Nurse entrepreneurship is a growing segment of the health care industry right now. If starting your own business or expanding your nursing talents into an innovative new product is something you’re interested in, now is a good time to start.
As a previous post mentioned, there are many courses, seminars, and certificate programs for nurses who are serious about entrepreneurship. But if you aren’t sure if now’s the time to leave your current nursing job to go it on your own, what can you do to get the process started?
Get a Thick Skin
Learn to accept criticism. If you’re going to try your hand at an entrepreneurial venture, you need to know people are going to poke holes in your foundation. Learn from what your critics say because they may be pointing out some valuable and potentially career-saving vulnerabilities. Do not react to negativity—learn from it.
Gather Information
Before you spend any time or money on a new product or new idea, start reading everything you can about nurses who run their own companies and what it’s like to start your own business. Learn about the education or training they received, the financial investment they made, the return on investment they received, and the time commitment it all took.
Assess Your Strengths
As you gather information, start to turn a critical eye toward your own skill set. What do you think would make you succeed at this kind of venture? Are you especially passionate about fixing a problem you have identified? Do you have the time in your own life to devote the sometimes extraordinary hours to start a business? What are you especially good at? Whether your specialty is patient care, financial work, organization, or a specific health issue, this is a good avenue to explore.
Find Associations
If, after gathering information and assessing if you can take on this kind of work, go out and talk with people who know how to do it. Just as you wouldn’t buy a car without some investigating, you should never start your own business without some outside perspective. Associations like the National Nurses in Business Association is an excellent resource for nurses interested in business as well. Experts here can help guide you in everything from legal to presentation perspectives.
Get Educated
Once you have made the commitment toward innovation, you need to get some kind of training. Take seminars and classes and find a nearby certificate program on innovation and entrepreneurship. If you can find one specifically for nurses, it will be that much more relevant, but if you can’t, see what else is out that that most closely matches what you’re seeking.
Investigate the Market
A formal course or seminar will teach you how to investigate the market for what you have in mind. You might have a great idea, but if it is not something the market will support, you won’t have much of a chance at success.
A lot of factors come together to make a nurse entrepreneur successful. You won’t ever know until you try, so don’t be dissuaded by naysayers. But don’t tackle entrepreneurship completely without information either. There are lots of resources to help get you started—use them.
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