How to Start a Veterinary Practice

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Lisa Grulke and Cat Munson – Animal Center for Emergency and Specialty (ACES)

 

 

Podcast Overview:

00:00 Following My Husband’s Career Path
06:02 Career-Specific Tracking Schools
08:36 Farm Production Challenges
11:37 Wildlife Conservation Career Challenges
14:48 Veterinary Staff Shortages Escalate
17:31 “Valuing Licensed Technicians’ Worth”
20:59 Building Trust Through Relief Work
24:34 Evening Urgent Care Focus
26:34 Demographic Survey for Market Analysis
29:26 Collaborative Emergency Care During Pandemic
33:33 Chemotherapy Misunderstanding Explained
37:14 Optimizing Veterinary Clinic Layout
39:22 Building Transformation Insight
45:24 Networking Through University Program
46:07 Overconfident Small Business Owners
50:46 Relying on Unreliable Fax Machines
55:25 Office Troubleshooting & Cloud Solutions

Podcast Transcription:

Speaker [00:00:00]:
I got into an argument with one of my friends on the playground and said, screw this. I’m not working with people because people are awful. And so then I was like, well, I’m gonna work with animals instead. And I stuck with it.

Speaker [00:00:12]:
You have found Authentic Business Adventures, the business program that brings you the struggle stories and triumphant successes of business owners across the land. Downloadable audio episodes can be found in the podcast link found@drawincustomers.com we are locally underwritten by the bank of Sun Prairie, and today we’re welcoming, preparing to learn from Cat and Lisa of ACEs Veterinary. So, Cat and Lisa, how is it going today?

Speaker [00:00:37]:
Good.

Speaker [00:00:37]:
Pretty good. A little bit tired, but we’re good.

Speaker [00:00:40]:
We’re here.

Speaker [00:00:41]:
Let’s start out with foundation. Tell us what ACEs is.

Speaker [00:00:44]:
So ACEs, or Animal Center for Emergency and Specialty, is a brand new after hours urgent care in the Madison area. We also have oncology during the week. But our primary focus and where it was born from was extending the reach and availability of care for sick or injured pets.

Speaker [00:01:03]:
All right, does ACEs stand for something? It’s an acronym, right?

Speaker [00:01:07]:
Yep, yep, yep. All right, so our full name is Animal Center for Emergency and Specialty. ACEs for short.

Speaker [00:01:12]:
All right, so let’s start there. How did you come up with the name?

Speaker [00:01:16]:
Oh, that was a long process.

Speaker [00:01:19]:
Four letters and it took so long.

Speaker [00:01:20]:
Yeah, we found the acronym first and then we fit the words too.

Speaker [00:01:24]:
Yeah, we wanted to have some. A name that you could say, like a shortened name that you could say versus just like a few letters that you had to spell out.

Speaker [00:01:34]:
So we came up with a list of. We went through things like Nova or I don’t even remember. Nova’s the one I remember off the top of my head, but. Yeah, and we stuck with Acers, like. Nope, that’s it.

Speaker [00:01:45]:
Yeah.

Speaker [00:01:46]:
Okay, now how do we make it work?

Speaker [00:01:47]:
That’s funny.

Speaker [00:01:48]:
Yeah.

Speaker [00:01:48]:
Well, it worked out well.

Speaker [00:01:49]:
Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker [00:01:51]:
So tell me, how do you two know each other? I mean, shive you own a business together now, but I imagine it wasn’t born that way.

Speaker [00:01:57]:
Yeah, we worked at the same company we started back in 2020, so right in the middle of the pandemic.

Speaker [00:02:03]:
Oh, perfect time.

Speaker [00:02:04]:
Yup, yup.

Speaker [00:02:05]:
Everybody’s getting pets.

Speaker [00:02:06]:
Exactly.

Speaker [00:02:07]:
As brand new graduate doctors.

Speaker [00:02:08]:
Yeah.

Speaker [00:02:08]:
So we graduated and then started working together.

Speaker [00:02:10]:
Oh, interesting.

Speaker [00:02:11]:
Yeah, and I had been working there for a few years as an assistant prior and then became a doctor and kept working for them. But they pulled Cat from Washington to come work for us.

Speaker [00:02:22]:
Yep. I came about 2,000 miles just to work With Lisa? Yes, absolutely.

Speaker [00:02:29]:
We didn’t know it, but yep, that’s what that was for.

Speaker [00:02:31]:
How did they find you?

Speaker [00:02:33]:
So I actually came over. So my husband is a air quality permitting engineer with the state dnr, and he graduated a little bit before I did, so he knew he wanted to work in public sector of engineering instead of private. But so I was like, all right, you pick a job, and I will follow you. Because I don’t think there at that time, I was like, I don’t think there’s a clinic that’s gonna turn down a doctor. So he ended up out here, and I followed, and I was like, all right, well, here’s where we’re gonna go.

Speaker [00:03:04]:
Oh, nice. Okay. All right. How did you. Let’s start with you, Lisa. How did you decide you were gonna be a veterinarian?

Speaker [00:03:12]:
Well, that was a little. I didn’t know from the start I was going to be a veterinarian. Some people say, oh, I knew back in elementary school I was going to be a veterinarian. I took a long path of following my best friend in middle school. Anything she wanted to be, I wanted to be.

Speaker [00:03:27]:
Oh.

Speaker [00:03:28]:
So it probably started as lawyer first, then I can’t remember what came after that. At some point, it was, meet scientist meat. And that’s what she actually is today. Yeah. But there was a point at which she wanted to be a veterinarian, so I did, too, and just never strayed away from that. All through high school, I took veterinary science courses and animal science courses and shadowed veterinarians. And from that point, I pretty well knew that’s what I wanted to do in undergraduate school. I explored a lot of different pathways.

Speaker [00:04:09]:
College has a. A way of making you think about things like that, about all the different things that you can do with an animal science degree. And then probably like, junior, senior year in college, I very much so knew that veterinarian was the path for me. So I didn’t know right from the start it had to come on for a while.

Speaker [00:04:28]:
You said junior, senior year of college. Yeah, that’s when. Oh, wow. Okay. Were there other paths you were pursuing?

Speaker [00:04:36]:
Yes. Not super seriously. There was a point at which I took a course for equine breeding, and that was really cool. But I think kind of through that course and through the other classes that I took, veterinary medicine really stood out.

Speaker [00:04:57]:
All right.

Speaker [00:04:57]:
So, yeah, there were some other pathways that I were. That I was exploring, but not as seriously as vet medicine.

Speaker [00:05:05]:
Okay.

Speaker [00:05:05]:
Yeah.

Speaker [00:05:06]:
Tell me a story. Just for me and the people at home that may not necessarily. Know how long do you have to go to school to be a veterinarian? Doctor?

Speaker [00:05:13]:
Yeah. So you do have to do undergraduate school. You don’t actually have to graduate with a degree from undergraduate though.

Speaker [00:05:20]:
You just have to hit a certain number of classes. So typically the minimum ends up being about seven years.

Speaker [00:05:28]:
Usually at least three years of undergrad and then a full four years of veterinary school.

Speaker [00:05:32]:
There’s no way to show cut that one. Yeah.

Speaker [00:05:35]:
And with the veterinary school, are you focused on feline or canine?

Speaker [00:05:40]:
It depends on the school. So the school I went to, Washington State, is what’s called a non tracking program. So you learn small animal, large animal, you can learn exotics, things like that, all if you want to. You’re tested on everything. You’re required to know everything. Okay. Some schools, I think Texas A and M is one of them. I think one of the ones in Florida is one of them.

Speaker [00:06:02]:
They’re called tracking schools. And so I think most of those ones, your first year is still kind of all together. And then you decide, am I gonna be a small animal, am I gonna large animal? And then all of your courses are focused on that based off of there. Great for people that know exactly what it is that they wanna go into. Because I have several classmates that are like, I’m here because I’m in a small town. I’ve got family farms, things like that. And I’m specifically wanting to go back and help that community for them. But some people are just like, I don’t know what I’m doing.

