Transcript
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Hey everyone, welcome to another edition of Bootstrap MD, the podcast for physician and healthc care entrepreneurs. My name is Dr. Mike Waming. I'm a 20 plus year physician entrepreneur and I want to start today off with a confession.
So a few years ago, I had a business idea and I was super excited about it. And for about 3 to four months, honestly, I did absolutely nothing with it. It wasn't because I was lazy, not because I didn't care, not because I was convinced that it wasn't ready. I just needed to do something better.
I needed a better website first. I needed to form my business entity. I needed to get branded nailed down. I needed a CRM.
I needed to figure out how I was going to do my email marketing. I was busy. I felt productive. I even had like a color-coded spreadsheet that tracked all the things that I needed to do before I could actually start.
Then a colleague of mine, no fancy setup, no branding, no website, he closed like five clients in the same month. I was still debating between WordPress or Wix or Squarespace. So that was a wakeup call and what I was doing actually has a name. I call it the infrastructure trap.
And it's one of the most common patterns that I see when I consult with doctors, not just physicians who are brand new to entrepreneurship, but people who've been at this for a few years now. And here's the hard truth. Building infrastructure before you have revenue isn't being thorough. It's socially acceptable procrastination.
It feels like work. It looks like work, but it doesn't pay you. And look, I get it because our training, as I said before, it literally wires us to this way. In medicine, you can't act before you're credentialed.
You can't practice without completing residency for most parts. You can't prescribe without your DEA number. You can't see hospital patients before you get privileges. So every single step of your medical career had a formal checkpoint, a permission structure before you were allowed to move forward.
And the system exists for good reason in medicine. But when you apply that same mindset to business, it becomes a trap, this infrastructure trap. There is no credentiing committee for entrepreneurship. No board approves your business idea.
No residency you have to complete before you're allowed to make money. You give yourself permission. And the way you give yourself permission is by generating revenue. Which brings me to today's topic.
How to generate your first $10,000. Not your website, not your LLC, not your branding, your first $10,000. So, let's talk about why that number matters and exactly how to get there because it's not amateur and it's worth understanding the logic. So, why $10,000 I feel is the right first milestone.
So, you might be saying, "Why not $1,000?" $1,000 bucks is a great start, but it's also easy to explain away. Oh, I was doing this just for a favor for a friend. That was just a onetime thing. $1,000 doesn't create the kind of conviction that actually changes your behavior.
It's not enough to make you believe the market is real. So, why not do $100,000? Because that number actually can be paralyzing before you're validating anything. And I've watched physicians chase a $100,000 business before they've even confirmed a single person would pay them.
They spend months building something the market wasn't asking for. Then they wonder why it didn't work. So I believe $10,000 is the sweet spot. And here's why.
First, it's market validation. Real money is real data. When someone gives you a check, not a LinkedIn like, not a great idea, my not encouragement from your spouse, but actual money, that's the market telling you something's true. You don't have a business idea anymore.
you have evidence. Secondly, it funds your infrastructure. And this is one of my favorite reframes. Instead of spending your personal savings on a website and a CRM before you made a dollar, what if the business funded itself?
Revenues coming in. Revenue pays for your tools. That's a completely different risk profile than putting your own money at risk before you validated anything. Third, and this is the one I think matters most, it's an identity shift.
There's a before and after when a physician makes their first $10,000 outside of clinical work. Before I had a business idea, after I'm running a business and I think that shift is how you see yourself changes everything downstream. It's how you talk about your work. How seriously you take it.
What you're willing to invest in. It changes your entire relationship with entrepreneurship. $10,000 is proof of concept. It's not the finish line.
It's not the inflection point where everything changes. So, how do you get there without a website, without an LLC, without months of setup? That's what the MVO, the minimum viable offer framework is for. So, you've probably heard me talk about the minimum viable product, the MVP concept from the startup world.
Build the smallest version of your product, test it in the market, learn, and iterate. The MVO, the minimum viable offer is different and I think it actually is better suited for more most physicians are starting. So here's the distinction that matters. A minimum viable product is focused on building something.
