Full Transcript Introduction to Dr. David Lortscher 0:01 Welcome to the Startup Physicians podcast, where we explore how doctors 0:06 lead healthcare innovation. Please like and follow our show to join our 0:10 community of physicians contributing to meaningful change. 0:17 Hi everyone, welcome back to the Startup Physicians podcast. This is your host, 0:20 Dr. Allison Kurfman, and I'm joined today by a colleague, Dr. David 0:25 Lordcher, who has a very inspiring message for physicians. He has a journey 0:30 that I think is a little parallel to mine, but is also just a great example 0:37 and has some really, really impressive evidence of why doctors are good 0:43 contributors to startups and why they succeed as founders and co-founders. So, 0:49 David, thank you so much for joining me today. 0:51 >> Yeah, great to be here, Allison. >> Can you share a little bit about your 0:55 clinical background and then your journey into the startup space?
From Dermatology to a Billion-Dollar Startup 0:59 >> Yeah, so I'm a dermatologist by training. I did my residency at UCSD and 1:04 I started practicing 2012 at a great practice out in the middle of New Mexico 1:09 and ended up within six months getting an idea to found a startup. And happy to 1:14 go into a little bit about the early days cuz I know your your listeners 1:16 going to be interested in that. The way it worked for me was that I was very 1:20 busy, like all new dermatologists, right? So many specialties are in great 1:23 need. And you know, as as soon as I walked into this practice where which 1:27 two other physicians started, I had a six-month waiting list. Not because I 1:30 was a great dermatologist, but just because the need was so great. And back 1:33 in 2012, this was like, you know, five years after the iPhone came out. And so 1:38 this was the core time when everybody was building a telehealth app. Right? 1:43 It's like 50% of the population now had iPhones in 2012, and so it was clear 1:47 that this was going to transform how medicine was delivered, how care was 1:50 delivered to patients. But what I kept seeing is that for my patients when I 1:53 was looking for these telehealth solutions, none of them really seemed to 1:56 actually solve the problem in my mind. And really at the time, there were 2:00 already probably at least 10 telehealth apps specifically for dermatology. Um 2:05 but for various reasons, none of them seemed to work for my patients. And so 2:08 what I did is I ended up deciding to throw my hat in the ring, um start my 2:12 own telehealth company. Over the 10 years I spent as co-founder and CEO of 2:17 the company, we grew to hundreds of employees, treated 5 million patients, 2:21 achieved a valuation of a billion dollars, and also all these fun 2:25 milestones, but learned an absolute ton along the way. And uh since I've retired 2:30 from that uh from that business, I I've started looking into, you know, 2:34 what is it that enables physicians to succeed at startups? Because I've had so 2:40 many colleagues that that that joined startups as physician and were able to 2:44 contribute to their company's success. And and I really tried to look into that 2:47 from a scientific perspective. >> That's such an incredible journey, and 2:50 congratulations on the work that you did there. And especially the impact. I 2:55 think that's what really drives a lot of physicians more than anything is like 2:59 your stat of seeing 5 million patients. I mean, being able to bring care to 3:04 people in a way that they hadn't had access to before is really really 3:09 meaningful. So, how did you get started? I mean, I think a lot of people 3:14 are actually a great founder type. Like they they have what it takes, 3:19 but they just don't know anything about the space. So, how did 3:23 you get started? Did you have mentors in startups? Had you had advisors in the 3:27 past? Did you just read about it? How did you decide like, "Oh, I'm going to 3:31 start a startup?" >> It started with which is I think how a