Speaker [00:06:33]:
Or they get in there and they change their minds and things like that for them. And so if they get stuck into a tracking side of things, of could that be detrimental to them? I don’t have experience with that, but I can see feasibly how that would happen.

Speaker [00:06:46]:
Sure.

Speaker [00:06:47]:
I mean, I’ll say I went into veterinary school planning to be production medicine, so that would have been a poor choice for me to go to a tracking scale.

Speaker [00:06:58]:
Help me with that. What is production medicine?

Speaker [00:07:00]:
Oh, it’s the better way to say like farm animal medicine. Like anything that produces food or other animals.

Speaker [00:07:09]:
Yeah. Okay. That’s so funny. I was thinking like, you’re making medication, but. No, it makes sense. Okay. Production. So they’re machinery, essentially make the milk.

Speaker [00:07:19]:
Yeah, got it. Okay. Interesting. Yeah, you were headed that way. Why?

Speaker [00:07:24]:
I grew up in a small town and so, yeah, I grew up with farms all around me and I really enjoyed working with some of my neighbors. As far as they had cows, some of them had sheep, goats, I kind of enjoyed that side of things. And I just learned that I enjoyed dogs and cats more through veterinary school.

Speaker [00:07:48]:
Okay.

Speaker [00:07:48]:
Yeah.

Speaker [00:07:48]:
Which is nicer or what’s cuddlier?

Speaker [00:07:52]:
I mean, people in large animal medicine, it can be a lot of work and there can be a lot less return on investment. I truly learned that. I specifically loved emergency medicine for dogs and cats.

Speaker [00:08:11]:
Okay.

Speaker [00:08:12]:
So that’s. That’s really what I started tracking as far as, like, my junior and senior year of veterinary school, specifically, like, learning emergency medicine.

Speaker [00:08:20]:
Now, is this. Tell me about the production side of that being, I guess, not as profitable. Is that because they’re looking at profit and loss more or less as a business? Like, should we make this animal, this cow better because it’s going to produce versus a dog is more emotional?

Speaker [00:08:36]:
It’s a little bit of both. So I also have a background in production. I worked on a dairy farm for quite a few years, but yeah. So some of it is. Okay. Is it worth, you know, trying to fix this animal and get back to, you know, where she needs to be to be productive or things like that versus, you know, is it going to be, you know, more cost effective to just let her go and not put it in there? But it’s also. These are farm productions. They just have a lower, you know, not income, like availability, cash flow for it, but there’s just less.

Speaker [00:09:11]:
It’s still.

Speaker [00:09:12]:
Yeah, it’s still a farm. It’s a little. Not lower income or anything like that. It’s just. There’s just less available.

Speaker [00:09:17]:
Yeah. Farmers. It’s hard work, but not necessarily as lucrative as a stock trader or something like that, or good stock trader, maybe. So I get it. I get it. That makes sense. So let’s start. Or continuous hucat.

Speaker [00:09:32]:
What made you decide to get into the veterinary world?

Speaker [00:09:34]:
So I’m exact opposite. I figured it out in kindergarten.

Speaker [00:09:36]:
Oh, wow.

Speaker [00:09:38]:
So before that, I initially wanted to be a human doctor for that. And then I have a very.

Speaker [00:09:44]:
When you say initially, you’re talking four years old.

Speaker [00:09:46]:
Yes, yes. I got into an argument with one of my friends on the playground and said, screw this. I’m not working with people because people are awful. And so then I was like, well, I’m going to work with animals instead. And I stuck with it.

Speaker [00:09:59]:
Wow.

Speaker [00:10:00]:
And actually had family, you know, saying things like trying to convince me to, like, look at other things or things like that. And I just never found anything that kept my attention the same.

Speaker [00:10:09]:
All right. Why would they try to convince you to go outside of veterinary?

Speaker [00:10:13]:
There’s A. At least where I was. And I don’t know if it’s pervasive around everywhere, things like that. There’s a lot of. I don’t know that stigma is the right word, but it’s the word I’m going to use about the cost of it. You know, work life balance is the big keywords right now.

Speaker [00:10:34]:
Cost of school or cost of the care itself?

Speaker [00:10:36]:
Both. So cost of school is. It’s notoriously high for not a lot of revenue, smaller paychecks and things like that compared to equivalent in human medicine. And so there’s a lot of that of just like, you know, you may. You’re not gonna make a lot of this. There’s a lot of, you know, other things that can go in there. If you’re in production medicine, I have things that you’re on call all the time, you know, things like that too. And so there’s a lot of that in there.

Speaker [00:11:02]:
But I think also too, a lot of it was just. Just make sure you’re not excluding all options. Was a lot of it too.

Speaker [00:11:10]:
You’re in first grade.

Speaker [00:11:12]:
Yeah. You know, so it’s like all through high school of like, are you sure you want to commit to this? Because there’s other things out there. And nothing just ever held my attention. All right. My biggest struggle was figuring out what focus I wanted to have in medicine. So I initially, for the longest time before I got into school was I’m gonna be in zoo medicine. I’m gonna work in, you know, I think my goal was to work at the San Diego Zoo for the longest time.

Speaker [00:11:36]:
That sounds awesome.

Speaker [00:11:37]:
Yeah.

Speaker [00:11:37]:
And it’s, you know, exotics, wildlife conservation, that still has a large piece of my heart. But it’s, there’s a lot that goes into it. And in our first year, one of our first classes was we had like a planning thing of like, okay, what’s your goal? And you’ll look into it and create this, like, you know, plan, five year plan of how are you going to get there? And so one of the first things I did was, well, what’s the job availability? And so I went on to the aza, the American Zoo association job postings. And there were a grand total of three job postings for the entire North American continent.

Speaker [00:12:16]:
Wow.

Speaker [00:12:17]:
And they all required a minimum of three years exotic medicine experience, which would require doing a residency and things like that. So I was like, well, maybe not realistic for me, just in terms of the competitive side of the market. Yeah, but. And so they started looking at other things, thought about production for a little while when I was working on the farm and then fell into emergency medicine by accident for there. But then. Yeah, very much cleared.

Speaker [00:12:43]:
Just because that’s needed.

Speaker [00:12:45]:
Well, because it’s needed. And also there was, you know, so, you know, doing summer internships and things like that. There was one internship that I did where I hated every minute of it, except for three cases.

Speaker [00:12:59]:
Oh.

Speaker [00:13:00]:
All of whom were respiratory distress cases.

Speaker [00:13:03]:
Okay.

Speaker [00:13:03]:
And so, you know, pets that can’t breathe for one reason or another. One of them, you know, like, there was, you know, really bad pneumonia. There was, you know, fluid in the chest, things like that. Only one of them had a happy ending for that. But they were the most entertaining cases of my summer. And so I still remember all three of them to this day. And I was like, well, maybe that’s something I need to look into a little bit more.

Speaker [00:13:28]:
All right. Interesting.

Speaker [00:13:30]:
Yeah.

Speaker [00:13:31]:
So then you two meet on the job, Is that right?

Speaker [00:13:34]:
Yes.

Speaker [00:13:34]:
Okay. And who suggested, hey, let’s get out of here and start a business?

Speaker [00:13:39]:
I don’t know.

Speaker [00:13:40]:
I don’t remember who instigated that, But I know there was just a specific moment where we both realized that where we were currently at in life and in our work, we just realized that there was a need that we needed to fulfill, Both a need for more service for the pets in the community and then also to change how we treated the staff, essentially. So we wanted to work on those two aspects, the pets and the staff.

Speaker [00:14:18]:
Tell me about the staff side a little bit.

