Getting Started is the Battle

I am a small business owner. The first business that I started (and which I still own) can barely even be called small. It's tiny. But it's an amazing business. I love it, and I'll never let it go.

The thing about running a small business where you, the founder, owner, and operator make all the decisions, drive all the value, and feel the consequences of every decision is that it's especially easy to do nothing when things aren't going badly. Good enough can easily be a reason to stay where you are. After all, you're not in this to be a river-boat gambler with your livelihood.

I totally get that.

I know what it's like to make an investment in something that is supposed to help the business grow, or at least make my life a little easier so that I can get out and grow the business. And to have that investment fall flat. It gnaws at you. And you feel like you never are going to let anyone sell you anything for the rest of eternity.

I also totally get that.

But here's why it's essential to purposefully break out of that kind of thinking, even if we only do it in small ways. A business that doesn't have a regular process of adaptation is dead where it stands. And for those of us running really small businesses (looking at you side-hustlers, and one-person service businesses like consultants, agencies, medical and dental practices) we often don't have the resources or time to get a good and consistent view of our industry. Which means that in the moment where fear keeps us from making a bold move, we may be incorrectly reading the landscape to begin with.

My first startup was a car-detailing business when I was in Jr High and High School. But that one doesn't count. My first real small business is a medical billing company that focuses on billing patients for the out-of-pocket amount they owe (the part the insurance company doesn't cover). This is a difficult thing for many small doctors to do because financial stuff is awkward when you were just working on a deeply personal medical issue with somebody. And also because medical pricing is notoriously difficult to predict thanks to our monopolistic health insurance provider landscape (thanks US DOJ for putting those anti-trust laws to use and protecting we consumers from super-consolidated insurance carriers. -- sarcasm very much intended). Anyways, we took a patient-centric and empathy-driven approach to the process with magnificent results! But here's the deal. I started that business in the fall of 2012. WAY before empathic financial thinking in healthcare became the juggernaut that it is today. What did I do wrong? Why did not I become a juggernaut in the industry? Well, the list is long, but the most important item on it is that I misread the industry. I figured that if I, an overgrown kid with little experience in the industry had figured it out, that all big players with tons of data and lots of large customers would for sure be many steps ahead of me.

I was totally wrong.

I moved on to building my next business (a move I do not at all regret), and left my baby on autopilot. And that business has been a rock. Super steady. But it never grew because I was afraid of being behind the curve.

I take two lessons from this.

1. The only proof that you're behind the curve is market proof. Until you've pitched 10-20 prospective customers they're telling you "you're behind the curve" to your face -- you are NOT behind the curve.

2. The only people more foolish that the people who write sweeping analysis of industries as large as healthcare with out nuance or caveat, are the people who read and believe them.

Now I'm trying to help dentists incorporate in-house memberships into their practices. It's very clear to me that absolutely every dentist should have one. But it's hard to make a change when the impact will be so clearly felt by the person to holds the reins on the entire business. So for real, I completely get it. The only question is, can I get them to take a small and simple step toward making a change that is likely to have a dramatic and positive impact on their business.

We'll see.