Full Transcript Overcoming Mental Barriers in Medicine 0:01 Welcome to the Startup [music] Physicians podcast, where we explore how 0:05 doctors lead healthcare innovation. Please like and follow our show to join 0:10 our community [music] of physicians contributing to meaningful change. 0:15 Hi everyone and welcome back to the Startup [music] Physicians podcast. I'm 0:19 your host, Dr. Allison Kurfman, and I am excited to have you here with me today. 0:25 Today I want to take some time to discuss the feedback that I'm getting 0:29 from other physicians about this sort of work and identify some of the top mental 0:35 barriers that I'm hearing all the time. And I want to walk through how we can 0:39 address those barriers. I think it's really clear that we can create a 0:44 roadmap to grow in these areas and in overcome some of these mental barriers. 0:49 I recognize there are a lot of physicians that are very interested in 0:54 this work. I think one of the things that I say that resonates the most with 0:58 physicians is the fact that it's an opportunity to use your 1:04 creativity and use your clinical knowledge in a new way. We don't really 1:09 use creativity in our day-to-day clinical work because you don't really 1:13 want to be creative with how you treat a condition like shock. You use protocols 1:19 and you use evidence-based practice. But we're very used to working in an 1:25 environment where our pathway is very very linear. 1:29 Meaning we go from one step from med school to residency to fellowship. It's 1:35 very clear what the next step is. There's not a multitude of other options 1:40 of pathways that we see in our training. And at the 1:44 same time, we don't really consider ourselves 1:48 really an expert in anything until we've been doing it for like 10 years. And 1:53 that's pretty unique to the field of medicine. I think that, you know, when I 1:56 was intern or med student, I thought, "Oh, I'm just a med student." Then you 2:00 do residency and fellowship, and then you become an attending. For me, that 2:04 was 10 years later, and I still felt like I was just an early attending. 2:10 And so, I think that we need to actually give ourselves more credit for how much 2:15 we do know. I am hearing from people that say that they want to do something 2:21 more on the side, they'd like to be more creative, they'd like to create 2:24 additional income streams, but a lot of them are hitting the same roadblocks.
Identifying Unique Offerings and Skills 2:29 So, we're going to talk about these. So, here are five things that I hear 2:34 from doctors all the time, and they use as their reasoning for why they probably 2:38 can't work with startups. The first one is, "I don't have anything 2:44 unique to offer." That in and of itself is a belief, it's something that we all 2:50 feel sometimes. I feel that sometimes, that I don't really know how I'm going 2:54 to be able to this company, 2:57 or I don't really know who needs my expertise. Um but, the truth is, you 3:02 really do have unique ideas to offer. You've just never had to articulate it 3:08 before. And that is a skill, and that's one of the things I teach people is to 3:13 really dig into your own experience, your background, your skills. When I did 3:18 this exercise, there were skills that I didn't even know were skills. So, I 3:22 actually was working with someone to help me write my resume a long time ago, 3:27 and there were things she was pulling out that are true marketable skills that 3:31 I I didn't even know were skills. So, that is something that I really 3:36 teach people is to understand your own background and identify 3:42 things that you are compelled by. I love when people are really pulled to this 3:47 field by an idea or by something that they they to impact, as opposed to I'm 3:53 just so burnt out, I have to get away from this. I need a new path. And so I 3:58 think it's a lot more successful when you're running towards something than 4:01 away from something. So when you say I don't have anything 4:04 unique to offer that's first off not a true statement 4:07 and it's a belief and it's something that your brain does to sort of protect 4:11 yourself. I did have an email exchange with someone this week that said that 4:15 they were really interested in in knowing more about the course that I 4:18 have and I gave her some information. She said, "Okay, well, I don't really 4:22 have any ideas right now. So maybe maybe I'll try again in a year." And I thought 4:27 that was an interesting response because I can't imagine not having any ideas. 4:32 Every time I've ever asked any physician, "Do you have any ideas of 4:35 problems in health care that affect your patients?" They they all say yes and 4:39 they all have some idea of how it could be better. 4:43 So I think that understanding your own story, your own narrative, and what's 4:49 unique about what you have to offer is the very first step. Another thing 4:54 that really makes you unique is if you are out reaching out. So I I had someone 5:00 in my course last time who ended up following the frameworks that I
