Latest / Coffee Playdate Podcast with Dr. Olga Deengar / Self-Funded, Self-Made Ep 20: How Dr. Gurneet Matharoo Built Two Businesses on Her Terms
Transcript
- Coach Olga MD: Welcome to the Coffee Playdate Podcast. I have a very special guest with me today, Dr. Gurneet Matharoo Welcome! Gurneet Matharoo: Hello. So nice being here and seeing you again. Coach Olga MD: too! It's so great to see you! I always ask my guests how do they like their coffee? Gurneet Matharoo: So I like my coffee black and just half a cup in the mornings. Usually like the coffee from local roasteries in Kansas City. Coach Olga MD: Very good. What's your favorite type of coffee? Is it like a dark roast or a light roast? Gurneet Matharoo: Medium. Medium. Medium. Coach Olga MD: Medium. Right in the middle. Perfect. We're going to play two games. The first one is a rapid fire questions game. I'm going to ask you to choose between ⁓ answers. You don't have to give me an explanation as to why you chose one answer over the other. ⁓ go with your gut instinct. Ready? All right. First one. Sleep baby sleeps or late night business planning session. Gurneet Matharoo: late night business planning session. Coach Olga MD: Perfect. How about baby schedule decides clinic hours or clinic hours decide baby schedule? Gurneet Matharoo: Baby schedule decides clinic hours. Coach Olga MD: Baby's the boss. How about a CME conference for obesity medicine or a business mastermind with other entrepreneurs? Gurneet Matharoo: Yes. business mastermind with other entrepreneurs. Coach Olga MD: Yeah. Last one is invest in a spa marketing or hire more IV therapy nurses. Gurneet Matharoo: Mmm. That is very difficult. I wish I could say 50-50, but I'll just do the marketing. Coach Olga MD: Yep, So for the next game, we're going to take a sip. If our answers match, it's the same format. Here go. one uninterrupted hour of deep work or three short blocks squeezed between mom duties. Gurneet Matharoo: interrupted hour. Coach Olga MD: One uninterrupted hour, I know, I wish I had that too. I'm gonna go with the short blocks, squeezed between mom duties, because I'm just so used to it now. Next ⁓ inspire to prioritize their health or inspire them to start a business. Gurneet Matharoo: prioritize their health for sure. Coach Olga MD: Yes, prioritize their health. Cheers. question. ⁓ to Canada or travel to Australia in January? Gurneet Matharoo: wow. Knowing I grew up in Canada and how cold it gets, I would probably travel to Australia in June. ⁓ Coach Olga MD: Yeah, me too. But any other month of the year, Canada would be. Yeah. Gurneet Matharoo: Yes. ⁓ Coach Olga MD: Last question, snorkeling or scuba diving? Gurneet Matharoo: snorkeling. Coach Olga MD: Snorkeling, me too. Cheers. Gurneet Matharoo: I'm scared of the sharks. There's way too many scary movies with scuba diving. Coach Olga MD: Mm. Yes, I know I've never tried but maybe someday. All right, so Gurneet tell us a little bit about yourself. Gurneet Matharoo: you. Yes, so I am board certified in both family medicine and obesity medicine. After completing residency, instead of taking your traditional ⁓ I the advice of some seniors and created my own business as an independent contracted physician being able Provide services in different areas of family I also did additional. training as well as additional hours from emergency medicine training. So currently I ⁓ myself out to different ERs, sometimes through different locums ⁓ as well as provide care in a med spa for obesity medicine as a partner, and then also have my own IV therapy business, which is mobile. Coach Olga MD: how do you manage to do all of that? Gurneet Matharoo: So it started with the independent contract and that shift in mindset of I wanted medicine to be a hobby and not necessarily feeling obligated to have work under someone. So because I'm able to have my own hours, I'm able to cookie cut and make my schedule the way I want it, which allows me lot of freedom as well as helps me kind of determine what I want from financial goals. as well. So because of that, can choose like maybe one month I want to do more locums because I just have the energy. Maybe I have the additional help with the baby. But then throughout the week, focusing on my hobbies, such as obesity medicine, HRT and clinic. And then from a business standpoint, ⁓ obviously, having beginning stages of the business, being able to adjust my schedule, I was able to prioritize the business when I was developing it from an IV therapy standpoint. Coach Olga MD: How did you even come up with the idea to create an IV therapy business? Was there like a demand or a high need in the community? Gurneet Matharoo: Thank