One Doctor's Journey

[Iwokeup]

Oh, and to answer your other question. I was in Plastic Surgery, I left 1/2 through into Radiology because I realized that even though I loved plastics, like really really loved it, there was no way I could run a successful practice without dedicating nearly 100% of my time to it, and that just wasn't the life I envisioned for myself.

After I wrote my software during residency, I realized I wanted a split career that I could scale my work up or down as I wanted and have free time to pursue my business interests. As it is now I work 7 on 7 off and so I do medicine every other week. As some of my other projects come online, I expect I will scale my medical practice back even more, I have a pretty good Locums deal that I can do as much or as little as I want.

Thank you so much for your excellent responses! I've been thinking a LOT about what you've written. And I'm convinced that, while I'll start off with an outsourced developer eventually I'll know enough to make my own inputs that take advantage of what I know to make a superior product.

Do you ever find that making radiologist money takes away from the drive to just make your business happen NOW?

 

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[GIlman]

Yes, earning money in practice compromised my entrepreneurial enterprises for about 5 years after residency. The lure to trade time for dollars is strong, and it is guaranteed at least in the short term. But, I am an entrepreneur, it is in my blood and it is what I love. I love to create elegant solutions, I have all sorts of problems floating around my head constantly trying to find a solution.

This is WHY I believe you have to code, even if you don't do the bulk of it. Learning to program is not a end game, it is a life long learning endeavor. The person that believes they have to be a master programmer to do anything useful is mistaken. This seems to me something that non-programmers or those programmers that want to feel superior to everyone else espouse. It's just a form of non-commital thinking or elitism respectively.

You just have to know the basics of programming so you know how to research and find answers when you encounter problems, i.e. applied learning. Every solution you find makes you one notch better of a programmer. If you don't have the tools to create, and constantly cultivate them, you lose the power and control over the creation.

It's just like medical school, you spend the first 2 years being stuffed with theoretical knowledge, but then you step into applied medicine your last 2 years in clinicals and suddenly you actually start learning because it's relevant.

Even though we all feel a sense of urgency to accomplish our business goals now - having run several businesses in my life I know that there is no such thing as having "arrived". I see all businesses as ideas in motion!! With each accomplishment you will always have your eye on the next-step to go to the next level. If you don't your business will wither. But we all talk about the arriving moment, and I think this feels like such a long way off it keeps us from taking the next step. Just keep moving, if you do your business will magically happen. Just don't get discouraged and stop!!

I read a lot of books, at the stage in the game where you are at, one of the ones I would very highly suggest is:

Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind
by Al Ries and Jack Trout

I really wish I had read this before I had launched my first product. There are so many nuances that can make that little difference for your company that have to be in place at launch, most of them though are perceptions and meeting your customers expectations (from their point of view not yours)....this is positioning. Get it right the first time, because these things are hard to change later, I can attest to this from experience.

The other thing I have come to believe about books, is that you should read books as research to something useful. All the touchy feely self-help books in the world don't put anyone one step closer to success. The market will pay you for the value you bring to it, spend your precious time reading to research things relevant to you such as Advertising, Marketing, Managing People, Programming, Accounting, etc, etc.

If your interested PM me, I'll send you my number and if you ever have any questions I'd be happy to help you any way I can.

 

[Iwokeup]

Quick update:

Just returned from a wonderful family vacation to Crested Butte, CO. Amazing trip in many ways, especially as I was finally able to demonstrate to The Wife that we don't have to live in a certain location in order to make our business grow. I've been talking to a couple of developers as well as having lots of time to think while on the chairlifts and after the kids went to sleep. Bottom line thoughts:

* Partners aren't necessary and in fact may make things harder (for me) at the early stages. I've been relying on my partner to GSD but it turns out that he hasn't and and movement is going to come from me. :/ Can't dissolve the partnership because I believe that the idea is still viable and there's no way he would let go. Lesson learned.

* Going to start making all of the moves on my own. Leadership, baby. Partner can either help or get outta the way. Don't really think that he'll mind as his mind (and other parts) seem to be elsewhere engaged.

* Going to follow @trepine 's advice and learn coding as discussed above. Cannot hurt at this point. Still going to employ a rockstar dev to begin, but this is a long journey and over time I believe that some mastery will make me more valuable.

