Khan Siddiqui, MD, believes that for a physician to become an entrepreneur, the doctor has to be obsessed. Specifically, Dr. Siddiqui thinks that a key trait of physician entrepreneurs is obsession with solving a problem.
“If you are coming from a clinical practice, you understand the problems better than anybody else can,” he said. “A lot of times, entrepreneurs find that insight that others have missed. That insight only comes from understanding the problem better.”
Most recently, Dr. Siddiqui, a radiologist turned serial entrepreneur, wanted to make it possible to create augmented intelligence (AI) systems for medical imaging much faster and at much lower costs. That desire led him to co-found HOPPR, a Chicago-based company that provides a platform for the creation of those AI systems. HOPPR’s customers include both AI vendors and physicians who are building their own AI tools.
To help other physicians turn solving a burning problem into a business, the AMA Physician Entrepreneur Forum will be held Aug. 7–8 at the AMA headquarters in Chicago. Designed for physicians, residents and students interested in healthcare entrepreneurship and business leadership, the event will feature healthcare leaders who have built successful businesses, practices and ventures. Learn more and register now.
How medicine prepares you for entrepreneurship
Dr. Siddiqui told the AMA that physicians’ training in differential diagnosis can be applied to analyzing the problem in healthcare that a doctor wants to solve. “Most industries—most specialties outside of healthcare—don't teach this,” he said. “We go through this whole problem discovery that is very unique to healthcare.”
Another common characteristic of physicians that serves them well as entrepreneurs is commitment. “If you really care about the patient, you go all in trying to help that patient, no matter what,” said Dr. Siddiqui, who had an appointment at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine prior to devoting himself to entrepreneurship. HOPPR is the most recent of his several startups, and he serves on the advisory boards of various companies.
While the focus changes, the long hours and hard work needed to launch a business will be nothing new to physicians. Likewise, the continuous learning involved is akin to having to quickly acquire clinical familiarity in various specialties during three-month rotations, Dr. Siddiqui noted.
However, physician entrepreneurs will need to sacrifice another widespread trait. “You can't have ego. You can't know all the answers,” Dr. Siddiqui told the AMA.
“Having a partner, a co-founder makes a huge difference. And if you can find somebody that complements your skills, life is so much easier.”
He applies that rule to his hiring for HOPPR, which employs eight radiologists with expertise Dr. Siddiqui doesn’t possess himself. “I always like to hire people that know more than I do, so that I can learn from them what needs to be done rather than tell them what’s to be done,” he said.
He also stressed the importance of mentors as a resource for providing other perspectives on problems. In addition to being past teachers and leaders, Dr. Siddiqui’s mentors now include past students with whom he has reciprocal relationships.
Expect these entrepreneurial road blocks
Dr. Siddiqui cautioned that AI applications and other technological innovations sometimes can be too advanced to receive market support immediately. Also, it may not be clear what the market for that innovation is.
“Who's the buyer? Who's the user? Sometimes the user is not the buyer,” Dr. Siddiqui said. “You have to think through that you're not just selling to one person, you're actually selling the product across different things.”
Of course, funding is a perpetual challenge to entrepreneurship. “One of my mentors told me a long time ago [that] entrepreneurs don't raise enough money,” Dr. Siddiqui said. “That's when great ideas just die—because they just didn't have enough bandwidth to make it happen.”
The AMA is helping physician entrepreneurs here as well. The AMA’s venture studio, Health 2047, led a $13 million seed round in funding for HOPPR and also participated in the company’s $31.5 million funding round that closed last June. In all, HOPPR has raised $46.2 million, Dr. Siddiqui told the AMA.
From AI implementation to digital health adoption and EHR usability, the AMA is fighting to make technology work for physicians, ensuring that it is an asset to doctors. That includes recently launching the AMA Center for Digital Health and AI to give physicians a powerful voice in shaping how AI and other digital tools are harnessed to improve the patient and clinician experience.
Bring the family
These challenges are among the reasons only about 10% of startups survive long-term. Given those odds, Dr. Siddiqui said it’s crucial to involve loved ones in a decision to launch a venture.
“Your spouse, your kids, everybody gets affected by what you're doing. So, make sure you're bringing them along and they have input,” he told the AMA. “Otherwise, it doesn't go well.”
Dr. Siddiqui acknowledged it’s daunting to sacrifice a physician’s salary for the financial uncertainty of a business venture. The tradeoff for him is that entrepreneurship allows him to make a larger impact than he could providing care for patients.
“I’m motivated by my inner ‘why,’” he said. “My inner why is that I like to solve problems that people I love have and create a social impact at the same time.”