How Physicians Spot Problems Others Miss 3:35 lot of physicians end up if they found a startup, how it starts is that they they 3:39 notice a clinical need in a way that's hard to do if you're an outsider, right? 3:43 I see so many health care companies started by like, "Oh, I'm an investor. I 3:46 was a consultant." But but the people who I think are best positioned to spot 3:49 these real needs are doctors. And and that's what happened to me, right? I was 3:52 just in practice. I had a spot to go to a a fellowship in dermatopathology at 3:57 UCLA the next year. So, I had no plans of founding a startup at the time. But, 4:01 the need that I saw was that um there were so many patients who just could not 4:05 access dermatology care, right? And but now it should be so efficient and easy 4:08 for these people to. So, why wasn't Why isn't this being solved? And when I when 4:11 I looked at the 10 other or so teledermatology apps or or websites out 4:16 there, what I saw is that like the typical one 4:19 would charge a patient about $60 for what we call an asynchronous consult, 4:23 right? And as as all dermatologists know, these asynchronous consults are 4:26 just like photos and text, right? And that's the best way to do uh telehealth 4:30 in dermatology cuz like, you know, video just doesn't work for looking at 4:33 people's skin. But, what I saw is that on for a dermatologist, if you're seeing 4:37 a telehealth consult for something relatively simple, you should be able to 4:39 do this in in my mind in about 30 seconds. Um and what I was seeing with 4:43 the with the other apps out there is they would charge the patient $60, 30 4:46 that would go to the dermatologist. But, if you're paying the dermatologist 4:49 $30 for every visit, uh to some people that sounds really low. It's like, I'm 4:53 used to getting $200 to see a patient in my office. But, in my mind that was too 4:56 high. Like, what if we could actually get dermatologists to see these consults 4:59 for $5? And then all of a sudden, we could we could open up access to so many 5:02 more people. And that's ultimately what we did. And so So, that was sort of the 5:06 key belief I had at the beginning that we could actually make these things much 5:09 more effective. And it took a lot of operational clinical knowledge because 5:14 as a dermatologist, what I knew I needed to do was think of every possible use 5:19 case. Like, let's say a patient comes in for acne. And I think it's being caused 5:22 by some obscure milk-based protein powder they're using. I don't want to 5:26 have to type that out to them or somehow in this back in 2012 you're typing 5:29 things, right? So, what what you would do was memorize 300 different keyboard 5:33 shortcuts, like a dot followed by three letters. And then no matter what you 5:36 what their diagnosis is and what lifestyle changes you need to make, you 5:39 could type it to them in like 4 seconds. And so, our patients ended up saying, 5:43 "Wow, I've never had care this insightful and this customized." Um but 5:48 what we saw from the clinician perspective is each console only took us 5:51 30 seconds. And so what this created was a huge volume of like untapped demand 5:55 from patients who thought they couldn't see a dermatologist either because it 5:58 was too expensive or it was too far away for them or the wait time is too long. 6:01 And so we we aim to solve all three of those problems. And to go to the other 6:05 part of your question, you know, once I had that idea, how did I get the 6:08 mentorship? I was very lucky because um, my best friend growing up, um, you know, 6:14 we went to the same schools from from elementary on to like our our 6:18 public high school, ended up going to Harvard Business School and worked at 6:21 Goldman Sachs. So he was really plugged into the investment community, the 6:24 startup world. And he was able to give me the mentorship from a business 6:27 perspective. Like um, and we could talk about the advice he gave me. But but it 6:30 was absolutely key to have him as as just a constant resource as I was 6:34 building the company. >> Yeah, I mean it 6:36 it's so important to surround yourself with 6:40 the right people because if you spend all of your time with people who are 6:44 plugging along at their clinical job and doing what most people do when they see 6:48 problems, which is complain about them, you're never going to break out of that 6:53 environment and just see more. See more that you're able to do. See opportunity. 