#113 - how being innovative and courageous will teach you to be a better entrepreneur

THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW

Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show of 13




Episode 113: Jennifer Shine Dyer MD, MPH

In this episode, Travis interviews popular physician and successful entrepreneur Dr. Jennifer

Shine Dyer. Early in her career, Dr. Dyer sought out to improve the lives of her young patients

through proper management and monitoring of their diabetes. Her revolutionary idea of utilizing

social media and the Endogoddess app as a tool to reach out to her patients is something that

entrepreneurs can definitely learn from and apply in their business.

Dr. Dyer’s creative and resourceful methods are what stand out as she and Travis discuss how

her practice effectively captured her patients. Her method of using reminders coupled with

education and motivation can be applied in every entrepreneur’s business. She also effectively

uses technology in her practice and points out that persistence and focus are vital in achieving

success. She also tries to understand her patients and uses gamification to pique their interest.

Entrepreneurs can definitely learn from Dr. Dyer’s methods and the topics they discussed in this

episode of the Entrepreneur’s Radio Show.

How Being Innovative And Courageous Will Teach You To Be

A Better Entrepreneur

TRAVIS: Hey, it's Travis Lane Jenkins, welcome to episode 113 of the Entrepreneur's Radio

Show, a production of rockstarentrepreneurnetwork.com, where each and every week I connect

you with self-made millionaires and high-level entrepreneurs that explain their journey to

success.

Now today I'm going to introduce you to Dr. Jennifer Shine Dyer MD and we're going to talk

about some things that she's done that's really innovative and will apply to all different types of

businesses. As you know if you've been listening very long I love to bring people from a wide

variety of industries to you so that you can see one of the common denominators for success,

which is innovation. Now, Jennifer has definitely done some very interesting and innovative

things that I believe will help spark ideas for you and your business. Before we get started, I

want to say thank you DocWalker78 for the 5-star review there in iTunes. DocWalter, Walker,

I'm sorry. I'm having a hard time talking today. DocWalker78 I really appreciate the time you

took to write the review and thanks for the great feedback.

On a separate note, before I segue into the interview today, I want to challenge you to send me

problems that you're dealing with in your business. And what I'll do is I'm going to create an

episode where I'll answer your questions. We're very close to starting this new segment for the

Entrepreneur's Radio Show where each and every week I'll answer 1 or 2 businessperson’s

problems and give you advice on what you should be doing. Just be sure that you give me the

full details of who you are, what you're doing, and what the problem is. All you've got to do is go

http://www.rockstarentrepreneurnetwork.com/




to rockstarentrepreneurnetwork.com, opt in right there on the right hand side. You'll get a

message from me and then you'll get my email address as well. And you can add all of those

details in there. Just tell me what's going on. And then of course I'll exclude your last name.

One last thing, before we get started I want to remind you, there's 3 ways to take the interviews

with you on the go rather than just sitting at your computer. You can go through iTunes,

Android, or Stitcher. Just go to rockstarentrepreneurnetwork.com, click on the iTunes, Android,

or Stitcher button there on the menu bar, right there in the middle, and it will take you directly to

the podcast, where you can subscribe to the show if that's something that you want to do as

well. So without further ado let's get down to business. Welcome to the show Jennifer.

DR. DYER: Thanks Travis.

TRAVIS: You bet. I'm excited to hang out with you. You're an interesting person from the

perspective that as I read it is you don't come from the normal angle that most doctors do. Do

you agree with that?

DR. DYER: Yes, I have an interesting background.

TRAVIS: Right. So give us that journey of what brought you here today, because I feel like

that's illustrative.

DR. DYER: Well, essentially, I'm a problem solver, which is really what all doctors are. And the

problem solving has led me into the business world because the business world has a lot of

room for creativity and for execution, getting things done. And my patients are savvy

consumers. And essentially that's kind of where I found myself because I needed to solve the

problem, I have consumer-savvy patients, teenagers, and I needed a creative way to help solve

the problem of them not taking their medicine. So essentially, I've always been relatively non-

traditional in the sense that I was journalism major, an undergrad, I went to medical school. And

when I was accepted to medical school there was a big push to have a lot of diversity, and I do

think my liberal arts background lends to the kind of career I have now.