* Have realized that the idea of having possessions is just dumb for me and the Wife. Rather, the life that we want (raising kiddos in a non-urban area, being able to be outdoors and active pretty much every day) and the experiences that we can have from a location independent biz are incredible. My wife, for the first time ever, stated that what she wants to do is travel to a foreign country and live there with our small kids. Not going to get that working for The Man. We each lost like five pounds on CHRISTMAS VACATION and realized that we needed none of the things that we had thought we would need to be happy. Seriously. Had not realized how being a physician had subtly crept into our heads vis a vis material things. We stayed in a house with less than HALF the square footage of our current place and were immensely more comfortable. That place felt like home in a way that our home does not.

* SERIOUSLY planning to relo to CB or somewhere similar as soon as the teen graduates HS; so 18 months. We're done with the big city...we came back today and our house, which is in a good neighborhood, safe, and clean...you can hear the roar of the freeway in the distance! I had not even noticed; but coming back after ten days away? Totally noticeable.

* She is now more than ever committed to making the software company grow; or failing that, she would like me to consider doing my own brand of ecommerce. Gotta think about that one. Gotta be honest and say that it very well could get me to financial independence (no more working) a hell of a lot faster if done correctly. IF.

* Realized that taking the in-town job is going to mean a complete LOSS of CONTROL over my time and scheduled. Wife and I discussed keeping the out of town job. Gotta decide by COB Weds, but prob gonna keep the locums job for now and reduce the time committment going forward. We're already planning on heading back to CB for 4th of July and next Christmas, and why would I let some corporate goon at the new job tell me when I can and cannot have time off?

 

[tafy]

Do you need a partner? Offer him his money back that he invested and go it alone, he may take it.

 

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[SJVC]

Best of luck man

 

[Iwokeup]

Do you need a partner? Offer him his money back that he invested and go it alone, he may take it.

I'm honestly a bit nervous about this...BUT. Could be a great idea.

 

[Andy Black]

+1 on losing the partner if you don't need one.

I setup a business a few years ago with a partner.

Lol... we did it ALL wrong. Setup the company, did all the paperwork, didn't know what need we were fulfilling.

Even though he was a "silent" partner, I still felt pressurised to work a certain way and act like I thought a businessman should act, and create business plans etc instead of following my nose when I sniffed a need that I could fulfil.

It wasn't until we shutdown the (dormant!) company that I was able to move in the directions I wanted, and work in the way that I wanted.

Up until the point where I became "free" again, I hadn't even realised how much it had held me back.

The litmus test: would you partner with this person if you were to start again?


EDIT: I'm no programmer, and can throw up landing pages with Wordpress and Optimizepress that are GOOD ENOUGH to drive traffic to and get profitable. Happy to show you if that would help you.

 

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[Iwokeup]

+1 on losing the partner if you don't need one.

I setup a business a few years ago with a partner.

Lol... we did it ALL wrong. Setup the company, did all the paperwork, didn't know what need we were fulfilling.

Even though he was a "silent" partner, I still felt pressurised to work a certain way and act like I thought a businessman should act, and create business plans etc instead of following my nose when I sniffed a need that I could fulfil.

It wasn't until we shutdown the (dormant!) company that I was able to move in the directions I wanted, and work in the way that I wanted.

Up until the point where I became "free" again, I hadn't even realised how much it had held me back.

The litmus test: would you partner with this person if you were to start again?


EDIT: I'm no programmer, and can throw up landing pages with Wordpress and Optimizepress that are GOOD ENOUGH to drive traffic to and get profitable. Happy to show you if that would help you.

I appreciate the offer. I've a feeling that what you described in your partner experience matches mine. *sigh*

It's going to be about 10 days until I'm back where I can meet him face to face so I've got time to figure out how to approach him.

 

[Iwokeup]

Update time!

* Working nights, 12 on, 12 off. Therefore working right now, shift seven of ten. Woke up super early today (130 pm) because I had a phone meeting with my partner and wanted to think through things before we talked.