6:57 See a chance to change something. And that's why I love spending time with 7:00 founders and spending time with people in venture is that they're just very, in 7:04 general, I think optimistic about the future and see just opportunities 7:09 everywhere. Now, not everything is the same level of opportunity, but I think 7:14 that that it's a an ability to see the potential for change. And a lot of it is 7:20 formulaic, too. Like what makes a good concept? What makes a good founder? It's 7:25 why you see people who have a successful startup and then they go and they like 7:29 do some more. Like that's why people become serial entrepreneurs is they use 7:32 the same concepts and learnings that they had for one concept, now they apply 7:36 it to another concept. Everything needs some of the same stuff. And so I think 7:40 that your about having great mentors or 7:45 advisors or people who knew the space and were able to be a sounding board for 7:50 you is probably a huge part of why you were able to get through those early 7:55 stages and and find success. >> Absolutely. And so, what I've been
What Successful Physician Founders Have in Common 7:59 spending my last 2 years on is writing this book for for physicians who are 8:03 curious about startups, whether it's like starting their own or or joining 8:06 one and trying to provide that that mentorship that that I that I had but 8:11 many, many other physicians in my space wouldn't have had just because their 8:14 best friend wasn't an investment banker at Goldman Sachs. And so, you know, 8:18 basically looked into as I was interviewing all these other health tech 8:22 founders for my book, you know, for example, like the physician founder of 8:25 the AI scribe company Abridge or the physician founder of UpToDate, the 8:28 physician founder of Doximity. What I saw with these these people is exactly 8:32 what you say, like there's there's there's actually formulas that repeat 8:36 from startup to startup to startup. And and what what a lot of these people did 8:40 is is dip their foot into the startup community before before they were, you 8:44 know, ready to launch their own. So, you know, for example, for with with with 8:48 Shiv from Abridge, what he did is like build his own apps when he was a 8:51 residency, like just simple apps to help him and his co-residents like collect 8:55 journal articles that might be relevant to their patients, right? But like from 8:58 building an app, you realize you you realize what goes into making a 9:01 product usable and then you realize like, okay, once you have a product that 9:04 you think think is so cool, it actually is really hard to get other people to 9:06 use it. You can't just be like, if you build it, they will come. And same thing 9:09 with like Dr. Gross from Doximity, he was building his own apps. And then when 9:12 you look at Dr. Shreve, one of the founders of of um Crossover Health, you 9:17 know, what he did to get into the startup community was he was he was 9:20 blogging, he was speaking, and just like saying like, this is where I think like 9:23 healthcare needs to go and like interviewing people like you're doing, 9:26 like learning learning about like, you know, what are the opportunities to 9:29 improve healthcare. You know, I saw a lot of people who I 9:32 interviewed for the book working with the health tech incubator. 9:35 So, like, you know, the founder of Shockwave, Uh he, you know, he was 9:39 working with Biodesign at Stanford and basically just being like, "Hey, like, 9:42 you know, all these companies are coming through with their different like 9:44 medical device ideas. How can I, as a physician, help you figure out how to 9:48 validate them? Like, what sort of what sort of steps do you need to take so 9:50 that clinician will will actually know whether this is helpful to patients." 9:54 So, there's so many different ways to dip your foot into the startup community 9:57 and that's that I think that's that's the biggest the biggest thread I saw 10:02 running through all these companies. >> And I am so impressed by your book and 10:05 and the information that you shared with me even at the beginning of this call, 10:09 but what did you find in the data that said validated your hypothesis about 10:15 physician founders? >> Well, yeah, this was the craziest thing.