TRAVIS: Interesting. And so, the things that you've described so far are mostly right brain

oriented type of things, yet being a physician traditionally is a left-brain skill.

DR. DYER: Yes. I'm very much both sides of the brain. And in my medical school training and

science background training there's very little room for the right brain. And that was really hard

for me. But as I finish my training, and as a researcher it really incorporates that creativity and

it's very fulfilling, I love it.






TRAVIS: Right. I don't want to get too far field here but I have a personal affinity for functional

medicine. Does that play any role in what you do?

DR. DYER: What do you mean by functional medicine?

TRAVIS: Getting more to the root cause of what's going on.

DR. DYER: Oh yes, absolutely. In pediatrics, as any pediatrician we'll say, "We do not use

medicine unless it's absolutely necessary." And we try to make natural solutions as much as

possible because a child is not meant to be on a lot of medicines. So we tend to be fairly holistic

as pediatricians, and I think that's what you're alluding to.

TRAVIS: Yes, right.

DR. DYER: By trying to find the actual cause instead of covering up the symptoms.

TRAVIS: I feel like most doctors have been trained to either prescribe a pill for it, or want to cut

the problem out. When a lot of times it's a series of things that the patient needs to take under

control that requires work, time, and effort. And most people don't want to put that time and

effort in. And also the doctors have not been trained to go down that path.

DR. DYER: That's absolutely true. And I find myself as a relatively young doctor I guess that I

find my role as a coach being something that's a new thing and coaching a patient through their

own problem solving and their own ability to make solutions. And that's where the business

background and my business ventures come in that technology and consumer-facing

technologies are really good ways to do that.

TRAVIS: So you're starting out in something completely different than being a physician. What

in your journey brought you down the path of becoming this physician, and then what led to you

building a successful business?

DR. DYER: Well, I first started out solving problems as a researcher. And the problem I try to

solve with my teenage patients was with type 1 diabetes, they were not pressing the button

whenever they would be eating. And that's called a bolus. And it wasn't because it was hard,

there are a lot of complex reasons but teenagers don't want to have diabetes, and I felt like they

just were too busy and they were forgetting about it. But in their appointments I saw that they

always have their phone. I've never seen a teenager without a phone. And so, I thought that

texting them would help get me as their doctor in their life more, and that might just kind of nag

them to push that button more. And so I started a study with just texting on a weekly basis. And

that study really had a profound impact on their improvement of pushing that button, and it

improved their health. And it actually got picked up by national media and it just kind of




snowballed into this viral story that doctor uses texting to improve outcomes. And I found myself

thrust into speaking engagements, and conferences, and I went even to the White House, I've

gone to Paris, Silicon Valley, all over the place. And here I was just trying to solve a problem as

a doctor. But actually, texting ended up not working. And I started working on a solution,

building an app with a medical student just in my free time because I like to tinker around with

technology, always have. And I really met a lot of inspiring people on this journey of going to

conferences, and meetings, and networking. And I found the courage to start my own business.

And I have a very supportive husband and I just went for it. And so in building a business I've

had to learn a lot that I didn't know before because I was in academics. And in academics I

never learned how to build a business. But now I'm in private practice and I have a technology

business. And there are similar skills that go with both. You have to be very adaptive and thirsty

for learning. So I actually got accepted into an accelerator here locally, and there were a lot of

competitive candidates and I felt very honored to be chosen. And I really kind of gotten MBA on

the fly by learning that summer in the business-related accelerator, it wasn't healthcare, how a

business, specifically a technology business works.

TRAVIS: So, is it a SaaS type business, software as a service?

DR. DYER: Yes.