Building a Network and Strategic Connections 5:05 shared and she ended up setting up time with a venture firm and she lives in the 5:09 Bay Area and met with them in person and the thing that they found was so unique 5:14 about her was the fact that she reached out to them. So I think that you have a 5:19 lot to offer and if you're feeling like you don't have anything unique to offer, 5:24 then that's a mindset you need to work on. The second objection that I hear is 5:28 that I don't have a network. I'm not involved. I don't know who to talk to. 5:34 And that is completely true right now, but it is 5:37 also a solvable problem. So that is the whole point of what we're doing together 5:42 is really strategic networking. I teach people how to really dig in on those 5:49 problems that they're identifying and their areas of expertise that they're 5:53 identifying to strategically find firms and companies that are trying to address 5:59 those things. And so when you start doing some of this 6:04 lead prospecting of really trying to find like who's doing work in this 6:08 space, it's stuff you can do online. You can do 6:11 it by clicking around and reading about companies and firms and and it's very 6:15 low risk to actually connect with someone on LinkedIn, send them a little 6:20 message, ask if they'd like to chat. It's it's very low risk. And so 6:27 I don't want people to think throughout what I'm teaching them that 6:32 the end goal is that at the end you're going to go make some connections and 6:36 you're going to immediately get hired as an advisor. The point is learning how to 6:41 speak this way, learning how to connect with people, learning how to really 6:47 start to understand the ecosystem. And when I frame it like that that what you 6:51 want to get out of this interaction is a connection, it's so much lower of a risk 6:59 or a fear than if you're trying to oh I'm pitching them my services. And I 7:04 will say that if you have enough of these discovery calls, almost every one 7:08 will probably lead to a great conversation, another connection, or 7:13 maybe an opportunity to be an advisor. Or I have definitely had people that say 7:18 that's awesome. I'd love to connect you to a founder that I know who really 7:22 needs your services. So the networking is really important. I I hate the word 7:28 like oh let's work on networking, but it's really all about your connections 7:32 and learning how to strategically find the right people to connect with is a 7:37 really important skill. The next and third objection that I hear from people 7:42 is that I don't know how to talk about myself without sounding salesy. Now, I
Communicating Value Without Being Salesy 7:49 struggle with this a lot because what I'm doing right now, even with Startup 7:52 Physician, is to try to spread the word, try and spread the vision, and try and 7:57 get people excited about this work. I do feel self-conscious sometimes about 8:02 like, "Oh my gosh, am I posting or emailing and I sound like a 8:05 salesperson?" And that's fine. It's It's not inherently bad. I find that when I'm 8:11 doing my consulting and advising work, I use a lot of language that doesn't sound 8:18 like I'm trying to sell them something. I say things like, "I'm so excited about 8:24 the concept you're building. I would love to know if there's any way I can 8:27 support you." Um 8:29 and, you know, let's let's keep in touch about what you're building. I'd love to 8:34 um get involved. Um or or even just directly saying like, "Hey, I've done X, 8:39 Y, or Z before. I think I see a pretty big opportunity for your company if you 8:44 wanted to talk about working together." So, there's ways to say say things that 8:50 don't sound salesy, and I I do teach people a very structured framework for 8:56 an introduction call or a discovery call where you're using it, you know, 9:02 only 30 minutes so that you're not wasting a lot of time meeting with one 9:07 person over and over and over again. 