The Data Behind Why Doctors Win 10:18 So, when you look back at the 100 most valuable healthcare companies founded in 10:22 the past four decades, right? Just like think to yourself about what some of 10:25 them are. The number one most valuable is Intuitive Surgical. That was founded 10:29 by a physician. The number two most valuable company in healthcare founded 10:32 over the past four decades is Gilead, also founded by a physician. Number four 10:36 is Regeneron, also founded by a physician. And going all the way down 10:39 these top 100 most valuable companies, 51% of them had at least one physician 10:43 founder. So, it was really remarkable to me to see, especially since when you 10:48 look at healthcare startups overall, only 17% have a physician founder. So, 10:52 basically what you see is this huge outperformance. And what I took that to 10:56 mean is not that necessarily physicians make better founders than 11:00 non-physicians. But, when you're founding a company, domain expertise is 11:04 important. And I think in any other industry, like you're if you're founding 11:08 a software company, you're going to have a software engineer on the team, right? 11:10 If you're founding like a legal company, you're probably going to have a lawyer 11:12 on the founding team. But, like, for some reason in healthcare, that doesn't 11:15 happen. And I think it's because a lot of physicians shy away from 11:18 entrepreneurship for various reasons. But, but when a startup does have a 11:22 physician as a co-founder, adding that clinical insight, it really can be a 11:25 huge lever for for the startup. And the the other the other reason that, you 11:30 know, the data led me to write this book is that when you think about those 83% 11:34 of healthcare startups that don't have a physician on this founding team, they 11:37 still need that clinical guidance, and not just because it's better for 11:40 patients, but because it's better for the business, right? It's going to It's 11:43 going to ultimately create a better business. And so, they need a physician 11:46 executive who's in a position to help direct the company, point them in the 11:49 right direction, right? So, so what I'm trying to help is is get all of these 11:53 other physicians who have an inclination to help patients at a larger scale, 11:57 maybe beyond the one-to-one scale where we help them in clinic, um help these 12:00 people get um get a position where they can actually make a difference in 12:03 startups. >> That's incredible. And I feel like 12:07 you're saying all the things that I'm always trying to tell physicians, cuz 12:10 you and I have such a similar story and and background. And um you know, being 12:15 involved from the very very beginning of a concept and having it come out of a 12:20 real clinical need that you're seeing. Um I often challenge physicians to start 12:24 thinking, what is a problem in healthcare that you think you could 12:28 solve? And And you're right that there are a lot of um companies, many 12:32 companies, majority of companies in the healthcare sector that don't include 12:36 physicians in the founding team or or until a little bit of a later stage if 12:41 they bring them in at all. And I think the stats that you're sharing about 12:45 these top 100 companies are are really compelling. I see how having been 12:52 in it from the very beginning of a concept, how you can see how that 12:56 strategy and the clinical insight and that domain expertise really needs to 13:01 get woven into the fabric of what the company is going to become. And you're 13:06 right that you wouldn't start a legal company without a lawyer, but I think in 13:10 healthcare, people have a lot of personal experiences with healthcare, 13:14 and it triggers this drive, this founder's drive in them. Maybe their 13:18 child had diabetes and they had a experience, and now they're like, "Wow, 13:22 there's so much opportunity in this market to improve it. I'm going to go do 13:26 that." And I think you're right that a lot of physicians see the problem, 13:30 think they could make it better, and instead feel just kind of discouraged 13:34 and frustrated with the system instead of They don't feel empowered to change 13:39 it. They don't think they Most people don't know anyone in venture. They don't
Learning Business Without Losing Clinical Insight 13:42 know anyone who's founded a startup. >> Yeah, and they don't have any any 13:45 background in business. And it's funny because that it definitely, I think, 13:50 gives us a psychological barrier to wanting to start a company. But what I 13:54 saw is that looking at all these companies where they were physician 13:57 founded, first of all, like in most cases, the physician ended up being the 14:00 CEO, even if he or she didn't have business experience. And in my view, 14:04 that is usually the right choice. You want the CEO to be the person who has 14:07 the domain expertise. But the other thing is that all these people had 14:11 tremendous humility and curiosity. They said, I'm going to learn about 14:15 business. I'm going to put everything I can into learning about business. I'm 14:17 going to I'm going to like read biographies of the Steve Jobs or like 14:19 great inventors of the past. Like I'm going to learn about finance, you know? 14:22 And it's not easy to do that. But but, you know, as much as it's important to 14:26 recognize that the clinical expertise is invaluable, you also have to recognize 14:31 that that all the other stuff that we don't know about about marketing and 14:34 hiring like are just as important. So so the physicians that succeed are