Speaker [00:14:20]:
Yeah. So staff side of things is. Well, I think both of them kind of stem from a very similar place, and I think we have a unique perspective on it of, like many things in the world probably today, it all comes down to Covid. And so we’ve all started at. Yeah, right. We’ve started our professional careers. Peak pandemic for that, which was a novel experience. But so we got to see things of very briefly, of how they were getting, you know, how things were beforehand.

Speaker [00:14:48]:
But seeing things ramp up, seeing the caseloads ramp up, seeing the hours come up, the stress that took on, you know, people in interpersonal relationships, and that despite the requirements, the emotional toll, the physical tolls being increased, the compensation side of things wasn’t matching it. And so we were frequently closing. People were calling out. Some clinics are now closed permanently. Hours are shifted, things like that. And there are a lot of people that were leaving veterinary medicine for, you know, customer service or retail jobs and things like that, because it paid the same.

Speaker [00:15:29]:
Okay.

Speaker [00:15:31]:
For their. So Something that is less demanding, less taxing, less schooling and things like that. And they’re able to make the same wage as they were in veterinary medicine.

Speaker [00:15:40]:
So tell me a little bit about that. Just from the business side, were they not being paid more because they couldn’t be or because owners of the businesses were hoarding, or what is the assumption there?

Speaker [00:15:53]:
I don’t know that there’s one consistent answer to it. I think most people will tell you or feel like that they’re like a pay descended from business decisions, but I don’t know that we have the knowledge or perspective to say one way or the other of what it was.

Speaker [00:16:10]:
The one word I kept or the phrase that I kept hearing is we’re paying to the standard.

Speaker [00:16:16]:
Yeah.

Speaker [00:16:18]:
Like the standard of pay in this area is this. So that’s what we can pay. And that didn’t feel like a satisfactory answer. One of our core pieces of business is that we are raising the bar in what we’re paying staff. And I don’t think it was that hard of a thing to do when you’re doing it right off the get go. I certainly get that when you’re a business that’s in place for a long period of time, ramping up to that sort of payment quickly can be very difficult because you’re already set in what you’re paying. But from the get go, it hasn’t been hard to offer the pay that we’re offering. And I feel like, I mean, for one, it has attracted staff to our business, it’s attracted some very good staff.

Speaker [00:17:08]:
So we have a very fantastic team. But I also hope that that spreads around the community. Even if we’re not getting all the staff from the community, I hope that the staff are reaping the benefit of that at other places. I hope that they can see what we’re paying our staff and hopefully try to meet that someday.

Speaker [00:17:31]:
And I think part of our perspective with it too is not only trying to set the standard or raise the standard from where it is too, but acknowledging this is what you are worth. And so, for example, we both know licensed technicians, so these are individuals that have gone to two years of schooling, have a professional degree, have a medical license, and some of them had to work two jobs in order to make a living wage and for a professional degree, one that doesn’t make sense to us. So we try to do that. But also it’s that paying what they’re worth and showing that they’re value in that way and so not necessarily compensating for the long hours and emotional tolls and things like that, it certainly helps. But just acknowledging that you have value beyond being a body in a room. Yeah.

Speaker [00:18:24]:
I guess I imagine from the veterinary side there’s certain things that you just. This is just part of the job. Right. You’re gonna be next to an animal, a loved one, a family member of some family that’s gonna pass and have to have that conversation. It’s gonna be difficult.

Speaker [00:18:38]:
Yep.

Speaker [00:18:38]:
You’re gonna have to talk with the family that can’t necessarily afford to take care of their animal all the time. You’re gonna have to lift a 80 pound dog. Right. There’s just certain things where you’re like, we can make your life easier and better financially, but there’s certain things that. Just part of the job.

Speaker [00:18:54]:
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker [00:18:54]:
That you can’t navigate around. So I understand that. That’s. I guess I think of my staff and there’s many of my staff. I won’t necessarily say all, but many of my staff, I would love to pay more. And you pay. I guess I pay as much as I can, but that’s. I don’t know.

Speaker [00:19:12]:
I was told by someone, a business owner, and it made me think, just step back a moment. And they said an employee wants to work at the job where they’re going to be paid the most and work the least. An employer wants the worker to work the most, but they get. They pay them the minimum amount because it’s. That’s capitalism. Right. We’re trying to transfer money for transactions, blah, blah, blah, blah. I’m like, oh, those are opposing ideals.

Speaker [00:19:39]:
Yeah.

Speaker [00:19:40]:
So that’s not ideal. But I guess that’s all part of the game. Right. And that comes in, how do you price your service?

Speaker [00:19:48]:
Right.

Speaker [00:19:48]:
Do we price it higher, lower to our competition or, or I guess going into the other stuff, how do we compare? Because we don’t want to be commoditized. So I’m like, what do we do better and what do we not necessarily do? Because whatever. So I don’t know. It’s a shell game.

Speaker [00:20:05]:
Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker [00:20:06]:
But no, it’s great that you can pay more so you can attract presumably higher quality employees. I guess you don’t know until they’re actually on the job.

Speaker [00:20:14]:
Yeah, right.

Speaker [00:20:16]:
Well, I will say a lot of our staff, we did actually previously know, like, oh, nice. Like I had worked with them like five years ago or, or have crossed paths previously with them.

Speaker [00:20:27]:
So you’re aware of their work.

Speaker [00:20:28]:
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker [00:20:29]:
So I spent a couple years doing relief work, which is Basically substitute teacher, but for doctors is the way that I describe it. So several of them of maybe I didn’t work with them consistently, but as I was at other clinics here and there, I got to know them a little bit and kind of see what they’re doing.

Speaker [00:20:46]:
So you never know who’s watching. You never know that might be starting a business and you’re gonna be called up.

Speaker [00:20:52]:
Right.

Speaker [00:20:52]:
When you put out those job applications, you never quite know who’s gonna come.

Speaker [00:20:56]:
Or Cats and Lisa are gonna start a business and you’re not gonna be called.

Speaker [00:20:59]:
Yes. Well, it was actually interesting. It actually worked a little bit the other way around. Especially with me doing the relief stuff. Is my goal with doing it was I’m gonna get my name out there and my work and so that you know and trust me. And then you would send your patients to me for that when something goes wrong. Cause most day practices are just like, we’re gonna do the vaccines, we’re gonna do the blood work. We’re just gonna make sure everything’s going good.

Speaker [00:21:21]:
But they don’t often have time to take in of, like, oh, you know, have been vomiting for three days. I don’t have an open spot in my schedule for a week. Like, you know, so those sorts of things. But we.

Speaker [00:21:34]:
So we answer phones for some clinics, and it’s interesting how they’ll keep us up to date on whether they can or cannot take an emergency.

Speaker [00:21:41]:
Yeah.

Speaker [00:21:42]:
And it was just a little bit of a mindset shift for me, because then I’ll see these messages come through, and I’m like, could a hospital do that? Like a human hospital? We’re not taking any more emergencies. Maybe they do. It’s just a weird thing. Like, I got a thing coming out of my head, like, what do you mean you’re not taking emergencies?

Speaker [00:22:00]:
They did do that during COVID because they were over. Yeah. They were just. They hit a point at which they were overwhelmed. And I’ve also worked at Veterinary ERs where we got overwhelmed at some point. Just had to heartbreaking and depressing for us as staff to have to do that. But it did feel necessary at some points to actually to preserve the quality of our medicine, to not see anything more fair. So it did happen, and it sucked.

Speaker [00:22:29]:
Yeah.

Speaker [00:22:30]:
It’s usually referred to as diversion.

Speaker [00:22:33]:
Okay.

Speaker [00:22:33]:
Or bypass, things like that. So we’re going on diversion to care for the cases that we’re currently caring for.

Speaker [00:22:40]:
So it means. Yeah, basically, it’s the way of saying, we’re not closed. We’re still here. And seeing what we have. But we can’t seek anything new. So we’re gonna direct you to a different place. That can’t.

