, digital health, pediatrics, anything about moms and babies, anything about Medicaid, and just talking to people and people like connection. I mean, especially in this world of AI increasing like that human level of connection will always have value. So that's your action. Number two is learning how you're going to start building your own personal network and realize that it's really not all that intimidating to send an outreach message on LinkedIn or or talk to a vendor at a conference. So these are things that anyone can do. And then finally, the third action is also something that you could do, no matter what stage you're in, which is understanding the landscape. You have a lot to learn if you haven't done this before. There's a lot about startups and funding and venture versus private equity, and these are things that will make it hard for you to function at a high level if you don't understand the basics. And it's about being prepared so that you can really understand how companies grow, what some of their needs are at different stages. And I am talking like free resources, like anything you can. There's millions of things you could read online about healthcare startups. You could absolutely talk to your favorite AI about this and ask questions and try and understand, like, what how this world is structured. Obviously, I a lot. I offer a lot of resources about this too. I also tell the story that when I first was recruited to this major firm, I went to the library and I got startups for dummies. I literally read that whole book. So it's not like rocket science, but it's a really good starting point. And you're doing some of this right now, right? You're listening to this podcast. You might be listening to other things, reading other resources that are helping you to understand the landscape and the opportunities and some of the foundational language and how things function in this world. So these are all things that you can do no matter what phase you're in. You can do your self discovery. You can do strategic networking and work on communication and starting to build some relationships. And you can work on understanding the foundational knowledge and the landscape of the startup industry. So altogether, I want to encourage you that you have so many valuable skills. You are such a an asset in this space. I know it can be hard to do new things. I've done new things a lot and felt like a failure or felt like an idiot a lot of the time. But then, you know, you just find the right people to surround yourself with, because if you're just doing it all by yourself, you're probably going to quit. And the more you can have just like a sounding board or someone to talk to about it, or other people that are, you know, motivated and doing cool things, like their motivation will carry you through the times that you kind of feel bad about what you're doing. Like I, I get this all the time that, like I, I spend a lot of time with different groups of entrepreneurs or masterminds or coaching groups or or even just like communities that I'm part of where, you know, maybe I'm having a bad day, but the rest of them might not be. And then the day that they're having a bad day, maybe I'm having a better day and feeling more motivated and excited. And so you know, the things that prompt us to action are really our emotions, and so that's part of why you want to start with your why, but also really find the right people to surround yourself with so that you can take action and keep going even, even if it gets hard. So I hope that was helpful, and I am available for anyone to reach out to on LinkedIn or on the website, and I will look forward to talking to you guys more soon. Thank you for listening to Startup Physicians. Don't forget to like, follow and share.