Be the CEO of your Optometry Practice from Day One
Victor Hugo once said “No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come”.
Last week, we published “A quick entrepreneurial lesson on how to develop an idea into a viable startup”. The article briefed how the opportunity to develop an entrepreneurial idea into a startup evolved throughout the years. It started with “the business plan” and ended with “the Startup Analysis Canvas”. The briefing got a lot of interaction from colleagues and many inquired about other ways we can build a practice. Sometimes, we really want to run our own company but we don’t have the captivating idea to build a startup.
The solution is to start looking for a small business to acquire. Buying a small business is an appealing opportunity to managers who are looking for a career change, newly graduate Optometry students who want to get into a management career, and MBA students who are good at hiring and delegating professionals and are great at applying managerial skills they acquired at business school. This method is called “entrepreneurship through acquisition”, where you don’t start a business from scratch but you start from buying the business and running it like a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) from day one. The other way to become a CEO from day one is through “Venture Capital” which is at a higher level of capital and includes “unicorns” like Amazon, Microsoft, and many other giants.
The main benefit of “entrepreneurship through acquisition” is that you are buying an already established company, which has an existing customer base, experienced employees, brand recognition, revenue, and a stream of cash flow. If you are buying a practice that has been running for decades it might have a successful business model that has been implemented a long time ago and can be boosted by applying new methods of entrepreneurship like renewed digital strategy and digital marketing. Moreover, running your own practice allows you to make impacting decisions, and have the freedom to work in the way that suits you best.
An Optometrist does not need to have a lot of money to purchase a business using “Entrepreneurship through acquisition”. Purchasing the business can be achieved through an optimized capital structure that combines debt with equity from investors and through equity crowdfunding. The goal is to maintain a significant economic stake in the practice. If you can find a high-quality practice for a price that allows you and your investors to make a significant return on investment you won’t need to leverage through debt. If you succeed in increasing the value of the practice through effective management you will provide your investors with regular revenue. Moreover, eventually, you might one day want to sell it at a significantly high price that generates financial gain to you and all investors, having had a great career and a great investment opportunity at the same time.
“Entrepreneurship through acquisition” is rewarding, provides you independence, and you don’t need to have owned a company before to operate one, but it is not for everyone, it takes time, it takes energy, and a lot of hard work and sacrifice. You need to understand that being the CEO of your own business requires you a full commitment to work night and day and weekends. This can be especially relevant even before launching the business and starting earning a salary as a CEO. You will put a lot of effort and expenses out of your own pocket during the search period when you are searching for this acquisition opportunity. Once you acquire the business you will no longer work for a big brand, you will lose this feeling of belonging to an elite league and will have to devote yourself to developing your brand yourself. You will not have the same access to resources that are available at large companies.
The road to entrepreneurship is certainly the road less taken, but most entrepreneurs are happy and don’t like to return to work for another company.