Speaker [00:22:49]:
That’s fair, that’s reasonable. Because you can only physically do so much. Although you want to desire alone is not enough to be able to take care of yourself.

Speaker [00:22:57]:
If you have a team of four or five people and you have 25 cases hospitalized, that’s gonna take your entire night for them. So yeah, it sucks. And that’s. But that’s why we did what we did.

Speaker [00:23:10]:
Fair. Totally fair. So I guess perfect segue, right? So you guys are like, hey, we’re not liking where we’re at. We want to start our own thing now. Let me back up a step here. Starting your own thing is a big undertaking, as you know. Right?

Speaker [00:23:23]:
Yeah.

Speaker [00:23:24]:
What made you decide to take on something like that versus just shifting jobs?

Speaker [00:23:28]:
There’s nothing else like it.

Speaker [00:23:30]:
Okay.

Speaker [00:23:31]:
Is the big thing. And so prior to this, in most places you have just your general care. So you have your day practices. This is where you go to see your vaccines. Maybe they can take one or two sick pets a day for them. But these doctors, sure, they’re not specialty trained or things like that, but they are really good at what they do for them. But they’re limited. They’re 8 to 5, 7 to 5, whatever those day hours may be, which, it can put a lot of strain on the clients trying to figure out schedules and work and things like that for them.

Speaker [00:24:04]:
And then you have your emergency and referral centers. So your emergency centers are basically your human ers, you know, they’re, you know, walk in first come, you know, not first come, first serve. It’s all triage and status based. But so, you know, you can come in there for something that you think is urgent, but you’re waiting six to eight hours because it’s an ear infection and not hit by car. You know, things like that. And so. And then there’s those ones, but they’re open 24 hours. And so they’re constantly juggling all of this.

Speaker [00:24:34]:
Well, our model is we’re urgent care and so we’re not open 24 hours. We open our doors at 5pm and our goal is to only see the things that are in that middle of the road section. So that three day vomiting, diarrhea, you know, the laceration that’s, you know, stable and running around like a goofball from their, you know, the ear infections, things like that, that don’t truly need to go to the er, just need a couple Hours in and out for them, but they don’t. You don’t want those waiting, you know, two to three weeks to get in and see. So our thing was, it’s, how do we help fix some of this problem? How do we take pressure off of both sides so that they can see the things that need to be seen from them and what they’re good at and they know how to do? And the answer is, we’re gonna take those middle of the road cases. So our goal is, it’s, you know, we’ll take these things that are less critical. So that way you guys can see the hit bikers, you can see the respiratory stress that need to be hospitalized and are in more critical condition. Obviously, we’re gonna triage, you know, something and stabilize something.

Speaker [00:25:36]:
If it comes in our door, we’re the closest to them. But taking some of that pressure off of both sides is gonna help improve access to care for everybody.

Speaker [00:25:45]:
Yep.

Speaker [00:25:45]:
All right, so.

Speaker [00:25:46]:
And there are some urgent cares in the Milwaukee area, but that was neither desirable to drive to and not close enough to Madison to make a difference here.

Speaker [00:25:54]:
Fair.

Speaker [00:25:55]:
Fair.

Speaker [00:25:55]:
No, it’s a huge market. Just about everyone I know has pets. So it’s one of those things like, I didn’t grow up with a dog, but I have a dog now, and she’s incredible. And it’s interesting, I suppose, you just see what you know. So you’re walking along and I remember running through my neighborhood and I’m like, they have a pet. They have a pet. And just running through the numbers of the percentage of people that have pets, I’m like, okay, that percentage of people, that’s your. That’s your market.

Speaker [00:26:26]:
And then how many veterinary clinics can. Are needed to sustain that? Yeah, so it’s crazy number.

Speaker [00:26:34]:
Yeah. So part of our business planning and the company that we worked with, of we do demographic surveys, and so we did both demographics for what other competitor market is in there, and like the 5 mile and the 10 mile radius. And then also what is the client base of there? What are the age populations, how many of them generally have pets and things like that. And I don’t remember the specific numbers of anything off the top of my head anymore. And we did do that for a couple of different locations, but it was just fascinating to see. Like, okay, this is, you know, Sun Prairie is a great example because it is very much an up and coming, you know, kind of growing fast. Growing fast community of. And so there’s a lot of that, you know, untapped potential in the markets.

Speaker [00:27:21]:
And our closest sick care facility is gonna be 20 minutes away on a good day. So it’s. There’s.

Speaker [00:27:31]:
And sometimes not counting the weight, that’s just to get there.

Speaker [00:27:34]:
Yes. Physically, that’s just drive time. That’s just drive time, which 20 minutes sometimes can be a lot, you know, for some of these six things. So, yeah, expanding that access to care, finding the right areas and things like that is definitely a part of. Part of our decision making.

Speaker [00:27:52]:
Fair.

Speaker [00:27:52]:
Yep.

Speaker [00:27:53]:
You guys also do oncology?

Speaker [00:27:55]:
We do.

Speaker [00:27:55]:
We don’t, but we have an oncologist with us.

Speaker [00:27:58]:
The business itself offers it.

Speaker [00:27:59]:
Yes.

Speaker [00:28:00]:
Tell me how you decided to offer that.

Speaker [00:28:02]:
Yeah, well, so that was.

Speaker [00:28:05]:
A little bit serendipitous.

Speaker [00:28:07]:
Yeah.

Speaker [00:28:07]:
Dr. Brand Sommer is her name. And we had known. We used to work with her a few years ago, and she left to go practice in the Milwaukee area, but we had found that she was still commuting like an hour to get there every single day. And so we reached out and asked if she wanted to return to the Madison area. And so that. Yeah, it was just kind of a. Oh, remember, this person exists.

Speaker [00:28:36]:
And see. Yeah, so it was kind of cool that she. Of course she wanted to practice Madison still. She was commuting that far.

Speaker [00:28:46]:
All right.

Speaker [00:28:47]:
Yeah.

Speaker [00:28:47]:
And is there competition in that realm?

Speaker [00:28:51]:
Yes.

Speaker [00:28:53]:
Competition in that realm?

Speaker [00:28:56]:
Yes and no.

Speaker [00:28:57]:
So I think all the other big emergency practices in the area have an oncologist or an oncology service, but right now, I think they’re booking out like one to two weeks even for really sick cases. Whereas we, of course, it’s because we’re new at the moment, but we can get those cases in within a day or two. So, yes, there is competition, but there’s so many cases right now that need help.

Speaker [00:29:26]:
And the fascinating thing, too, is, and we saw this really well during the pandemic is for emergency medicine and specialty care medicine, and the veterinary field is. It’s not generally a competitive market. So we. During the pandemic in south central Milwaukee area, even the Chicago area, for the ers, we had a shared spreadsheet between all of the clinics from Chicago to Madison that we kept updated of. This is what our wait time is. Do we have the availability for surgeries? Can we accommodate this? So we would constantly shunt cases back and forth of like, hey, we can’t handle this. Right. We can’t handle this right now, but this clinic can.

Speaker [00:30:13]:
Yeah, they’re going to be a little bit farther away, but they can take you for them. And so. And there was a lot of that. So there’s a lot of case sharing and figuring out where these patients needed to go to get care.

Speaker [00:30:24]:
And even now we’re seeing other clinics like other ERs call us saying, hey, can you take this patient? Because we’re, we’re overworked at the moment. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker [00:30:34]:
Interesting.

Speaker [00:30:35]:
And so we’ve had a couple that are like, hey, we’ve done our exam, things like that. They need X procedure, X surgery. We just don’t have the ability to take the time to go into a two hour procedure right now. Can you accommodate that tonight or cost wise of ERs are going to be more expensive. Part of our goal too is being that middle of care is being a little bit less expensive than an ER as urgent care. It’s going to cost a little bit more than your gp. But also improving financial access to care too. And so that’s been part of that as well.