TRAVIS: Okay. And so, those are actually an ideal business model for a lot of people because

they don't have a lot of the lower level bottleneck problems with service-based businesses,

right?

DR. DYER: Exactly.

TRAVIS: So, the learning curve for you is gigantic, because social media is one thing, business

is another, online apps, all of those things that are related to that, that's a whole different thing.

And then like you said there's some correlations of business between the two, but they're all

very steep learning curves. You must have an affinity for learning.

DR. DYER: I'm lucky, I'm highly curious and I am a quick learner. But as a doctor I'm always

learning. And that's what I like about being a doctor and that's what I like about the technology

field, it's very challenging. My patients though, the kids in our practice, they're really smart. They

are constantly hacking their meters, trying to switch up on me about their data. And I can always

tell by what their Hemoglobin A1c or biomarkers are. But these kids are hacking their meters,

they're building robots to solve the Rubik's Cube in 6 seconds. I have to keep up with them and I

love it. But it's a big learning curve. The kids, they really inspired me. I feel like I don't know

enough because of the kids.

TRAVIS: Right.




DR. DYER: We're in a really interesting era right now. Things are changing, and growing, and

evolving at such a breakneck speed that I feel like even the medical industry is on the verge of

some pretty incredible breakthroughs. One of the things that I wanted to go back, I was

interested in understanding the lesson that you learned. Whenever the texting didn't work, why

did it not work and what was the option?

TRAVIS: Well, my educational background is I have a master’s in public health and health

behavior change. And health behavior change, there are several different theories about what

motivates people to do a positive health behavior. And B.J. Fogg's health behavior model that

he developed at Stanford talks about how best to use a technology to motivate positive

behaviors. And the texting that I was doing was only doing one of the three principles. And the

three principles, one of them that the texting was doing was being a reminder, or an alert. But

technology needs to have also education about that particular behavior. But it also needs to

have a motivation for that behavior. About some kind of incentive or reward program. Something

that entices that user. Something beyond that behavior itself. So you cannot tell a teenager,

"Well, don't you just want to push that button because you'll be healthy?" No. That's basically

what they say. But if you say, "Well, would you like some money if you push that button?" Then

they're like, "Yeah." And essentially I learned at first that I needed a technology that provided

some kind of reward. So the first thing that I did was have an app, the EndoGoddess app that

essentially gave iTunes points whenever they would check their blood sugar 4 times a day. And

that also had the reminder component because there were alarms, and it had a lot of

informational component for checking blood sugars and having access to other people that have

diabetes in the social sphere. So the next stage of the business is called EndoGoal and that's

what I'm currently working on, which is a transaction platform where your friends and family can

sponsor you and you can get real money through checking your blood sugars.

TRAVIS: Well, you know what that's called, that's called gamification.

DR. DYER: Yes, absolutely. And so, in our office as a doctor that works with teenagers I have to

be creative, I have to motivate them because I don't want to see them on a dialysis machine

when they're 30. And I have to find things that work. In our office right now we're trying a black

belt ninja game of diabetes where we're going to have a masters of computer science student

working with us to create a mobile app game coinciding with our game here in the office. Being

in Columbus, Ohio we have the Ohio State University and many talents right here that I'm going

to be using. And find very helpful and inspiring as an entrepreneur.

TRAVIS: You know, I completely agree with you and understand where you're going with that. I

think about the three things that you mentioned. So the reminder needs education, needs

motivation. And so, with the texting it was just the reminder. I find when working with people-- so

you told them do this and you'll get healthier. Well, that's not enough. If you educate them and

say beyond just getting healthier, explain the ramifications of what could happen, that you could




side or you could use your feet. Or maybe not something that drastic. But if people understand

on a deeper level why. Why they need to do something. And then you tie some gamification and

it really becomes much more of a desirable action for that person.

DR. DYER: Yes. But I will tell you that fear typically allies with teenagers, it doesn't work. So you

say like you're going to lose your foot when you're 30. Well they say, "30 is old. I don't care. I'll

just be on a nursing home." Sometimes they say that, because they can't developmentally think.

