Re-release: So You Want to Advise Startups? Here’s Exactly How to Get Started as a Physician Consultant

Many physicians know they have valuable clinical insight, but they struggle to name where that value fits outside traditional clinical practice.

In this re-release episode, Dr. Alison Curfman walks through five common barriers physicians face when exploring startup advising, consulting, and industry work — from “I don’t have anything unique to offer” to “I’m just a doctor. I don’t know business.”

Your clinical experience already opens more doors than you may realize. This episode helps you start seeing where those doors are.

Chapters

00:00 Overcoming Mental Barriers in Medicine

02:26 Identifying Unique Offerings and Skills

05:04 Building a Network and Strategic Connections

07:45 Communicating Value Without Being Salesy

10:39 Time Management and Flexibility in Consulting

13:15 Understanding Business Fundamentals for Physicians

16:20 Crafting Your Narrative and Value Proposition

18:50 Design Thinking and Innovation in Healthcare

21:35 The Path Forward: Joining the Startup Ecosystem

Resources

Startup Physicians: https://startupphysicians.com

Free guide: 50 Things Physicians Can Do With Startups https://startupphysicians.com/resources

Join the waitlist for Launchpad Cohort: www.startupphysicians.com/launchpad

Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/startup-physicians/

Transcript

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