30 minutes, how to structure it to really 9:10 get to the bottom of what they're trying to solve, where their problems are, how 9:13 and introducing yourself and your services, and then asking like, "Hey, 9:16 would you be interested in working together? Or is there any way I can 9:20 support your work?" So, it's not about selling, it's about being clear and 9:24 helpful, and really aligned with impact. So much of the conversations that we 9:29 have are going to be aligned around mission. So, what is the mission? If you 9:33 identify with their mission and what they're trying to build and do, 9:38 um then supporting that work is not salesy. What you're trying to sell is a 9:45 an outcome. So, you're trying to help these companies to be clinically aligned 9:50 and to have best practices ingrained in their model. And so, it's not about 9:55 selling. I know it feels uncomfortable, but again, when I tell people that the 10:00 purpose of these connection calls is to learn the ecosystem and make make 10:05 connections, it's a lot less intimidating. I hear other people say, 10:11 "Don't have time to do this right now." Or, "I don't have time to start my own 10:16 company." And that's totally fine. Not everybody wants to do that. I I do have 10:22 thoughts for people that do want to start their own company, but you don't 10:25 have to. The thing that's so nice about consulting and advising is there is such 10:30 a low barrier to entry. You can start very small. You don't have to have an 10:36 LLC. You don't have to have anything. You really just have to have time to set
Time Management and Flexibility in Consulting 10:41 aside to really put some work into it. And you don't 10:45 have to put capital into it. It's different than 10:48 other you know, times that you're you're 10:51 trying to develop investment strategies. Maybe you're trying to come up with a 10:55 down payment to buy a rental property, to implement some of these 10:59 things to to create income streams. This is very different. You don't need any of 11:04 that. You need a LinkedIn profile, you need a phone number and an email, and a 11:08 way for people to get a hold of you. And then you need some way for people to 11:11 book on your calendar, whether that's please email me a list of times, or 11:15 getting something simple like Calendly set up. So, 11:20 you don't have to have a lot of time. I think that 11:22 this could be a a gradient approach for people. They can really just try it out 11:27 and start to meet other people that are doing this work and learn more before 11:32 they start actually devoting a lot of time to it. Other people really want to 11:36 go like full-on. Like I have had people who are 11:41 so interested in building their business development pipeline, and I am going to 11:45 go out and I'm going to get all these leads, and every one of those leads I'm 11:48 going to get more leads, and I'm going to structure it in a way that I am 11:53 rapidly expanding my network, finding opportunities, getting good at asking 11:59 people if I can support their work, and having a pipeline of constant projects 12:05 or advisory roles rolling in. And I tell people you can kind of dial up and down 12:10 how much you want to do this. There's been times that I've been 12:14 working with so many clients that I I'm working a lot, and then there's times 12:18 that you know, I I kind of turned some things down because I I wanted to spend 12:22 some time developing this podcast and my course, um and it's very flexible. And 12:26 then you can kind of also decide like do you want to 12:29 you know, up or reduce your clinical FTE in relation to this. 12:34 The last mindset shift that I talked to people about, the barrier that they have 12:41 is um 12:42 that I am just a doctor and I don't know business. So, I know that feeling. Um I 12:49 don't think you need an MBA to be an advisor. You really need a 12:55 framework. You need a basic understanding of how things work. I know 12:59 we are so eager as doctors to get even more educated. The answer to everything 13:04 is to get another degree, or maybe I need to do this. And that is that expert 13:09 mentality speaking, where you feel like you really need to have like some
Understanding Business Fundamentals for Physicians 13:15 credentialed letters after your name to actually be an expert, and that's just 13:20 not true in this space. You do need to know a little bit about the world you're 13:28 entering. I think it's very important to know the difference between venture and 13:32 private equity, what's an accelerator or an incubator or a venture studio, how 13:38 those are different cuz that would affect, you know, some of the portfolio 13:42 companies you're trying to work with. And when I say portfolio 13:46 companies, I mean if there's a venture firm that is supporting, you know, a 13:51 bunch of different startups that are early stage, those are considered their 13:55 portfolio. And so you need to know how the life cycle of an early stage company 14:01 works and the fundraising so that you can price your services appropriately. 