really 14:38 the ones that A, you have to have like the right idea, join the right type of 14:41 startup. And and, you know, this is This is why my book is called Why Doctors 14:44 Win. It's like you have to do all these things, right? You have to find the 14:47 right people to work with. Um you have to you have to find the 14:51 right startup with the right idea. And as clinicians, we are well positioned to 14:55 figure out whether a startup is going to win. But we need to do the research. We 14:59 need to know how to do the research. So I try to break that down in the book. 15:01 And then And then but when you do join, then that's when the humility really 15:05 starts cuz you I see a lot of doctors join startups from a position of like, 15:08 oh, let me teach you guys how things work. And the the way that the people 15:12 who really succeed approach it is let me learn from you. Like, you know, approach 15:15 like you approach us with humility. Like you're not telling people anything. 15:19 You're learning and you're guiding. Um but like everything you you try to guide 15:23 the company to do should should be more framed as like as a question, as a 15:26 suggestion, and you should ideally spend more time learning from your colleagues 15:30 than you spend teaching your colleagues. >> Absolutely. Those are two principles 15:33 that I speak on a lot is that the things that trip people up are either not 15:38 having enough confidence and not understanding the value of their domain 15:42 expertise and never getting started or having 15:46 sort of this arrogance or rigidity about the way things have to happen and being 15:52 so focused on on being the last word that that you don't actually get the the 15:58 growth in the the other perspectives because in a startup the clinical 16:02 expertise is is of course super super valuable, but if you don't get the thing 16:06 to make money, it's not going to work. It is not going to work. And so all the 16:09 other pieces that make a business run are are critical and you have to go into 16:14 it realizing that like the first time you put a central line in you didn't 16:18 know what you were doing. You did a see one, do one, teach one, etc. You 16:23 have to be willing to feel like an intern again. I feel like an intern so 16:27 many days of my life because I do new things all the time. And I don't expect 16:33 myself to be an expert and I I've told the joke multiple times that I showed up 16:37 at my fancy private equity firm with startups for dummies and I was literally 16:41 like trying to trying to get it into my brain like how do I actually operate in 16:46 this space? And I was totally okay with the fact that there were a lot of things 16:50 I didn't know. And by being really open to learning and curious, they poured a 16:54 ton of resources into me and and I grew. But I think that one thing that 16:59 physicians are really good at, if they can bring that humility piece, we are so 17:05 good at learning. We are real we spend our whole lives learning. Like we 17:10 are a a a black belt in learning and finding resources. I I think the other 17:17 thing that's really interesting about starting a business that relates to the 17:20 clinical side of things, I'm an ER doctor, I know that I don't know 17:24 everything. I know that there's I can kind of categorize things as they come 17:27 in as emergent or not emergent and what organ system, but I call consults. I 17:32 call consults all the time when I have figured out like this is out of my range 17:37 and I need to call surgery or I need to call neurology. And that doesn't that's 17:42 a skillset of triage and assessing what do I know? What do I not know? Who can 17:47 help me? And that's what you do in a startup. You say, well, what do I know? 17:50 I I know this clinically. What do I not know? I have no idea what the payer 17:53 model is going to look like. Who can help me? I'm going to I'm going to get 17:56 someone to connect me to do a pitch with the payers and we're going to get 17:59 feedback. And so I think that the doctors that do really well in this 18:04 space are like you said the ones that are willing to be open about their lack 18:09 of knowledge, willing to learn. I do think it's easier to learn business than 18:13 it was to learn medicine clinical medicine. So, um I'm curious your 18:17 thoughts on that. >> I mean, it's it's funny. It is it is 18:19 really a dichotomy where you need the confidence but also the humility. But I 18:23 think the way you described it as like you need to be willing to go back to 18:26 being like that fourth-year med student or that intern. Like that's the perfect 18:29 example cuz it's like >> But we won't make you wear a short white 18:33 coat. >> Exactly. Exactly. So, no, I think that's 18:36 that's exactly it. You just really need to go back to that learning phase and it 18:39 isn't it isn't rocket science. You can all learn it, but you need to have that 18:42 that hunger. >> So, that brings me to another question 18:45 which is So, here you are. You understand that your clinical expertise 18:49 is great. You have a great idea. Maybe you have a a great founder profile, but 18:52 you see the gaps of what you don't have. What would you suggest for like finding 18:57 What's the ideal co-founder? I I gained so much from my co-founders. I love 19:03 them. I will always love them. We all had very different minds, different 19:07 skill sets, and we came together and created something beautiful. But, um 19:11 that it doesn't always work out that well. So, curious to you about what's 19:15 the ideal co-founder for a physician startup founder?