* Been doing a LOT of thinking about where we are, mistakes made so far (lots!), and where we go next. Don't want to flail mindlessly without a plan:

- We've been floating in the water since our dev bailed around Thanksgiving. What with the holidays, it's been tough to try to get devs in North America to talk with us.
- We're 90% of the way done with the alpha (per the old developer) in the .NET framework
- It was probably a mistake to develop the alpha in .NET since there's a relative dearth of good devs available, it's expensive (i.e. not free) to be a .NET dev (c MS Visual Studio)
- @trepine had noted to me that .NET developers don't tend to be as creative. That described out initial dev pretty well and as I've looked around I haven't see great .NET creativity versus PHP
- Going forward, it will probably make a lot more sense to go with a LAMP stack just because of the wide availability (and cheap/free) of developer tools.

So today the partner and talked for the first time in a month (!) and it went something like this:

Me: I'm frustrated both with myself and with you as far as effort put out. While I've certainly not been as productive in terms of finding a developer as I would like, I at least hoped that you would have posted a listing on elance like you said you would. Or at least reached out to your "great contacts" like you said you would.

Him: Well, uh, I've been kind of distracted (personal family issues)...

Me (grinding teeth): Okaaay, well I went ahead and posted the listing on elance and I've thought about how we should go forward. It's fine to finish the alpha in .NET but I want to switch gears once that's done. And I want the alpha finished by the end of February, NO EXCUSES.
.
.
.
I did gently ask if the partner wanted to quit and he deferred but I think that I'm going to see how things go through the end of Feb. If he's not pulling his weight I'm going to make him a buyout offer.

In the meantime I've started on PHP and with some help I'm starting to play around with PHP and Bootstrap, as well as Javascript.

My goal? See if I can code my OWN version of the alpha by the end of Feb. We'll see who finishes first. Besides, I need a challenge.

Back to the Salt Mines....

 

[Chris R]

I went ahead and posted the listing on elance and I've thought about how we should go forward. It's fine to finish the alpha in .NET but I want to switch gears once that's done. And I want the alpha finished by the end of February, NO EXCUSES.

Here's something you may find interesting. Earlier this week I met with a SCORE mentor who happened to be the 2014 Mentor Of The Year. In this meeting I explained to him how I had used elance in the past and am looking into using elance again in the near future to hire a VA. His overall demeanor was that I should explore what I believe will move my business forward but he hinted that I may do much better with someone local. From there he opened his book of contacts to me and gave me the names and numbers of two university professors who he said might be able to connect me with the right students in their classes who would be able to best help my situation. He added that the cost to use them would be higher but the benefits of communication, them being local and that they're trying to build up references for their resumes may outweigh the cost savings.

 

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[Iwokeup]

Thanks to @mikekob for a copy of "The Founder's Dilemma." So painfully accurate right now that the only thing that I can do is laugh. It's clear that:

* I'm the idea guy of this outfit.
* We divvied up equity WAY too soon. If I can't get co-founder to leave or accept a buyout, we're going to have to renegotiate the equity split.
* My partner has done exactly JACK since our last conversation. So done with this guy.

In other news, I may have some really good news wrt developers to finish the alpha. Fingers crossed.

And I've now finished the first two modules on PHP on codeacademy.com. Kinda fun.

Back to the patients....shift 10 of 10.

 

[Iwokeup]

Think that I have my alpha developer. Crossing my fingers.

Big talk tomorrow with the partner. Been a week since I made my posting on eLance and there have been some frankly excellent responses. I've given my partner the login/password to the site multiple times so he should have it, and hopefully he'll show me tomorrow that he's done some work towards getting this alpha done. Otherwise...I'm done.

Gah. Never partnering ever again. Not like this.

 

[Iwokeup]

So I'm headed back to work next week, but I'm going to reach out to my earlier contacts in order to let them know that we'll have a product in one month. In the meantime, I'm going to make a (better) slide deck or a webinar that gives people an idea of what the product does. Let's see if we get some interest. If not, then maybe this product isn't something that the market wants.

Which I HOPE isn't true, but I'm prepared if it IS. I've already got a couple of other ideas floating around in my head that are also all mine (as was/is this product). If the current project doesn't work out then I'm OUT of the partnership and will forge ahead with other ideas.

Semper Gumby, MotherF-ers.

 

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[TheSilverSpoon]

Going forward, it will probably make a lot more sense to go with a LAMP stack just because of the wide availability (and cheap/free) of developer tools.