you. Yes, so originally obtained IV therapy myself in Vegas because not that I was hungover, I was just not feeling well. And a few months later here in Kansas City, and I noticed, IV therapy is such a huge need. It keeps patients out of the ER. It helps with ⁓ nutritional deficits. and overall wellness and it can help you with your longevity goals and your own personal goals as well. It's pretty quick as well and you do typically feel the results shortly after. So I like almost that instant gratification of feeling well and wanted to provide that care to others and wanted it to be seamless and not having to when you're not feeling well, sometimes you don't want to leave your house. And so having the mobile component to it that was kind of what triggered that thought. Coach Olga MD: Yeah, that sounds like you are able to provide like that convenience for the patients not to have to leave their home and just have these services for the IV fluids or IV nutrition that they truly need. That's awesome. as you were building your business, ⁓ other mindset shifts did you need to have as an entrepreneur? Gurneet Matharoo: Mm-hmm. Yes, so the first one being being okay with being uncomfortable, especially when you have that shift into 1099 work versus W2, you may not have that nine to five schedule that others may have ⁓ being okay with waiting for having those opportunities and trusting the process and trusting that you will be able to grow this, but in the beginning it may not be exactly how you want it and being okay with those hurdles. became so uncomfortable with both the businesses, especially first starting off as just a contracted position. not knowing if I will have or obtain ⁓ those with different hospitals and different, ⁓ offices. but I had to trust the process. And even though I was near quitting very close to quitting and actually started interviewing for W2 jobs, I, trusted the process, gave it a few more months and luckily was able to. push past that and become successful. Coach Olga MD: There's so much uncertainty in entrepreneurship and you're very brave to go through the process, just to ⁓ stay in there. But I'm wondering, ⁓ once did get some contracts in, did it kind of snowball? Were you able to expand your network and get more contracts with other clinics? Gurneet Matharoo: Yes, it definitely helped because then I knew the process of, how to reach out and it helped to be contracted within a different locums company as well from that standpoint. which then helped me with revived and understanding, what you have to do on the back end to have that outreach to make the connections and to obtain these opportunities. And so I've become more comfortable with. that process of the original cold calling, ⁓ finding, finding of need, and then reaching out. and then also doing my own credentialing, and I've started, being able understand the process and how to it more efficient. Coach Olga MD: Wow, that's amazing. so ⁓ are some of the other challenges that you may have faced as you're going through this journey? Gurneet Matharoo: Yeah, so basically is the scaling aspect of things ⁓ when to and how to manage your finances. And ⁓ all of ⁓ these businesses, I have any investors, I am putting in my money the investments. And I think that just increases the stakes. ⁓ knowing every month that I have to meet my own goals that I've set out for the business, ⁓ I pushes me to work harder With the IV business, there is a huge margin. So it's been very helpful to start that up. But the challenges will also be, the marketing aspect, having enough employees. And so, I could have waited longer to scale, but we've continued to scale. ⁓ on the second year And then from the hospital standpoint, after about a year, I continued to increase the amount of hospitals I worked at to consistently have more volume to be able to choose from. I think I'm credentialed in about 15 hospitals right now. So I think the challenges were, what's the next step to scaling? from, individuals that I've listened to in the past and kind of from my own experience, it's better to just scale earlier. because every step of the way just becomes more and more uncomfortable. But then you'll see the process again, smooth out. And so just pushing yourself to do that sooner than later. Coach Olga MD: Wow, you've scaled a lot a very short period of time. I mean, that is huge growth. What are some ⁓ fun to ⁓ kind keep your team entertained or keep them ⁓ going when you have tough days? Gurneet Matharoo: Yes. So the IV therapy standpoint, we try to do like photo shoots, branding shoots, ⁓ and scheduling those out. Those are always a fun way for the marketing aspect, as well as just