Finding the Right Co-Founder 19:19 >> So, in the the 10 physician successful founders I interviewed, the pattern I 19:24 saw again and again was a clinical oriented founder and a tech oriented 19:29 founder. And so, that that goes for the every single type of company all the way 19:33 up to like the AI company. So, for example, you look at Viz AI, you look at 19:36 a bridge, you know, both they came from they had a CEO coming from medicine, 19:40 they had a CTO coming from machine learning. And to me that is the key 19:44 power. The thing that I didn't see very often was was I need a business 19:48 co-founder. Like I need a consultant or Harvard Business School graduate. Like I 19:52 did not see many of those. The one exception where I think a business 19:55 co-founder could be really useful is if let's say you're in pharma, right? Or 20:00 biotech and you're like you've invented this molecule, you need to figure out 20:02 how to take that to market. There's just so much really specialized knowledge of 20:06 how to get that through the FDA, how to get that through payers, and like how to 20:09 commercialize that. That, um, you know, one of the one of the founders I 20:13 interviewed, Dr. Kathy High, um, she ran into a founder who would run that 20:16 business side so she could focus on like getting getting the molecule finally 20:19 cleared to the FDA and he was like running all like the patent stuff and 20:23 the business development deals and the financing. But, for the most part, what 20:26 I find is you want a tech founder and you want a clinical founder. You know, 20:30 some people would argue that these days where it's easier to vibe code, you may 20:33 not need a tech founder, but I think to get something that is actually amazing 20:38 quality, it's like sure, vibe coding is great. We're going to, you know, 20:40 probably machines are going to write 100% of our code, but you want someone 20:43 who's an absolute tech genius managing that process. So, I would still say the 20:47 tech co-founder's key. >> I am again in alignment with you. I love 20:52 the doors that it has opened up to be able to vibe code and I just don't think 20:56 that people fully appreciate what it takes to get something to production 21:00 ready. I mean, you can get an MVP. I think it's a great way for a 21:04 non-technical person to be able to kind of express some of their ideas in the 21:08 form of like what could this look like, what would this look like? Maybe it'll 21:11 help you recruit the right technical co-founder. But my one of my co-founders 21:16 who really managed a lot of the technical side of things was more 21:19 product-faced but based and she was just this amazing combination of 21:25 development understanding and strategic business planning and like bringing it 21:30 back to the core team of I'm building the clinical model. Now we're discussing 21:34 it She's taking all of that clinical strategy and getting it into our product 21:39 roadmap which that's what the dev team works off of. Whether you're using 21:44 a bunch of agents to code for you for development or if you're using humans 21:48 that are overseeing agents or back in the day back in 2022 when we were using 21:52 a whole team of humans, the point is you can code and code and code and code 21:55 forever. You could code anything. You could you could vibe code anything. You 21:59 could just keep building all sorts of additional features. If you don't have 22:03 that strategic oversight of making sure that it is actually 22:08 ticking and tying with the goals of the business at that stage like a really 22:13 great technical co-founder or product co-founder will know exactly the vision 22:19 for the product and how the technology is going to support the business. You 22:23 will say, "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if we could do this too?" and they will 22:27 say, "That is a feature in version 3.2 which will be coming out in November and 22:34 there's after our next fund raise. There's a reason strategically that it's 22:37 been put there and not sooner. We recognize that there is a strategic 22:41 order to things and that we got to get things up and out the door as fast as 22:46 possible and start getting user