Since you're already at such a large pivot point - have you looked into other tech stacks? A good developer working with one of the newer frameworks (Ruby on Rails, Django) can bring a MVP to launch much quicker than a similarly skilled PHP guy could. Most likely with less brittle code too.

Where you're hunting metaphorical elephants for clients it seems the opportunity cost here could be enormous.

Just some food for thought. I'm far from an expert on the matter.

I've been thoroughly enjoying the progress thread though. Keep it up. Eager to meet you at the meetup!

 

[Phillipbro]

Check out these amazing free courses on software development as well:

1. Stanford Online: Startup Engineering (my favorite): https://www.coursera.org/course/startup
2. UC Berkeley - Engineering SAAS - https://www.edx.org/course/engineering-software-service-uc-berkeleyx-cs169-1x#.VLiZgivF_tc

 

[tafy]

I agree, the language you have now is .net which I would get rewritten into Pythyon or Ruby with a Javascript front end.

Its hard to sell clients a webinar, then dump or make your project on the response, you need to have some vision or what they will use in the future even if they cant see it yet.

 

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[Iwokeup]

I agree, the language you have now is .net which I would get rewritten into Pythyon or Ruby with a Javascript front end.

Its hard to sell clients a webinar, then dump or make your project on the response, you need to have some vision or what they will use in the future even if they cant see it yet.

We do have some basic screen shots right now, so I want to make something visually interesting from this and then push that out to people, or drive them to our website. I want to validate this idea rapidly and see if it's truly viable or does it need to be taken out behind the shed and shot?

 

[Iwokeup]

So I had the phone meeting with the partner this afternoon.

I expressed my frustration with his lack of effort. He made a few attempts on his part to say, "Well, you were supposed to do X!" When I pointed out that I had but had come to a standstill given lack of movement on the prototype*, and the fact that my "hands off" with respect to our initial agreement, he gave up.

He acknowledged that he had been focusing on getting a job instead of looking at developers last week (like I had asked/pleaded). I mentioned that if this venture was so important he should have found 1-2 hours (at least) to help out. But nothing.

So gddamned frustrating.

So I laid it out plainly: help out and get your a$$ in gear or we're going to have to dissolve this partnership. He's going away with his GF this weekend so we'll see. But I'm going to prepare to dissolve the partnership unless he shows me something incredible. The thing is, I don't want to be in this partnership anymore. So I'm just going to forge ahead on my own.

* In the medical world, people are hit up all the time by huicksters selling the "Next Great Thing" in medicine. People want to see it and play with it themselves. So we're at a standstill. This after hundreds of cold calls, emails, and about ten in-person visits with practices and physicians.

That said, I'm willing to give him ONE chance to see if he can pull his weight. In the meantime, I may have an excellent way to finish this Alpha in the next month independent of eLance or my partner. Let's see.

 

[Iwokeup]

Since you're already at such a large pivot point - have you looked into other tech stacks? A good developer working with one of the newer frameworks (Ruby on Rails, Django) can bring a MVP to launch much quicker than a similarly skilled PHP guy could. Most likely with less brittle code too.

Where you're hunting metaphorical elephants for clients it seems the opportunity cost here could be enormous.

Just some food for thought. I'm far from an expert on the matter.

I've been thoroughly enjoying the progress thread though. Keep it up. Eager to meet you at the meetup!

I'll look into it. Right now we're talking about Alpha/prototype. I'll make the decision wrt other stacks at the next stage. Thanks! Looking forward to meeting you as well.

 

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[LibertyForMe]

The one thing, however, that I would spend the time and be intimately involved from the get go, is the data side of things. I spend huge amounts of time figuring out my database before I lay my first line of code. I don't know what your project is, but I'm willing to bet your data is going to be complicated and the relations will be very important. Having a schema that models your data in the best most flexible yet efficient way will serve you very well, or a bad schema will cause you HUGE headaches.

This. Figure out the data before you do the work, or you will have to redo a bunch of stuff and it won't work right. If you need some help or have questions, let me know. I am not an expert, but I might be able to help.

 

[tafy]

I want to validate this idea rapidly and see if it's truly viable or does it need to be taken out behind the shed and shot?