A minimum viable offer is focused on selling something. And at this stage, let's be honest, selling comes first. You are not selling a platform. You're not selling an app or a course or a tool.
What you're selling is a transformation, a before and an after, a result. The technology that delivers is irrelevant until someone is actually buying something. The MVO has three components. I call them the three Ps.
Problem, promise, and price. It's a problem. The problem for the MVO needs to be specific. It needs to be painful.
And it needs to be urgent. Broad problems don't sell. I help physicians feel better. That's too vague.
I help burnout hospitalists in their 40s transition out of shift work and into a sustainable nonclinical career within 6 months. That speaks to a specific person. That makes someone say, "That's exactly me." Narrow beats broad every single time. And I know it feels counterintuitive.
You're afraid of excluding people. But specificity is what makes someone stop scrolling and say, "This is for me." Promise. What specific measurable outcome are you delivering and in what time frame? Help you lose weight?
That's not a promise. Lose 20 lbs in 12 weeks using a physician designed protocol built around your real schedule. That's a promise. And notice how physician design is baked right into the offer.
Your credentials aren't just letters after your name. They're social proof. They're trust. build them into your positioning from day one.
Finally, there's price. Your price needs to be high enough to matter and low enough to close. For most physicianled coaching or consulting offers, somewhere between a,000 and $5,000 is a reasonable starting range. And the math is simple.
Five clients at $2,000 is $10,000. 10 clients and 1,000 is 10,000. You don't need a massive audience here. You need a handful of the right people.
So, let me help you make this a bit more concrete. Say you're a cardiologist and you want to help busy executives reduce their cardiovascular risk. Your minimum viable offer might look like this. I help high-erforming executives understand and reduce their cardiovascular risk through a personalized 8-week protocol designed around their schedule, not a clinics.
No waiting rooms, no generic advice. Your investment $2,500. So, what do you need to deliver what I just said? a Zoom account, a Google doc, maybe a shared folder, but that's about it.
Look, I you don't even need a website. You don't need an app. You don't need no fancy funnel. Five of those clients and you've already hit over $10,000 delivering a generally transformative care to people who need it.
So, here's the takeaway. You need a clear offer. You don't need a polished product. You don't need an infrastructure.
Just a clear offer. So, let's talk about the three main paths physician take to generate that first $10,000. These are my three revenue paths to 10K. Path number one, consulting and advisory work.
This is the fastest path to cash for most physicians, especially those who are 5, 10, 15 years into their specialty. And here's why it's fast. There's nothing to build. There's no course, no program, no product.
You are the product. Companies pay you to show up, share your clinical knowledge, and help them make better decisions. So, who's paying? Startup and growth stage companies in digital health, medtech, pharma, health tech.
They need physician adviserss. They need people who can review clinical protocols, validate product road maps, guide reimbursement strategy, navigate FDA pathways, sit on clinical advisory boards. Here are even more examples that are even more concrete. Clinical adviser to a digital health startup.
a protocol consultant for a company standardizing their workflows. Chart review and clinical audit work. Healthcare strategy input for a company preparing to fund raise. And these rates are real.
Depending on the engagement, physician consultants can charge anywhere from $200 to $500 per hour or more. A couple of advisory agreements could get you to $10,000 fast. Now, what I'm about to say next is where Murf's physicians get stuck. They wait to be discovered.
They post on LinkedIn to help the right companies find them. That's passive. Passive is slow. The move is proactive outreach.
I want you to identify 10 to 20 companies in a space adjacent to your specialty. Research who's leading the company. Send a concise value forward message, not a resume, not a pitch deck. One paragraph with a specific observation about their product or market that demonstrates you understand the world.
Close with a genuine offer to connect. Let's focus on quality over scale. One good conversation beats 50 generic emails every single time. Let's talk about path number two.