feedback and iterate on that." And it's that 22:50 that's an entire philosophy. It's an entire way of thinking that we were not 22:56 taught in med school and I have taken on a lot of that and learned a lot 23:01 of that because of my technical co-founders and other people that I've 23:04 worked with, but I think I agree with you that when those early stages that 23:08 technology strategy, not just the coding, not just the what is this button 23:14 going to do, but how does it support the business? Those are the two visionaries 23:19 that I think you put together and you can really create something phenomenal 23:23 clinically that, you know, you're trying to do something innovative, something 23:26 new, something that is not the way we do it now. Well, guess what? You're going 23:29 to have to have tools to deliver. >> Completely agree. 23:31 >> So, you you said that you didn't feel like the like a business co-founder was 23:36 something you saw commonly. What about operators? I mean, I guess you can 23:40 always when I first started working at Firm, I'm like, "What's an operator?" I 23:43 don't know what they're talking about. Like, did you feel like you oversaw 23:45 operations or you brought in people for for your personal experience? 23:49 >> Yeah, I I think that's important. I think 23:52 these days I would say you can wait longer because, you know, using AI we 23:55 can leverage ourselves further and I think the 23:58 for the longer we spend doing everything ourselves, the better the company is 24:01 going to be created like with a culture of like, you know, this this like 24:05 healthcare first, patient first culture. But, you know, I think it's it's 24:08 absolutely invaluable to bring in, you know, a really talented business 24:12 generalist. Probably not as a co-founder, but maybe as like a chief of 24:15 staff, right? Maybe this is like someone who was a you know, investment banker at 24:19 Morgan Stanley or whatever, then they then they were chief of staff to another 24:22 great startup that you respect. You you pay them more than you think you should 24:25 pay them, you hire them and they're going to like be worth their weight in 24:27 gold, right? Cuz they're going to help you put together the fundraising decks, 24:29 they're going to help put together like, okay, like how do we handle the 24:32 logistics of hiring this huge clinical team, managing them all? Like, you know, 24:35 like they're going to help do the legwork of like making sure that the HR 24:38 stuff is in order and all that stuff. So, I think like a a business generalist 24:41 who's really, really sharp like and who you very much respect is huge, but but 24:46 maybe not as a co-founder right away. >> Yeah.
How to Test an Early Startup Idea 24:50 Um so, I guess the last question I have for you is 24:54 for all the people and I'm sure you get this question a lot cuz I get this 24:57 question a lot that are like it's just the beginning of an idea. They don't 25:02 have any idea like how to jump in. They feel like 25:08 they have a concept. They see that problem, that problem that they know 25:14 uniquely how to solve. What sort of advice would you give to people who 25:18 aren't quite ready to jump in yet, but they want to know more? 25:22 >> Yeah, so two things. So part two of the book, Why Doctors Went 25:26 That I Wrote, is literally me going through that exact process. So like I 25:30 have the inkling of an idea and I went went through two different case studies. 25:34 One startup idea I had that I didn't end up running with and one that I had that 25:38 I did end up running with and being CEO for 10 years. And I go through exactly 25:42 how do I figure out whether this is worth 25:44 you know, this is worth pursuing and then how do I do it? Do I do this 25:47 part-time? Do I do it full-time? So, you know, I'd say that's that's a resource 25:50 that I'm I'm biased but I would recommend. And the second thing is I 25:55 think testing it out, right? Like, you know, it's so easy to vibe code 25:58 something these days and just like really like, you know, 26:02 really just like, you know, see how it works and get it into people's hands, 26:04 you know, I think that's so easy to do these days and it's important.