Your idea isnt new right? There are companies already out there with a similar product and getting clients? Doesnt that validate it for you?

 

[Iwokeup]

A twist on an existing idea. However most of the other products aren't going for best in breed, but are either bundled within another product, or are actually something else entirely but masquerading as similar to mine.

Question is, will they want BIB?

 

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[tafy]

Who doesnt want the best?

 

[Iwokeup]

Who doesnt want the best?

Surprisingly, a lot of people. People (and physicians) are incredibly conservative and hate change.

 

[tafy]

They do want the best, they don't want new. New means unproven.

 

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[Hooked]

Man this was like reading the first half of what would've been my life story had I continued on my original path. USMC 07-11, finished B.S. in 2014, was going to be starting PT school this spring but decided to back burner it and pursue my own venture.

Glad to see you've been able to make good progress despite a bad partner and developer issues. I've learned the hard way that partners don't work out for me. I get impatient and frustrated when a one-hour setback is the only excuse for 0 progress in 2 weeks.

You might try freelancer.com as well, I posted on a handful of sites and found my dev there. Elance generally has a larger number of high quality responses but the others are definitely worth trying IMO.

 

[Iwokeup]

Man this was like reading the first half of what would've been my life story had I continued on my original path. USMC 07-11, finished B.S. in 2014, was going to be starting PT school this spring but decided to back burner it and pursue my own venture.

Glad to see you've been able to make good progress despite a bad partner and developer issues. I've learned the hard way that partners don't work out for me. I get impatient and frustrated when a one-hour setback is the only excuse for 0 progress in 2 weeks.

You might try freelancer.com as well, I posted on a handful of sites and found my dev there. Elance generally has a larger number of high quality responses but the others are definitely worth trying IMO.

Yeah man. It's like, "You call that an obstacle? Seriously? Back in my day climbing Mount MFer with three Marines holding onto my ruck, there was no 'It's too hard.'"

Glad that you're trying out something other than PT school, Marine.

 

[Iwokeup]

They do want the best, they don't want new. New means unproven.

True dat.

 

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[Iwokeup]

Okay,so I've been reading Robert Herjavec's "Driven" book that was given to me for Christmas. Good book! Realized that I hadn't been feeling that "I'm going to CRUSH the competition feeling." (Latent fear?) Anyway, jumped out of bed this morning, communicated with a couple of devs on eLance in case my first choice doesn't work out (but DO want it to work out. ). The domain that we've been stalking for months finally comes available this afternoon, so I'm going to jump on that

Had a birthday party for a nephew today in which there were a couple of software startup founders (!) and one other physician with a lot of opinions on the best direction for medical software. Kind of a blowhard BUT! He DID have an idea for a promising channel and his approach to financing the product happened to match ours, but in a different context. So that was useful.

 

[Iwokeup]

[Problem 1] - domain registration/product name

So while the domain that I want expired on Saturday, it didn't become immediately available. Right now it's on "client hold" status. If I understand the process correctly, this means that I may have as long as 75 days IF the registrar doesn't want to keep it for themselves.

*shrug*

Initially very frustrating but I don't believe in letting obstacles stop me.

I found another domain that might be even better and it's been parked without even a placeholder page since 2010. I emailed the admin to see if they'd be willing to sell it since it doesn't expire till 2016. In the meantime, I've gone back to Namemesh, etc and working on another name for the product in the event that we can't get either of the ones that I want right now.

[Problem 2] - Letting our list know we still exist

Worked on and sent off an email to our list letting them know that we should be ready to launch (come Hell or High Water) soon (30 days).
Also reached out to a big hospital system honcho that had not previously responded after our first introduction and nicely said, "HI! I'm here and would LOVE to help you." Will keep on contacting him (nicely) every week or so until he gives in and responds.


[Problem 3] - Developers

Working with one developer who will hopefully be able to finish the project in one month. Also have 7 strong applications (with two rock stars) from eLance who have signed NDAs and are ready for more information. Working on that tonight. Still haven't heard back from or noted any work from partner. So forging ahead regardless of his "help."

[Problem 4] - The Partner

Promised to get in touch with me today, and it's 1500 CST (GMT -6) and still crickets, though I did text him around 1100 saying "hello." Not holding out any hope. I'm on my own at this point.