Speaker [00:31:02]:
All right, interesting. Tell me, I’m curious about the oncology thing and the urgent care stuff.

Speaker [00:31:09]:
Yeah, it’s kind of a mixed bag, isn’t it?

Speaker [00:31:10]:
Yeah, well, that and the equipment that you need for oncology I imagine is different or in addition to it is.

Speaker [00:31:18]:
A little bit too.

Speaker [00:31:18]:
Yeah.

Speaker [00:31:19]:
We did have to design. So when we did our building and our build out, we did have to create a section specifically for oncology, particularly in terms of the chemotherapy medications because cause those are excessively hazardous drugs. And so we did have to design into there the. It’s called a prep and administration area. So these are two separate rooms. There’s a lot of H VAC physics that goes into them. Basically there’s a positive pressure and a negative pressure room. So what it is.

Speaker [00:31:50]:
So their main treatment area is positive pressure. So it has increased airflow. So that when they open the door into the prep area, which is negative pressure, it pushes the air into it, which is where the chemotherapy hood. So you see in science and chemistry classes and things like that in there for them, which is what has the fans that vents everything out of the building. And so by having that pressure difference, it keeps the fumes from any of those medications being drawn up in their open vials from going out to anywhere else into the clinic.

Speaker [00:32:20]:
Oh my gosh, I have no idea. Okay.

Speaker [00:32:22]:
Yeah, it’s a pretty complex system and I don’t pretend to understand it any more than that. But so that was one of the things that we had to focus on and figure out. Okay, this is what they need specifically to do this in the safest manner for pets, patients and staff.

Speaker [00:32:37]:
So you’re talking independent H VAC system, filtration pressure differential for that section of the building.

Speaker [00:32:43]:
Yeah. It’s all isolated lines, so it doesn’t connect to any of the rest of the hospital.

Speaker [00:32:48]:
Yeah.

Speaker [00:32:49]:
Wow.

Speaker [00:32:49]:
And the hard thing is there’s no, like, set standard. There’s guidelines, but there’s no, like, set standard for how you set up a veterinary oncology area.

Speaker [00:32:59]:
So how many kilopascals in this room or anything?

Speaker [00:33:02]:
Yeah, I think there’s a. It’s the guideline called the USP 800 or something like that. And I think someday it may become like, true standard, but for now it’s just technically a guideline.

Speaker [00:33:13]:
These are what recommendations are, but we don’t have any way to enforce them, basically.

Speaker [00:33:17]:
Right. It’s really weird when that comes to, like, your staff, safety people. Like, these drugs could cause serious harm if you do it the wrong way. And so we wanted to make sure from the get go that we were doing it as up to standard as possible.

Speaker [00:33:33]:
So I have to apologize because I’m ignorant when it comes to chemotherapy and stuff like that. In my head, there was some fancy ray gun that was like chemotherapy or something like that, like an X ray machine. And then I learned through a little bit of studying and my dog being diagnosed or having a tumor, I should say that it’s drugs, essentially. Injections and stuff like this.

Speaker [00:33:54]:
There’s a lot of different forms.

Speaker [00:33:56]:
So they’re thinking of radiation therapy.

Speaker [00:33:58]:
Can you elaborate on all that?

Speaker [00:34:00]:
Well, what you’re thinking of. Radiation therapy does exist. So you have dogs. Not at our facility, but UW has radiation therapy. You image the pet, you find out where. Exactly where is the issue. And then they do like, focused radiation and target a specific area. What we provide is chemical chemotherapy.

Speaker [00:34:24]:
So we’re giving injectables, oral medications that are meant to systemically target a cancer. So. Yeah.

Speaker [00:34:33]:
And the easiest way that is probably not as accurate as some physicists would like me to be is that radiation therapy is best compared to a laser, like using a laser pointer.

Speaker [00:34:44]:
Very focused.

Speaker [00:34:44]:
Yeah, it’s very focused. And it is a directed beam of energy. Whereas the chemotherapy medications is. They said it’s a liquid or a pill that we’re physically giving to them, then affects the whole body and not just the area.

Speaker [00:34:59]:
And these are giving off enough fumes that. In that area. Or they can give off enough fumes that. Wow.

Speaker [00:35:04]:
Yeah. And they still need to. Even if they’re chemotherapy, if it’s in their internal system, they still need to be treated as if they are contaminated for that. So making sure that we’re wearing gloves with them picking up their waist and things like that. Because the medication is excreted in the.

Speaker [00:35:20]:
Waste, what goes in goes out.

Speaker [00:35:22]:
Exactly. And so that all then becomes hazardous waste as well.

Speaker [00:35:26]:
Interesting.

Speaker [00:35:26]:
There’s so much that goes into oncology. Yeah.

Speaker [00:35:29]:
It’s a lot of chemistry and physics that my brain cannot process.

Speaker [00:35:33]:
Years of school, and we’re trying to wrap up in 30 seconds here, so.

Speaker [00:35:36]:
I get it. Yeah. It’s an additional four years on top of what we already do.

Speaker [00:35:39]:
Oh, interesting. Wow.

Speaker [00:35:40]:
Yeah. So when you become a veterinary specialist, you have to go through at least three, sometimes four years of internship. Internship and residency. So you’re specifically practicing in that area for several other years.

Speaker [00:35:53]:
So you’re talking a decade plus of college.

Speaker [00:35:56]:
Yeah.

Speaker [00:35:56]:
Yeah.

Speaker [00:35:57]:
Wow.

Speaker [00:35:57]:
Yep. Which is technically still less than a human doctor, but.

Speaker [00:36:00]:
All right.

Speaker [00:36:01]:
Yeah.

Speaker [00:36:01]:
I’m just thinking that sounds expensive, but yes.

Speaker [00:36:04]:
Yes.

Speaker [00:36:06]:
I think on. I don’t know if this is accurate because I haven’t seen the last couple of years come out, but I think on average a couple years ago, most veterinarians graduate with an average about 200,000 in debt.

Speaker [00:36:18]:
That’s. I’ve seen that statistic. Yeah. It’s a healthy nut.

Speaker [00:36:21]:
Yeah.

Speaker [00:36:22]:
So I get it.

Speaker [00:36:23]:
Yep.

Speaker [00:36:24]:
Tell me a story about the equipment. Well, let me back up a step. You built your building. Let’s talk about the design of the building.

Speaker [00:36:31]:
Sure.

Speaker [00:36:31]:
Yeah.

Speaker [00:36:31]:
It’s not just a big empty box.

Speaker [00:36:33]:
Yep.

Speaker [00:36:33]:
How did you figure out where you’re gonna put stuff, how big it’s gonna be, location, all that jazz?

Speaker [00:36:38]:
A combination of different things. The biggest probably being of experience from all the other clinics that we’ve worked in. And so we’ve both worked in a background of other clinics, and we’ve seen their flow and where the sticking points are and things like that. Forum. Also, medicine is evolving over time. And so a lot of day practices are. The office and treatment area in the back are maybe this size or half the size of the space in terms of what they have in the back room. And most of their building space is dedicated to exam rooms for that.

Speaker [00:37:14]:
For specialty care, emergency type medicine, the inverse is true. And so we dedicate a lot less space to exam rooms because a lot of our stuff that we’re doing is we’re doing procedures and imaging and treatment and using all of that equipment in the back for the care of the pet. And so it was figuring out that. And then there was a lot of figuring out, okay, what equipment do we need? Does this equipment need its own space? Can it share space? How much space do we need to house pets while they’re here for them? What does our flow look like? So do we have, you know, exam rooms with just one door? And we both, you know, doctors and clients have to come in out of the same door and share the same space? We have two doors. Do we have the. If we have two doors, do we have the back door going straight into the treatment area? Do we have a hallway or a wall in between that? What does that flow move in look like?