14:07 And so we go through all that sort of a framework so that people can know the 14:11 basics of the business. But they're not actually looking for you because they 14:16 think you have great business skills. They're looking for you because you have 14:21 great clinical skills. You need to know how to operate in this environment, but 14:26 you don't need to be the expert on finance or marketing or other health 14:33 care economics. They have people for that. You're the expert in the clinical 14:37 side of things. So I'm going to tell you a little bit about my framework for how 14:43 I walk people through this process and understanding how to overcome those 14:50 feelings of inadequacy or feeling like this is maybe not something you can do. 14:55 First we start by really unlocking your expertise. So I help people to try to 15:01 articulate their narrative. Every single person has a story. What makes you 15:06 credible? What makes you valuable? If you can't come up with that, then it 15:11 would be hard to sell your services. But you all have it and sometimes somebody 15:16 needs to pull it out of you. And I have been there. I honestly, when I did this 15:21 exercise with a um a coach, I literally felt like, "Oh, I'm such a 15:27 failure. I don't know who would ever want 15:30 me to to do this work because in my mind, for those of you who listened to 15:35 the first episode, I had designed this program for complex kids at a nonprofit 15:40 hospital system. It had great clinical outcomes, but it was not the right place 15:45 to scale it. It wasn't making money in fee-for-service. And so it ended up 15:51 shutting down. And so at that point, I again, I just 15:54 felt like, "Oops, I'm like a fail. All I've done is 15:57 build a failed program." But that program was actually my stepping stone 16:02 to get into this world because, you know, we had published the results and 16:05 that's what led me to then work with this firm and move to Nashville. So, my 16:10 narrative was really negative at that time. Like, "Oh, I'm a I'm a doctor who 16:15 created a failed program." That's really not going to get you opportunities, so 16:19 working with someone who really could help pull it out of me, where all the
Crafting Your Narrative and Value Proposition 16:22 skills were, where all the impact was, and what made me credible and valuable, 16:27 it was really meaningful to me. And now that's what I work on with other people. 16:31 And I have seen all of these doctors come with this hesitancy about their 16:37 expertise that "Well, I don't really know that anyone cares about this." We 16:42 can really pull that out and articulate it and turn it into a story. You're 16:47 going to be telling the story a lot. You're going to be introducing yourself 16:51 on calls. You're going to be introducing yourself at conferences. You're going to 16:55 put your LinkedIn out there and it's it's going to be aligned with your story 16:59 of what you want to contribute. Teach people how to make this a a bio, an 17:05 elevator pitch, how to say it, how to put it in LinkedIn, how to make it all 17:08 sync. And if we start with that as the foundation, it makes the rest of this 17:12 easier. Cuz then you know where you're coming 17:15 from. The next thing we go through to really get all the nuts and bolts are 17:19 really business foundations about what tools you may need to get started. A lot 17:25 of them are free, and then kind of the whole spectrum of like, when do you need 17:29 a an actual entity versus when can you just kind of dabble in this on your own? 17:35 That is a personal decision. Do you need insurance? What sort of software do you 17:39 use for scheduling? All of that sort of stuff for What are the foundations of 17:43 what you would need to get started? And then we talk about the third section 17:49 is your value proposition. So, now you've already started to own your 17:54 narrative and your story and your background. And then we start to 17:58 actually form these into services. What are the services that you can actually 18:03 offer? Who would be the target companies? How do you price these 18:08 services? And how can you start to find leads and decide where you fit? Next, we 18:13 spend our fourth core session talking about design thinking. This is something 18:19 that is very challenging for physicians. We are used to 18:24 uh doing things the way they've been do- done for a very long time, and it is 18:30 ingrained in us that that is because of quality. We do this because this is what 18:35 makes it safe. When really there are some deep 18:38 influences on everything we do in healthcare that really are tied to 18:42 payment or billing or some other thing that set what the standard is. 18:46 And so, I encourage people to understand kind of the language and frameworks to