Pre-elling a program or service. Pre-elling is one of the most underutilized strategy in this space. And it might be the one physicians resist the most, which is exactly why I want to spend real time on it. The concept is simple.
You collect payment before you build a full system. You write a onepage description of what you're going to deliver. Invite the right people into a conversation and close clients before you recorded a single video or build a single module. Now, I know it makes some of you uncomfortable.
How can I sell something I haven't even built yet? And here's the real reframe. You're not selling something fake. You're selling a commitment backed by real expertise.
You know your subject matter. You know how to deliver results. You're just building the system alongside your first cohort instead of in isolation. And honestly, building it alongside real clients makes it better because they tell you what they actually need, not what you assume they need it.
So why does this approach work so well? Well, there's really three reasons. One, it validates demand before you invest hundreds of dollar building. If you offer it and nobody buys, you just adjust the offer.
You don't build more. You don't spend six months creating a course nobody asked for. Number two, it funds your development. The client payments cover your tools, your time, your infrastructure.
The the business builds itself. Third, it forces clarity. You can't pre-sell something vague. The act of writing the offer sharpens your thinking in a way that months or planning never does.
So examples of what this can look like, a cohort based coaching program for physicians in a specific career transition. A career pivot group for doctors exploring nonclinical roles. A niche telealth package for a specific patient population. A donefor you clinical template bundle for a specific specialty.
So how do you execute it? I just said it. One-page description. Who is it for?
What problems does it solve? What outcomes you deliver? How long does it take? What does it cost?
Then you do personal invitations. Not a social post, not a blast email. Personal message to 10 to 20 people who are your exact target. You want to get real conversations.
Three to seven clients. Done. Rule. If no one buys it, adjust the offer.
You don't need to build more. Finally, path three, leveraging existing credentials. Now, this is the most overlooked path and it's often the fastest to actual cache because it requires zero infrastructure. So your MD or DOE, it's already actually opening doors that most people don't have access to.
Expert witness work, medical writing and content creation for health companies, advisory board for physicians and pharma, speaker bureau engagements, paid medical surveys, and yes, these can pay real money and can take minutes to complete, peerreview engagements, seeming content development. And I want to be honest with you, it's not glamorous. They're not going to build you a seven figure business, but they can generate 5, 10, $15,000 with minimum time investment and zero infrastructure. And for a physician who's just kind of starting to explore what's possible outside of clinical work, that first paycheck from something other than your W2 can be incredibly validating.
It proves to you that your expertise has commercial value. Use that as your foundation. So, think of the path as your exploration fund. The income from these engagements let you test ideas, invest in coaching, and buy back some of your time without risking your savings.
Your physician's degree is actually already monetizable today without a website, without a product, without a funnel. All right, I hope you found that useful. Now, I want to get tactical. I want to give you a 30 to 60day action plan.
I want to give you something you can actually use this week. It's not inspiration. I just want to give you a process. Five-step action plan.
Step one, identify your unfair advantage. You're going to do this on day one through day three. Before you write a single word of an offer, you need to get clear on what you uniquely bring. Ask yourself three questions.
What do I know deeply at a level that took me years to develop? What problems do I solve every single day in my clinical work? And what do patients, colleagues, patients, friends come to me outside of direct patient care? Where those three things overlap, that's your unfair advantage.
Your only output from this step is one narrow niche. Not three, not a range, just one. Step two, call it find your wiring hole. Do this on day three to seven.
Every niche has a place where people gather. LinkedIn, especially Facebook groups, professional forums, colleague networks, maybe your existing patient database. Your job in week one is not to sell anything. It's to listen.
What questions keep coming up? What frustrations are people expressing? What language do they use to describe their problem? Because these words they use to describe their pain are the words you should be using to describe your solution.
You don't need to invent the language. Just borrow it. Step three, write your one paragraph offer. You can do this in week two.
Take what you learned from listening and write one paragraph. Who's it for? the specific problems you solve, the outcomes you delivered, the time frame, the price. Then I want you to test it.