Speaker [00:38:03]:
And so much has, like Cat said, so much has been influenced by working in a clinic and realizing, oh, I want this a different way than what I see it currently, or, hey, I.

Speaker [00:38:13]:
Really liked that flow. That worked really well. And then in terms of square foot, imprint space.

Speaker [00:38:23]:
That was a little bit of a.

Speaker [00:38:25]:
So we didn’t quite know how it was because it’s visualizing what, you know, 3 square feet is versus 4,000 square feet is. You don’t have a mental map of what that is. No.

Speaker [00:38:36]:
It’s so funny you say that. I’ll just tangent this real quick. So I have this office for rent. It’s 121 square feet. Yeah, 121. So basically 12 by 10. And I had someone reach out to me and ask if they could run a doggy daycare there. And I’m like, one.

Speaker [00:38:55]:
It’s indoors. Two. 121 square feet.

Speaker [00:38:58]:
Yeah.

Speaker [00:38:59]:
Are you taking care of a sick pet? Any dog that wants to run around is going to need way more space than that. But it just helped me understand, like, oh, you have no idea what that number means, Josiah. It’s cheap.

Speaker [00:39:13]:
Yeah. And when you’re looking at plans on paper, it’s way different in person.

Speaker [00:39:17]:
All right.

Speaker [00:39:17]:
Yeah, fair.

Speaker [00:39:18]:
It was two dimensional, I imagine.

Speaker [00:39:20]:
Yes.

Speaker [00:39:20]:
Your overhead.

Speaker [00:39:21]:
Yep.

Speaker [00:39:21]:
Okay.

Speaker [00:39:22]:
Yeah. And it also looked way different. Like when we walked in our building and it was just metal studs, but you could see, like the floor started to get mapped out, but you could see all the way through the clinic. We were like, oh, gosh, this is really small. And then when they actually put the walls in and you couldn’t see all the way through the clinic anymore, then it started to feel like, oh, yeah, we can.

Speaker [00:39:42]:
Yeah, it’s an interesting perception bias of you have an empty box or, you know, an empty box with walls that you can see through and that you’re like, oh, this looks really small. And then putting physical drywall where you can’t see anything. You putting more Stuff in the space makes it bigger.

Speaker [00:39:57]:
Fair.

Speaker [00:39:57]:
And my brain doesn’t know how to comprehend that. Yeah. But yeah, so figuring out the space there was good. And you know, I think for what we want to do, ideally we’re probably still on the smaller side because especially with oncology. Would have liked to have CT on site and things like that, but we just didn’t have that space. But it is bigger than what we were initially getting. So.

Speaker [00:40:20]:
Yeah.

Speaker [00:40:21]:
Tell me, if you don’t mind, why did you choose to build new versus just finding some building?

Speaker [00:40:26]:
Yeah.

Speaker [00:40:27]:
Did you want to build out?

Speaker [00:40:28]:
Yeah, I tried to find a building.

Speaker [00:40:29]:
Oh, you did? Okay.

Speaker [00:40:30]:
Yeah, it was incredibly difficult. Most of the places that we were getting were around 3 to 3,500 square feet.

Speaker [00:40:40]:
They were old restaurants that would need to be converted, which is fine. But shockingly, a large number of vet clinics are that way. But it also would have been one of. They would have had been full ghets. And so the renovation and demolition costs increased the cost of the construction. And we actually ended up getting really lucky because it was like a year, year and a half process of finding a location, which is.

Speaker [00:41:10]:
We were actually gonna. We were actually going to get the McDonald’s on semprey or Main Street.

Speaker [00:41:18]:
Yeah, oh, sure.

Speaker [00:41:19]:
By the grocery store.

Speaker [00:41:20]:
And that was actually a rather large building. There was just some corporate stuff that ultimately kind of stymied that.

Speaker [00:41:27]:
Corporate.

Speaker [00:41:27]:
McDonald’s corporate and Kroger corporate. Like just some weird stuff. Cause they’re right next to each other. They wouldn’t allow a vet clinic in. In that area for some reason. But. Yeah.

Speaker [00:41:37]:
Which is, you know, and it’s. We could have made it work if we, you know, really needed to, but we ended up finding where we were.

Speaker [00:41:45]:
Yeah. So things worked for the better. Like, we’re in a fantastic.

Speaker [00:41:49]:
Yeah, exactly. It is a brand new construction building. And so we got in contact with the developer, Kramer Development, and they’ve worked with veterinary projects before. So they were really excited to have another veterinary clinic come in. We’ve been excited to work with them. And like I said, they actually increased the square footage footprint of the original design specifically to help accommodate us.

Speaker [00:42:15]:
Yeah.

Speaker [00:42:15]:
And they’re amazing.

Speaker [00:42:16]:
Extended the project by a few months just to help us get a little more square footage.

Speaker [00:42:20]:
Oh, very cool.

Speaker [00:42:21]:
Yeah, so it’s been great. So we were able to start from ground up, which is awesome.

Speaker [00:42:26]:
Yeah, Nice. Just to be able to have everything exactly how you want it and not have to necessarily go off of a previous floor plan.

Speaker [00:42:33]:
All right.

Speaker [00:42:33]:
Yeah.

Speaker [00:42:34]:
Was it Difficult to work with the city to get approval and stuff like that?

Speaker [00:42:38]:
Not from our perspective, no.

Speaker [00:42:39]:
Okay.

Speaker [00:42:40]:
Or maybe we chose the right people to do that for.

Speaker [00:42:42]:
You know, it’s Kramer’s problem. The building’s up.

Speaker [00:42:47]:
Yeah.

Speaker [00:42:47]:
And our builder. Design builder, Keller. Fantastic. I mean, they’re so good at taking the ideas that you have and putting it on paper. I mean, they’re the real reason, like, we have everything the way we have it in our building. So they were able to take our. Like, what’s the workflow that we wanted? How do we want people to move through this building? And they put it on paper, and it was a great plan.

Speaker [00:43:14]:
Yeah. Do we have specific areas that need to be in specific locations on the building, or do we have space, specific rooms that need to be next to each other? That sort of thing. And then they played a puzzle with it and made it work even so.

Speaker [00:43:26]:
Far as 7, 10, 15 years down the line. If you’re gonna expand, where do we want these rooms to easily expand out?

Speaker [00:43:34]:
Very cool. So looking towards the future there.

Speaker [00:43:36]:
Yeah.

Speaker [00:43:37]:
Tell me a story. Cause we got to. New building equipment, all that. Blah, blah, blah, blah, Costs money. It’s tough to get financing.

Speaker [00:43:46]:
It wasn’t necessarily tough to get approved.

Speaker [00:43:48]:
Not as tough as your own question, really.

Speaker [00:43:49]:
It was interesting to try and figure out a. What our budget needed to be, and then also to figure out, did we need one bank or two, and then which bank to choose. So we ended up working with a group called Live Oak Bank. And they do. I don’t think they’re exclusively veterinary. No. For their.

Speaker [00:44:10]:
Veterinary is their second top lending group that they.

Speaker [00:44:14]:
This is a national bank.

Speaker [00:44:15]:
Yep, It’s a national bank. And they’re. They have a specific small business or SBA loan program that they do. And so working with them, we were able to finance the entire project where if we had gone with other banks, we would have had to do two separate loans or finance a good portion of it ourselves just because of the margins that the other banks were offering was about half of the. Their. Their cap was about half of what we actually needed.

Speaker [00:44:42]:
Oh, wow. Okay. How did you find Live Oak Bank?

Speaker [00:44:46]:
Through a consultant group.

Speaker [00:44:47]:
What we’ve been working with, Blue Heron, is the consulting group, and they’re veterinary specific. Safe to say this project would not.