Building a Startup Plan That Creates Leverage 26:07 >> So, I just want to take a second and share a little bit about where I've been 26:11 trying to support physician founders. I went through a very structured process 26:15 at a firm. I was in a venture studio and so they brought in a lot of resources 26:18 around us. We had a lot of tools, we had a lot of people and the process was 26:22 basically they were like, "We will only fund this company when you can prove 26:27 that it'll be worth a billion dollars." And it was like, "What? What? A billion? 26:30 Really? Like, what?" And we had to build it on paper. So, you do so much as a 26:37 founder to create the model and and it's an economic model, it's a product 26:41 roadmap, it's the messaging and the clear you you start with a one-pager, 26:45 grow it to a pitch, grow it to a, you know, a data room, but you are building 26:51 those three core assets. You're building your forward-looking financial model 26:55 that is all of your assumptions, all of the things that you're assuming about 26:59 the cost, the revenue streams, the go-to-market strategy. You're figuring 27:03 out your unit economics, you're figuring out a sensitivity analysis to say which 27:08 of these variables am I making assumptions about that if I was wrong, 27:11 it would like kill the business. So, you're really creating what will then be 27:15 your operational plan. It is going to be the thing that you're showing to 27:19 investors and they're like, "Okay, not only do I follow the logic and I can see 27:23 how this could become a billion-dollar company, but now I can see there's like 27:27 a very clear execution plan as soon as we give money to these founders, we know 27:31 what they're going to do. They have a plan." And same with the product 27:34 roadmap, like really clearly versioning out both your services and the tech 27:39 product that goes along with it that that really aligns with that same 27:43 business plan. So, you have a plan and a go-to-market strategy. And then, like 27:47 you said, you have to get so much feedback. So, I am running an incubator 27:52 program this summer. We have applications open now and we will be 27:56 walking physicians through this entire process of how to build these assets to 28:00 create leverage. So, that it's never been a better time to be a solo founder. 28:04 If you can have the tools to get some of this stuff together on your own, then 28:09 you will be going into all of your conversations with a very, very great 28:13 picture of what this business could look like. And you don't have to invest 28:18 six figures of your own money into building tech just to see if it would 28:22 work out. Out. This is something that you can actually invest your time and 28:27 your thoughts into to really de-risk a concept. And you have to start by 28:32 talking to patients, start by talking to other doctors, start by, like you said, 28:36 vibe coding a prototype and saying, "What would you think about this for 28:40 your practice?" Because you take every piece of feedback and 28:44 then you come back to your model and you change your model, you change your 28:47 product road map, you change your pitch. And you do that over and over until you 28:50 get to the harder conversations or the more challenging ones where you are 28:54 talking to a payer or you are trying to sell it to Can you pre-sell it? Would 28:59 someone agree to buy it before you've even built it? Because if so, that's a 29:03 really great market indicator. It makes it way easier to fundraise. And so all 29:07 of these things are things that I think you have demonstrated incredibly both in 29:13 your own journey and in your interviews of all these other doctors who have made 29:18 incredible startups and in this book which I think everyone should go to 29:22 Amazon and buy Why Doctors Win is really a a great contribution to this space. 29:28 But I just I think that we need more physicians in this space. I think that 29:32 just because you haven't been exposed to the venture space does not mean that you 29:37 don't have what it takes to be a founder. I think David and I are both 29:40 great examples of this. If you're someone that sees the potential in a 29:44 problem and you're willing to go find the solution and you're willing to be 29:49 humble and and ask people for help and ask people to tell you where you're 29:53 wrong in the hopes of creating something meaningful and impactful that can scale 29:58 to serve hundreds of thousands or millions of patients, there is a space 30:02 for you. So that's my spiel. >> I love that. Couldn't agree more. 30:07 >> Well, thank you so much again. Again, everyone should check out Why Doctors
Where to Find David and Why Doctors Win 30:11 Win, David Blair Ster, and we will put up the link and um and his uh LinkedIn 30:18 in the show notes. Thank you again, David, so much for joining me today. 30:22 >> Thanks so much, Allison. >> Thanks for listening to the Startup 30:24 Physicians Podcast. This community was built for doctors who want to contribute 30:29 to the future of health care. We offer support for physicians who are 30:33 ready to make the next step towards building the career they've dreamed of. 30:37 Visit startupphysicians.com to learn more. 30:41 And if this episode resonated with you, share it with another friend who needs 30:45 to hear it. Let's change the future of health care together.
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