They don't realize that 30 is really not old. To them they think it's old.

TRAVIS: Right.

DR. DYER: So that argument works for you and I but it doesn't work for teenagers. They

understand right now. So I do have to educate them, they know it's important but I need to

entice them. And that's where gaming comes in.

TRAVIS: Right. And so, when you did educate them what type of things if it wasn't fear-based

and I'm not for fear mongering anyways. I'm much more for fact-based education. What type of

education did you offer them beyond just this will make you healthier?

DR. DYER: Well, we have a protocol here in our office where we have teenagers and their

family members watch a video here in our office about the specifics of complications that can

happen with diabetes. But then we empower them, we're using a technique called motivational

interviewing where we create an action plan and we focus them on to how they're going to solve

their problems. So we tell them what can happen but then we empower them with the next steps

about so that that's not going to happen. Because in pediatrics we are lucky that we are not

seeing the complications in our patients, it's more of a futuristic kind of thing that can happen for

them. And we try to help patients feel empowered. And as a consumer and in the business

world that's a very similar principle about empowering your customers. And it's a similar feel I

feel that when I think about a user or a customer, I'm thinking similarly for my patients.

TRAVIS: Okay, let me ask you, getting beyond these applications and how you're using them.

What have you grown to discover or uncover for yourself in growing your business. What were

those pivot points or aha moments that helped you bridge or grow to that next level in your

practice or your other business?

DR. DYER: I think that whenever you're testing out a technology. When you're testing out your

hypothesis that I'm looking for the data and the data doesn't lie, the data is science. And I just

base a lot of any pivoting that I've done based on data. And I feel like I'm a capitalistic scientist

and my ultimate dream with business and my practice as a doctor are to marry the principles of

business with the principles of good positive health. I think it's possible and I don't think I'm there

yet. But I do think that the two forces can be aligned for good.




TRAVIS: Oh, without a doubt. And so, basically, I agree with you that you need to base your

actions on the empirical, but you need to have a series of metrics within your business that

you're measuring. Does this mean that you're AB testing the things that you're doing? Do you go

that far?

DR. DYER: Yes.

TRAVIS: You do?

DR. DYER: Yeah.

TRAVIS: And so, what type of A/B testing, are you A/B testing landing pages, or apps, or things

like that?

DR. DYER: Mostly just the functionality of the app is what kind of beta testing that we've been

doing. And here in Columbus where we have a large college base population I use that often.

TRAVIS: You cut out. Say that again.

DR. DYER: I use the benefit locally of having a large college base population to test things out.

TRAVIS: So do you have them do the test or do you perform the test on them?

DR. DYER: I have them do the test.

TRAVIS: Oh, okay.

DR. DYER: Yeah, no.

TRAVIS: Yeah, alright, this make sense. So you're using the resources of the college there. It's

worked for them, they're learning, and you're getting some results.

DR. DYER: Yeah.

TRAVIS: So is the innovation that you talked about early on with the texting, and then evolving

to the app, is that what you felt like catapulted you into the spotlight and gave you a platform to

speak on so many different places. And did you use that as a platform to build your business

on?

DR. DYER: The answer is absolutely yes. It is just a perfect storm of events that happened that

I really just thought I was solving a simple problem. But the universalness and the just




invitingness of the mobile phone, the Smartphone is really quite magical. And we all feel pretty

personal about our mobile phone. And I think there's just some magic to it that is what has

propelled this. And just the possibilities are really bright for healthcare but it hasn't quite shown

up in the evidence yet that it makes as big of an impact as we think that it will. So there's kind of

a lot of hype and a lot of excitement. And that's where it is right now. But I think you just look at

patients particularly kids and teenagers and they are never without their phone. And I have to

say I'm one of those people too.

TRAVIS: Me too.

DR. DYER: I freak out if I lose my phone, and it's just a natural thing that you would think that

having that technology right with you is an absolute opportunity to make behavior change and

good health a possibility. We just have to figure out the best way to do it.

