We recently held another Atlanta Healthcare Entrepreneur Meetup and I had the privilege of interviewing Chris Spears on his journey with OrderlyMeds. There were lots of great insights and good questions from the audience; you can read the full recap here. Below were three of my key takeaways:

Market timing

You can’t always predict the market, but you can make educated guesses on trends that if they take off can rapidly expand your business just from market growth alone. Catching the wave of GLP-1 meds coupled with telehealth and technology was huge. When starting a business, make sure to really think about the market and is there a chance for a massive takeoff.

You don’t have to raise money

There is often a narrative you have to raise lots of money to be successful. Chris proves that you can bootstrap an amazing business to astounding growth and scale without having to raise a dime. While there may be a time and a place for fundraising, that is not always required.

Be in front of customers

I was impressed by Chris’ stories of how much he personally was in front of customers early on. He felt the pain as a patient, spoke with lots of folks in the ecosystem to understand the challenges, consistently spoke to their early customers, and built the business around their needs. When you are hearing directly from the front lines and then can take those learnings to solve your customers’ problems, you have a much higher chance of success.