Passion Projects & Entrepreneurship

In this episode, physician entrepreneurs Dr. Sahil Mehta and Dr. Aaron Fritts discuss how they started their passion projects and share business operations advice for budding entrepreneurs.

Dr. Mehta starts the show by telling the origin story of MedSchoolCoach, an online educational platform created to help students achieve their goals of entering medicine. MedSchoolCoach offers academic and career resources for high school, college, and medical students. While Dr. Mehta was a medical student when he originally had the idea for the company, the majority of business development occurred in his IR fellowship year.

The doctors talk about how passion projects can protect against burnout and actually relieve academic and financial stress from working in clinical practice. They also emphasize how they can apply business concepts to enhance their clinical practices. For example, marketing MedSchoolCoach to consumers taught Dr. Mehta how to better market IR procedures directly to patients.

Scaling up a business can present obstacles, so Dr. Mehta outlines strategies for hiring the right people, conducting market research, and making effective use of social media. He highlights the fact that motivated and talented employees can always learn specific industry knowledge.

To anyone who is debating whether or not to pursue a passion project, Dr. Mehta advises them to avoid over-analysis and jump into the idea because it will always be a learning experience.