Speaker [00:44:54]:
Exist without them very much. Yeah. So Blue Heron Consulting is. They’re a group specifically helping veterinarians open their own practices. So it’s A lot of the consultants are veterinarians or veterinary practice managers. Adjacent forum. And their whole goal is to say, okay, these are the steps that you guys need to. This is how we do our business proposal.

Speaker [00:45:17]:
This is how we do our projections. Here’s a bunch of contacts that we have.

Speaker [00:45:21]:
Go for you. How did you find Blue Heron?

Speaker [00:45:24]:
I actually found him through school. So in my school at Washington State University, we have a program called the Diagnostic Challenge, which is basically, there’s a week where you and a group, a team, as you work through a case, you know, in a group setting, and kind of learn and figure out how it goes and make mistakes. And so we have client actors for them. One of our client. One of my client actors was the founder of Flu Heron Consulting. And so, yeah, small world. And so, you know, reached out to him, started talking that way and got in contact that way.

Speaker [00:45:58]:
Nice.

Speaker [00:45:59]:
Yeah.

Speaker [00:45:59]:
But, yeah, they’ve been integral. They introduced us to so many contacts. It’s definitely the reason that we got through this.

Speaker [00:46:07]:
So this is interesting because a lot of small business owners that I meet have this. I’m going to call it, not necessarily the right mentality, but it’s mentality that they know how to do it all. They’re good at whatever it is that they do, and they’re just like, I do this thing. I’m a painter, right? A paint. I got my truck, my brush, my bucket, and I’m gonna be a painter. I charge people, they pay me. Rinse, repeat, right? I got this business thing figured out, and they don’t want to reach out to a consultant or even another painter that’s been through the wringer and knows the mistakes that they’re gonna make or things like that. You guys had the foresight to actually reach out to a consultant.

Speaker [00:46:47]:
I knew nothing about business, and I. Yeah, all I knew is that we wanted a business, and I had no idea how to get there.

Speaker [00:46:54]:
Yeah.

Speaker [00:46:54]:
All right.

Speaker [00:46:55]:
And it’s. I think we could have ended up figuring it out on our own.

Speaker [00:46:59]:
Add a few years onto it, though.

Speaker [00:47:01]:
But if you had a thousand dollars.

Speaker [00:47:03]:
We’D probably only be about halfway to where we are right now. So, yeah, it’s been awesome. And not, you know, I’m sure other small business owners that can do it on their own can do well with that. I don’t necessarily think that’s the right choice, especially for something as involved as a vet clinic, because there are so many parts and pieces to it, and not just, okay, yeah, we’re doing this in here, too, but liability and all of that, workplace safety, things like that. There, too, is. There’s just so much to think About.

Speaker [00:47:37]:
I mean, our equipment budget alone was 500,000, and we’re buying things like ultrasounds and.

Speaker [00:47:46]:
Endoscopes.

Speaker [00:47:47]:
Endoscopes. And even the little intraocular pressure, the tone of E.T. the thing that you measure pressures with the eye. $3,500. Those little things all add up.

Speaker [00:48:00]:
Yeah. Sounds like big things.

Speaker [00:48:02]:
Yeah.

Speaker [00:48:03]:
Well, the eye pressure is probably a thing only about this big, but I.

Speaker [00:48:07]:
Don’T even know what that does.

Speaker [00:48:08]:
But it’s a little like. Actually, it’s probably the same one that you use if you go to the eye doctor. If they come up there, it’s a little like F shaped gut, like trigger, for the want of a better word. They put it here in front of you and it has this little, like, pinpoint of like, it looks like a sewing pin that just comes out and taps the surface of your eye.

Speaker [00:48:28]:
Huh?

Speaker [00:48:28]:
Yeah. Detects like glaucoma, for example.

Speaker [00:48:31]:
All right, so I teach business planning class, and this woman was starting a coffee shop and she told me the price of her Italian coffee making thing. And it was just one of those things where you’re like, what? Yeah, but in that, like, this is the profession. This is the top of the line. This is what it costs.

Speaker [00:48:51]:
Yeah.

Speaker [00:48:51]:
And I’m just like, you know, compared to a Mr. Coffee, that’s. That’s a couple bucks more.

Speaker [00:48:55]:
Yeah.

Speaker [00:48:55]:
Just like. This isn’t a Mr. Coffee.

Speaker [00:48:57]:
Yeah.

Speaker [00:48:57]:
This is professional line.

Speaker [00:48:59]:
Yeah, whatever.

Speaker [00:49:00]:
I don’t know if they have an amateur version of that.

Speaker [00:49:03]:
They do, they do. There’s a.

Speaker [00:49:04]:
It’s closer to like 1500, I think.

Speaker [00:49:05]:
Yeah.

Speaker [00:49:06]:
It’s still a lot of money.

Speaker [00:49:07]:
It’s still a lot. But there’s. When you’re starting a new business, you kind of know, you have your list of equipment that you need to operate, and you have your list of things that, you know, need to be a specific brand or a specific quality. And then you have things that you can compromise on same. Yeah. And that’s just how you have to be. And there’s also some things you put on a wish list that you don’t need right at the start, but would love to get a year or two out.

Speaker [00:49:31]:
Sure. Down the line.

Speaker [00:49:32]:
Exactly.

Speaker [00:49:33]:
Like, for example, we knew we weren’t going to have ct, so we got a top of the line ultrasound.

Speaker [00:49:38]:
All right.

Speaker [00:49:38]:
It’s 105,000, though, which doesn’t actually. It’s healthy, but that’s gonna be one of our highest imaging modalities. And it had to be good because we knew we weren’t gonna have that next step up with the ct, it’s.

Speaker [00:49:53]:
One of those things, I suppose if you cheap out on it, it’s actually gonna cost you more money in the end.

Speaker [00:49:57]:
Yes.

Speaker [00:49:57]:
So you got a $500 car, but it broke down on the way to work, so now you’re out of a job.

Speaker [00:50:03]:
Another interesting one to think about that probably most places don’t think about is laundry. Laundry units. So we ended up, we ended up looking into getting the more expensive industrial. These go in a laundromat style washer and dryer. Instead of many other clinics, we’ll use home commercial ones.

Speaker [00:50:25]:
But then they’re also trying to do three to five loads in a three hour period. And those aren’t designed for that.

Speaker [00:50:31]:
No.

Speaker [00:50:32]:
And so, you know, sometimes they find out those ones of like, oh, they break down or have to be replaced. So often we’re like, it’s a lot, it kind of hurts. But we’re gonna do this now because we know we’re gonna be doing high soil to high volume.

Speaker [00:50:46]:
This reminds me of way back when I fixed printers and I was fixing this fax machine for a local news station and they had this $50 brother fax machine that. This is a long time ago. Fax machines were a thing back then that, that brought in their AP news stories. So they called us in this crisis. It was five o’ clock on a Friday and they needed that machine working for the news at 6. And I’m like, this is that big of a deal and you’re relying on the $60 office equal special. Yeah. Why didn’t you buy two? Yeah, it was just one of those bizarre thing like you’re relying all on this little tiny kind of piece of junk supposed to be made for the home that you use once a year thing.

Speaker [00:51:30]:
It’s bizarre.

Speaker [00:51:31]:
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker [00:51:31]:
So like that’s where you save money after all this crazy. I know we don’t have a whole lot of time left so I want to ask you really quick about the partnership. You guys been together. You went through putting together a building.

Speaker [00:51:44]:
Yep.

Speaker [00:51:45]:
I mean people have remodeled houses and got divorces, so there’s that. You started a business, figured out how you’re going to spend many dollars. You got essentially pretty deep in debt I imagine, together. So that’s a challenge. Now you’re talking about hiring employees.

Speaker [00:52:00]:
Yeah.

Speaker [00:52:00]:
That you have to agree on the people there.

Speaker [00:52:01]:
Yep.

Speaker [00:52:02]:
How do you guys do it?