TRAVIS: Oh, without a doubt. I completely agree. I got my phone near me right now.

DR. DYER: Yeah, I do too.

TRAVIS: I think everybody has been conditioned to take their phone with them to bathroom

even. That sounds terrible but--

DR. DYER: ...That the phone and social media has been a big part of my success and journey.

And I started out in social media as a project for my public health degree for health literacy. And

I just joined whenever I learned about Twitter through a friend of mine that is also big in social

media. His name is Bryan Vartabedian or doctor_v on Twitter. And his blog post are actually on

the NIH library site. They've been categorized. And as a journalism major I've been blogging,

and it's just a natural extension for me that I pontificate about what's going on. I started my

name, EndoGoddess as just cheeky. And my patient gave me that name because I called her a

pink lady because she likes to wear pink and sparkly and she calls me her endo, her

endocrinologist and an endo goddess because I like to wear lots of bling and just cute fashion.

So I just called myself EndoGoddess, and it was a platform, Twitter, that this was really easy for

me to use because of my mobile phone. So right when I signed up I was killing time at the

airport in Santa Fe because I've gone to a conference about health literacy and that's where I

learned about Twitter. So I was sitting at the airport killing time and I got on Twitter and said,

"This woman sitting next to me looks like she has a goiter. I wonder if I should tell her." And then

I got a lot of responses from random people say "Tell her" and some people said "No, don't tell

her, you're not her doctor." It's just a naturally fun platform I think. And I've used hashtags in

moderated conversations to really learn a lot. And I really tend to know a lot of the medical

headlines, any headlines so far ahead of some of my colleagues that aren't on social media that

it's kind of creepy sometimes. Because I just know all of the breaking research so fast. But I've

the most well read that I've ever been because of social media.




TRAVIS: Now, many of our listeners are not in the medical field so explain what endocrinologist

is.

DR. DYER: So I'm the only doctor in my family and I'm from Texas and I don't have an accent

but my parents do. So they would say, "What's an endocrinologist?" But what it is, is it's a field

of hormones. And I explain to them that it's pretty much anything that's on the TLC channel, so

it's too big, too small, too fat, too skinny, too tall. And if a child is born as a boy or a girl, or if you

can't tell if they're a boy or a girl then I'm who you call because it's a hormone problem. And

then the other half that I do is diabetes. Because insulin is a hormone.

TRAVIS: Right. Okay, that's a really interesting way of explaining it, I've never thought of it that

way. Looking back, what would you have done differently to expedite your success? If anything.

DR. DYER: I guess I wish that I was just richer because I could fund more things on my own. It's

hard to get money, it's the hardest thing I feel like. Because I'm really far ahead as far as

healthcare and technology, and I don't think that the funding is up to the speed that consumers

are at. And I just wish I were just naturally rich and I just paid for anything I want to do.

Everybody wants that.

TRAVIS: Yeah, you need to hone your--

DR. DYER: That's the main thing that I wish.

TRAVIS: Yeah, you need to hone your skills at getting sponsors, right?

DR. DYER: Yeah. And I feel more comfortable entering competitions to win money and I have

won. But it is hard for me to ask for money. And I'm getting better at it but it is hard.

TRAVIS: Well, let me ask you, what book or program made an impact on you related to

business that you would recommend, and why would you recommend it?

DR. DYER: Well, I love Julia Child. Reading her biography really inspired me because she's one

of a kind. And I feel like what I'm doing, there isn't really a role model that I can look to that has

gone this path before. But I think that that's the same for Julia Child. There wasn't anyone like

her and really hasn't ever been since. And I just found that the biography by Bob Spitz to be so

inspiring to just follow your passion. So I don't think she knew that she was going to be a TV

star but she just followed her passion for cooking and what she was good at. So I think that

that's the way my path is unfolding. And another one of my favorite books is by Peter

Shankman, Nice Companies Finish First. And I feel like that's really helped give me confidence

that I can do things in a classy and not quite as confrontational way.