Design Thinking and Innovation in Healthcare 18:52 contribute to conversations around clinical product or clinical modeling, 18:58 and identify ways to challenge yourself to think differently. The fifth core 19:04 thing that we do is to have some topics related to private equity, venture 19:11 capital, startup life cycles, what the funding world looks like, so that you 19:16 can both speak their language, understand where you can add value, and 19:21 understand what they'd be looking for. And this helps you to refine your 19:24 pricing strategy. And then the last exercise we go through 19:28 is building your business development pipeline. This is the you know, list of 19:33 all the connection calls trying to identify the right companies and venture 19:37 firms and startups that may be interesting to you to just get to know. 19:42 And how to pitch yourself, how to, you know, use that story that we and 19:47 that narrative that we developed in the first section to really share that in a 19:52 in a way that resonates with industry. And how to actually offer a proposal, 19:57 and how to actually get started working with a client. And so, this is meant to 20:02 create a repeatable process, a foundational knowledge about how to 20:07 operate in this world. And it's not going to answer all the questions. 20:11 You're going to have some sort of situation where you say like, I don't 20:15 know what to do about this contract or this term. 20:18 Um, and you can get feedback from other people that are doing this. 20:22 So, all together, you don't need a lot of things to get started in this. And 20:28 most of what you need, you already have. It's a question of understanding your 20:33 own value, your own skills and expertise, and really knowing what you 20:39 can contribute. And it's okay if you feel like you don't know what you can 20:43 contribute because that is one of the biggest barriers to get over. For those 20:47 of you that are interested, I do have a download on my website that says, uh, 50 20:53 things that physicians can do with startups. I made that because of how 20:58 much I was getting this feedback that people said, I don't know what I could 21:01 do with startup. And I think that, um, you know, when I list them all out and 21:06 put a description of either things that I've been paid for or colleagues that I 21:11 know have been paid for, you'll start to realize that like, oh, I know that 21:14 thing. Maybe I don't know all 50 of these things, but I know this and I know 21:18 this. Yeah, I could absolutely talk about my, you know, patient's journey 21:23 through the system and where the barriers are. You know a lot of things 21:27 that you don't realize is is true knowledge that these firms don't have. 21:33 So, you really need clarity, confidence, and a structure to build from. And then
The Path Forward: Joining the Startup Ecosystem 21:38 once you do, this work is incredibly meaningful. 21:41 So, if this resonates with you, um I invite you to join our next cohort of 21:48 the Startup Physicians Launchpad or reach out if you want to learn more. 21:52 Keep listening to this podcast. I'm going to be sharing more stories of 21:57 physicians who have taken interesting paths into industry. And one of the next 22:01 things that we're really going to start getting into is bringing on some guests 22:04 from the venture world to really weigh in on how they evaluate companies, where 22:10 they see a need for physicians, and so that you can hear it directly from them 22:16 because I have been trying to pressure test this idea for a while both with 22:21 physicians trying to understand are there people that would be interested in 22:25 this work, interested in finding a pathway. And I think I've gotten a 22:28 resounding yes. There are a lot of people that find this to be very 22:32 interesting. And then at the same time, I've been really meeting with a lot of 22:36 people in venture who are friends and colleagues of mine and trying to get to 22:41 the bottom of like, do you see there being a lot of value in well-trained 22:46 physician advisors or am is that just like my opinion? And I'm getting a ton 22:51 of feedback from them as well that they are really interested in having more of 22:57 you cross over and join this path and find ways to contribute in a creative 23:03 and meaningful way to industry and to developing companies. Please feel free 23:07 to reach out, comment on the episode, follow the podcast, connect on LinkedIn. 23:12 You can go download the 50 ways physicians can contribute um in that 23:16 design startupphysicians.com. And I am so excited to work with you all 23:22 more and thank you [music] so much for tuning in. Thanks for listening to the 23:26 Startup Physicians Podcast. This community [music] was built for doctors 23:30 who want to contribute to the future of healthcare. We offer support for 23:34 physicians who [music] are ready to make the next step towards building the 23:37 career they've dreamed of. Visit startupphysicians.com [music] 23:42 to learn more. And if this episode resonated with you, 23:45 share it with another friend who needs [music] to hear it. Let's change the 23:49 future of healthcare together.
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