Speaker [00:52:04]:
Well, I will say I know we worked together previously at the same job. We were also co er directors at that job as well. For like for like a year, year and a half or so. But we kind of learned each other’s, like, style for how they manage a group of people. And we also realize we do it very differently in very complimentary ways.

Speaker [00:52:28]:
Yeah. And so one of the big ones there is. I tend to be very people focused and driven. So, like, okay, we need to make sure that we have. We’re respecting boundaries and getting people out of here, following their time, listening to them. And she’s very process oriented. And so it’s like, okay, well, yeah, we can do that, but what about this? So, like, what about our production numbers or this side of things here? And so that perspective of just type. Okay, this is how we talk about it.

Speaker [00:52:55]:
Or when we talk about hiring people, we’re looking at different qualities for their. And it’s not something we have to tell ourselves to do. It’s almost innate of what we pick up on is different than some people. And so, you know, I pick up on the needs of, you know, talking to people. I was like, oh, yeah, they’re going to talk about, you know, this. They’re really motivated about teaching and things like that. And she’s like, they’re going to focus on, you know, if they’re going to be that detail oriented, they’re going to do you focus here on this and things like that. And so it’s.

Speaker [00:53:25]:
We pick up on the qualities or lack thereof of just in different perspectives. And it has ended up working for many years now. So.

Speaker [00:53:34]:
Yeah. So while we’re very different people in that sense, I. It’s a great business. Yeah, it makes a great business.

Speaker [00:53:41]:
Yeah.

Speaker [00:53:41]:
Very cool. Tell me, what have been some of the challenges that you didn’t necessarily know were gonna happen? I mean, you guys been open just over a month.

Speaker [00:53:49]:
Yeah.

Speaker [00:53:49]:
So you probably found some things where you’re like, ooh, didn’t see that one coming.

Speaker [00:53:54]:
Printer ink.

Speaker [00:53:55]:
Yeah.

Speaker [00:53:56]:
Oh, that’s funny.

Speaker [00:54:00]:
We haven’t figured out our order, like, how quickly we go through printer ink. So I think we’ve been out of color toner for a week now. All right, so we’re just.

Speaker [00:54:11]:
We can talk about that after the show. I’ll help you with that.

Speaker [00:54:14]:
But yeah, yeah, that’s.

Speaker [00:54:15]:
Give you some guidance.

Speaker [00:54:16]:
Yeah. So that’s. That’s been the one on my brain.

Speaker [00:54:20]:
That’s so funny. You did all this. Printer ink is the big thing. That’s small potato.

Speaker [00:54:26]:
Yeah.

Speaker [00:54:27]:
Not holding us up at least, but like, just, you know, the weird things that you. The small, weird things that you encounter.

Speaker [00:54:33]:
All right.

Speaker [00:54:34]:
A Bigger thing has probably been learning to relax.

Speaker [00:54:37]:
Yeah.

Speaker [00:54:38]:
I mean, like we spent the whole last. How long has it been?

Speaker [00:54:42]:
At least two and a half years.

Speaker [00:54:43]:
Two and a half years since we started this issue or started this project. And I just now can finally feel like I can go home and just be at home. Like, I know I have things to do, but I can just put it behind me for a night. And I haven’t felt that in two and a half years. There’s always something like, I got this thing to do. I can just go to my computer and just work on it. I’m home, I can do it. But now I can actually be at home.

Speaker [00:55:10]:
Or the juggling of like, I’m at home. But am I on call for something? So because you know, as a business owner for that you are always on call. Basically punch in once and you don’t.

Speaker [00:55:22]:
Get to punch out for a very long time.

Speaker [00:55:24]:
Yeah.

Speaker [00:55:25]:
So it’s, you know, there’s things that are always coming up and you know, it’s much less of on call of like, oh, do we need to come in for surgery? Or things like that cases. It’s the things like the printer ink or I can’t find this in the computer, but I know it exists, those sorts of things. Or hey, I don’t think I have permission for this, but I think I should, those sorts of things. Which is nice because we use cloud based software programs so we can access that and update those anywhere that we need to. But yeah, it’s just those ones of like, okay, how do we get there? And our staff has been really good about. They’re like, I’m sorry to keep bugging you, but we’re trying to be self sufficient. And I was like, it’s been a month. You don’t have to be self sufficient yet.

Speaker [00:56:05]:
It’s okay, you can endorse it. It’s all good. Be self sufficient.

Speaker [00:56:09]:
Yeah.

Speaker [00:56:11]:
What have been some of the things that went better than you expected?

Speaker [00:56:15]:
Better than expected. I think getting cases in the door has ramped up quicker than expected. Well, I shouldn’t say that. It’s just been a really cool thing to see the community send cases our way already.

Speaker [00:56:34]:
By community, do you mean other clinics?

Speaker [00:56:36]:
Other clinics, yes.

Speaker [00:56:37]:
And that’s where majority of our cases are coming from.

Speaker [00:56:40]:
Yeah. At least like 60 or 70% of cases, I think are getting referred from primary vets and even to the point where like on a slower oncology day, for example, we’ve sent our Dr. Sommer out to do some clinic visits and even that day, they’ll send cases like, they’ll just like, oh, they’re fresh in our mind. We let’s send you a case, even to the point where I offer full abdominal ultrasounds and diagnostic echocardiograms, which I think is a huge asset to this community.

Speaker [00:57:10]:
It’s an ultrasound of the heart, by the way. Yes.

Speaker [00:57:13]:
And a clinic thought to send me to refer me an echocardiogram case. And that’s a really cool thing to have happen so soon after opening.

Speaker [00:57:23]:
That’s cool.

Speaker [00:57:23]:
Yeah, that’s cool.

Speaker [00:57:25]:
We gotta wrap up here, but really quick, where are you located?

Speaker [00:57:29]:
We’re just not quite Sun Prairie, but we are on American Parkway in the American Center. So Our address is 5458 Buttonwood Drive. We’re just across from the collection up next to Caribou.

Speaker [00:57:40]:
So that is Madison.

Speaker [00:57:41]:
It is technically Madison. It doesn’t feel like it. It feels like Sun Prairie, but it is technically Madison.

Speaker [00:57:46]:
I think we’re only one field apart from Sunbury. All right.

Speaker [00:57:49]:
I would have guessed on Prairie, but I guess that makes sense. That makes sense. So essentially very close to the intersection of Interstate and Highway150.

Speaker [00:57:57]:
Yep. Yep.

Speaker [00:57:57]:
Very cool. How about a website?

Speaker [00:58:00]:
Acesvetmed.com all right.

Speaker [00:58:02]:
https://Acesvetmed.com Easy enough. This has been Authentic Business Adventures. The business program that brings you the struggles, stories and triumphant successes of business owners across the land. We are locally underwritten by the bank of Sun Prairie. If you’re watching or listening this on the web, which you probably are, you can do us a huge favor. Give it the big old thumbs up. Subscribe and of course, share it with your entrepreneurial friends, especially those friends that probably have some pets because Lisa and Cat are the ones. They’re gonna help them.

Speaker [00:58:31]:
Well, hopefully, yeah. I don’t know what you want them to help, but on the flip side, it’s urgent care. So maybe you don’t want that. I don’t know.

Speaker [00:58:36]:
My usual ending is, it was great to meet you, but I don’t want to see you again.

Speaker [00:58:41]:
That’s better. We’d like to thank your wonderful listeners as well as our guest, Cat And Lisa of ACEs Veterinary. Can you remind us one, what does ACEs stand for again?

Speaker [00:58:51]:
Animal Center for Emergency and Specialty.

Speaker [00:58:53]:
Awesome.

Speaker [00:58:53]:
And then the website again, acesvetmed.com awesome.

Speaker [00:58:57]:
Past episodes can be found morning, noon and night at the podcast link found https://drawincustomers.com. Thank you for joining us. We will see you next week. I want you to stay awesome. And if you do nothing else, enjoy your business.