TRAVIS: I like that. What's one of your favorite tools or pieces of technology that you've recently

discovered, if any, that you'd recommend to other business owners and why?

DR. DYER: I wouldn't say it's a recent discovery but social media has really just been my

biggest tool for collaboration, biggest tool for discovery, just biggest benefit. And in ways that I

haven't even been able to quantify. But it's a knowledge base, and it's also just a great platform

for collaboration. And because of the mobile phone, when you're able to access it in random

times, like when you're waiting in the airport, I think that it's just fun and it's been probably my

best tool.

TRAVIS: Yeah, I agree with you. I think it's evolved over the last 5 years from an incredible,

social kind of waste of time. And it still can be a gigantic time suck, but used properly it really

can magnify what you're doing.

DR. DYER: I totally agree.

TRAVIS: Yeah. What famous quote would best summarize your belief, and it doesn't have to be

famous, but what quote would best summarize your belief or attitude in business?

DR. DYER: I think my favorite quote is by Audrey Hepburn, "Nothing is impossible. In fact, the

word itself says I'm possible." So I would say that, that would be my number one quote and

reflection. I'm a very optimistic person and I do think that powerful things can happen when

someone puts their mind and persistence to achieving a goal.

TRAVIS: I think you're a living example of that because you've accomplished quite a few things

at a relatively young age.

DR. DYER: Well, thank you.

TRAVIS: Yeah, you're welcome.

DR. DYER: Life's a journey, I intend to keep having fun at it.

TRAVIS: Well, so from an outside perspective, what I really like about you and what you're

doing is I like the fact that you're bold and brave enough to blaze new trails.

DR. DYER: Well, thank you.

TRAVIS: And I think that, that is where quantum improvements in health and so many things

that are important in our life related to health, or I think that's where the change is going to come

from, so I applaud you for that.




DR. DYER: Well, thank you. It's worth it. Whenever you see the kids' faces and get a hug for

inspiring them to be their healthiest and happiest, I literally have the best job in the world.

TRAVIS: Good stuff. Thanks for sharing your business details. How do people connect with

you?

DR. DYER: Really, the easiest way to find me is on Twitter at @EndoGoddess. I do have a

blog, @endogoddessblogspot.com. And you can check out my app [email protected].

And feel free to shoot me an email at [email protected].

TRAVIS: And the Endogoal is for people with diabetes, correct?

DR. DYER: Yes, for insulin-dependent diabetes.

TRAVIS: Okay, great. So it's a fun way to help you stay on top of dealing with taking your

medicine, right?

DR. DYER: Exactly, yup.

End of Interview

TRAVIS: Excellent, thank you very much. Remember you can find all the links to the books and

resources mention in the show notes, just go to rockstarentrepreneurnetwork.com. It's a site that

we've been building out that is completely focused on giving you the resources to help you grow

your business. Before I close the show today I want to remind you to opt-in at

rockstarentrepreneurnetwork.com because I'm going to be doing something special that only

the people that are on my list will see. And so all you've got to do is go to my website,

rockstarentrepreneurnetwork.com, enter your name right there on the right hand side and

believe it, we're giving away a guide right now and some tools and other things, a list of tools.

Just enter your information there and you'll have my private contact information, and you'll be

privy to some of the things that we're going to be rolling out to the people on the list. So I'd like

for you to be a part of that as well. My quote today comes from Norman Vincent Peale, and the

quote reads, "People become really quite remarkable when they start thinking they can do

things. When they believe in themselves, they have the first secret of success." This is Travis

Lane Jenkins signing off for now. To your incredible success my friend, take care.






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Travis Lane Jenkins

Business Mentor-Turn Around Specialist

Radio Host of The Entrepreneurs Radio Show

“Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs That Grow Your

Business"

#113 - how being innovative and courageous will teach you to be a better entrepreneur

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