having fun with it. And there's a ⁓ big cycling event that we typically attend yearly and that's always such a fun time and to prepare for that. So keeping everyone engaged from that standpoint and then here and there we'll do branded attire and meetings as well where it's more casual and then not so business related but ⁓ that seems to help the engagement as well. Coach Olga MD: And Do you like a productivity hack you use in your daily life that you would recommend for other entrepreneurs? Gurneet Matharoo: So my calendar is very color coded. I actually use like a widget cal and not the other traditional Apple or Google Calendars And so, but it does link up to everything. And I like to color code everything I need to do the time. And sometimes I actually even add emojis into my calendar. And that, gets me, know, like, especially if it's like the day off, I'll have ⁓ different types of icons on those days. And so mentally, I know which day I have off in the week. And then with the color codes, my mind is already ready to, okay, I have this more difficult task in the day coming up because it's the red color. so I to make sure that this morning I have a really good breakfast. I'm ready to go. I had rest the night before. And so that seems to really help me from planning standpoint. I'm like a super planner when it comes to that. Coach Olga MD: Yeah, that's brilliant. I haven't heard of that yet. That's really cool. And you have to have a business background in order to start the businesses? ⁓ Gurneet Matharoo: ⁓ absolutely not. I had, luckily I had seniors when I was in residency and of them actually had already created his own business and done exactly what I did. And so it was nice to have that mentor. And I think that's more valuable than having a business degree because he was able to, teach me kind of the beginning steps ⁓ as, as preliminary as how to start an LLC, how to get an EIN. Those types of steps, which sometimes can be daunting and a barrier to get started but having a mentor that's already done it from scratch. ⁓ And you appreciate their work. So you can ask follow-up questions if you did too. so that was great and ⁓ helpful for me to have that. I don't have any business background, but as we continue to, move around the process, I think having the mentor, but then also having someone to manage the finances and ⁓ help me those ⁓ financial decisions, keeping the bookkeeping and so forth. so have a really, really good CPA as well through NovaPoint, if anyone asks. ⁓ And he's been Coach Olga MD: you Gurneet Matharoo: great on keeping track of our business expenses and help guide me along the way as well on how to manage this again because I'm very self-funded in the business. Coach Olga MD: Wow, so mentorship, having a great team with you as you go through this journey, those are the main things. Is there any other advice that you'd give to someone who's also starting out in similar space? Gurneet Matharoo: Yeah, start with the end in mind. I was always told this as well. So knowing, almost like a vision board or kind of what your ideal would look like and start working backwards of how to get to that ideal. it doesn't matter if you feel like your idea is unachievable. Maybe you get really excited about it one day ⁓ and then you start yourself down. Just continue with that idea if you really are passionate about it ⁓ and see it through. but starting with the design backwards. Coach Olga MD: Yes, exactly. That's what I always think about it. When you're setting a goal, you have to know what the end result is, what is the outcome that you want, what are you looking for, and then work backwards. How are you going to get to that outcome? What steps do you have to put along the way? Something that's doable, something that that you can achieve to get closer to your goal. Gurneet Matharoo: Yes, and then you can have the different parts of the puzzle piece and have the additional help with members of your team making that team together and solidifying that. That's been so helpful along the way. I have my husband, who's a big part in pushing me, supporting me, but then also helps me. keep track of our inventory and then also does the ⁓ assist with CPA for the finances as well. So it's been great to have additional brains to help you along the way. And ⁓ again, it you to continue to push harder. Coach Olga MD: Yeah, amazing. He sounds like a super dad. Well, Gurneet thank you so much for being on our Coffee Playdate podcast today. It was a pleasure having you. And I hope you have a good rest of your day. Take care. Gurneet Matharoo: Yes he is. Thank you. It was great talking to you as well. you as well. Have a good one. Bye