Send it to five, 10 people who are close to your target audience and ask them one question. Ask them, would you pay for this? And if not, what would have to change? Their answers can be your market research.
Iterate based on real feedback, not your assumptions. Step four, outreach and close. You're going to do this on week three to four. Now you're going to go to the market 20 to 30 personalized targeted messages.
You're not sending a mass email, not a newsletter broadcast, but personal messages to people you identified as your ideal clients. Lead with genuine curiosity or a specific observation. Offer a conversation, not a sales call. Invite, but don't pressure your goal.
10 to 15 real conversations from those close three to seven clients. That's your first $10,000. Step five, this will probably be your favorite step. You're going to collect payment and deliver.
Weeks four through eight. Use Stripe or PayPal to collect payment. Do account to schedule. Zoom to deliver.
Email to communicate. This is in your entire tech stack. You don't need a course platform, a CRM, a membership site, or automated sequences. Those come later when revenue is funding them.
Deliver manually at first. I know that's more work, but it also means you're learning in real time what's actually working, what your clients really need, and what you need to systematize later. You're gathering testimonials. You're building the proof your business will eventually scale on.
And there's one rule I want you to remember. Revenue should demand infrastructure, not the other way around. When your business has grown to the point where manual delivery is the bottleneck, guess what you need to do next? That's when you build systems.
but not before. Now, I know my audience and I want to spend a few minutes on that resistance because I know it's there. You got a few barriers. Barrier one, imposttor syndrome.
Who am I to charge people for this? There are people more credential and experience than me doing this. What if somebody challenges me? Here's a reframe I challenge you to do.
The decade plus you spent in medical training is not your baseline. It's your differentiator. You're not a generic coach or consultant. you're a physician who coaches or consults, that combination is generally rare.
The trust building skills you developed in medicine, creating rapport fast, navigating hard conversations, holding space for uncertainty, those skills transfer directly. Your expertise is leveraged. So, I want you to start using it like it is. Barrier two, time.
Mike, I'm working 50 plus hours a week in my clinical role. I don't have time to do this. Well, here's the truth. You don't need a lot of time to run this.
Maybe 30 minutes a day. Maybe spend some times early morning before rounds, a lunch break, the window between putting your kids to bed and your own bedtime. That's enough to execute this plan. This is not a second full-time job.
Not yet. But it's a focused high leverage initiative. Protect those 30 minutes though like it's a clinical commitment. Then barrier three, legal and ethical concerns.
Now, I don't want to go press by past this because it matters and then physicians are right to think about it. But before you start any outside consulting or services, revise, review your employment contract. Do you have a non-compete or non-solicitation clause? Make sure there's no conflict of interest with your employer.
And if you're doing any clinical adjacent advisory work, considering running it by a healthcare attorney before you sign anything. Now, I'm not saying this to paralyze you, but because being intentional about this upfront is what lets you move forward without looking over your shoulder. Be responsible, but don't be paralyzed. All right, let's bring this home.
You don't need a website to make money. You don't need an LLC to sell your expertise. You don't need a perfect funnel, a polished course, or a professional brand shoot. What you need is a clear offer, the right people to put it in front of, and enough courage to ask for the sale.
The first $10,000 changes how you see yourself. It moves you from the consideration phase into the execution phase. And once you're in the execution phase, everything else becomes possible. the systems, the infrastructure, the scale, all of it becomes more achievable because now you're building on validation instead of hope.
So here's my prescription for you. Within the next 48 hours, not next week, not when things slow down at work, but within 48 hours, I want you to write your MVO, minimum viable offer in one paragraph. Who's it for? What's the problem you're trying to solve?
the outcome you're trying to deliver, the time frame, the price, then reach out to me. I would love to hear from you. Post it. Let me know what you're doing.
I want to give you real feedback from a real physician entrepreneur who's been doing exactly where you are. You don't need to build the hospital. You just need to see that first patient. Remember guys, you're going to have ups and downs as a physician entrepreneur.
Do something a little each day to get you closer to your goals and keep moving forward.