Discovering a passion for entrepreneurship (and taking the leap to launch a business)

Students come to this program with decades of work experience. A lot of us come with a career goal in mind, like taking on greater leadership roles. However, an unexpected benefit of this program is that it exposes students to new and unanticipated opportunities .

I came here with nearly 20 years of experience in healthcare, and my goal was to become a chief medical officer. But as I started classes, I discovered another passion: entrepreneurship. I had always been interested in starting a business, but I lacked the knowledge or experience to make it happen. I had spent so much time and money on preparing to be a doctor that switching career paths seemed too risky.

But that risk-reward equation shifted when I took Innovation-Driven Entrepreneurial Advantage. In this class, students pitch business ideas, vote on the best ideas, and then form teams to create a formal pitch. I pitched an idea that I had considered for many years: a telehealth solution for addiction medicine, which is my area of practice. Succeeding in the early rounds of the hackathon, I formed a team and continued to work on the idea. At the end of the class, our pitch won the Audience Choice Award.

This experience reinforced that entrepreneurship is a possibility. I saw that my ideas have value and that I can be creative. In my second year of the program, I took the leap and resigned from my job to focus on school and building a business. A few aspects of the program were critical in making this transition to full-time entrepreneur:

Executive Coaching – I utilized the one-on-one executive coaching sessions offered to EMBA students. I talked with my coach about how to become more comfortable with my leadership style and not needing to fit into others’ expectations. My coach encouraged me to take a moment to focus on school and to create a strong foundation with classmates before fully jumping into the new business.

Classmates – I followed my coach’s advice and started engaging more with my classmates. I began regular discussions with a classmate who is a neurosurgeon at Harvard and another who works in a non healthcare-related business. We were all excited by my idea and the neurosurgeon connected us to other researchers at Harvard to further explore it. This was the foundation for our founding team!

Other classmates were helpful too. In addition to providing contacts, they also shared their own startup stories and supported us through the ups and downs of an early startup.

Classes – In Data, Models and Decisions, I learned how data can be used to guide healthcare diagnosis and treatment. Since everyone on the team had experience with addiction medicine in one way or another, we decided to pivot the venture to apply machine learning to addiction. In particular, we decided to use smart phone technology to predict behavior that could lead to a relapse. In this era of opioid addiction, oftentimes the first sign of relapse is when a person returns to opioid/heroin use, and unfortunately that often leads to overdose and death. Predicting relapse can save lives.

In the Analytics Edge class, I learned about different ways to collect and analyze more complicated data streams. This reinforced my belief that we can discover the holy grail of early behavioral indicators of relapse using smart phone technology.

Faculty – I frequently talked to professors for guidance. Through emails, phone calls, and meetings, they provided valuable strategic guidance.

If I hadn’t come to this program, I wouldn’t have had the encouragement or confidence to take the leap into entrepreneurship. Today, Hyperion Health is gaining traction through pilot projects and addiction studies.

This program is often described as “transformational” and it really is.  I came here to become a chief medical officer, and I’m now fulfilling a new dream to combine my medical background and entrepreneurial passion to make a greater impact in addiction medicine.

Dr.  Marc Myer, EMBA '19, is CEO and Cofounder of Hyperion Health Inc. in Minneapolis, MN.