Q. Kindly give our readers an introduction to your business. Please include what your business is all about, in which city you are located and if you have offices in multiple locations/ cities.
A. By business, Regenerative Medicine Institute of Nevada is a medical clinic dedicated to offering the latest options to patients that have both acute and chronic issues. By that, we mean issues such as recent muscle strains or tears, as well as more chronic issues. These chronic issues include patients with degeneration of their joints, inflammation of tendons, skin disorders due to a variety of issues, skin aging, hair loss and other diseases where inflammation is a major concern. We are based in Las Vegas, Nevada only for the time being. I do provide long-distance to a clinic in India that is just beginning to offer these types of treatments.
Q. Kindly give us a brief description about yourself (it should include your brief educational or entrepreneurial background and list some of your major achievements).
A. After coming to the United States and growing up in Chicago, Illinois, where he became an American citizen, Dr. Garcia completed his medical training and moved to Las Vegas in 1988, entering the private practice of Plastic Surgery. He has become a nationally recognized surgeon, medical practitioner and business executive who has appeared on the Discovery Channel to audiences of up to 50 million 16 times. He is an innovator in the application and marketing of surgical capabilities and special treatments to drive both revenues and profits. He created a leading national practice in wellness and anti-aging, employing surgical and nutritional treatments to limit and reverse aging processes in people of varying ages. He employed unique applications for special products produced by national medical corporations, as well as developing his own proprietary products. Besides plastic surgery, Dr. Garcia has also been providing Regenerative Medicine technology since 2013. He offers multiple modalities for his patients including adipose-derived stem cell therapy, also called stromal vascular fraction therapy as well as mesenchymal cell therapy for a variety of medical issues. Dr. Garcia is also a nationally recognized author and lecturer on a variety of medical topics and procedures. A well-known television host and commentator, he is prized for his knowledge of medicine and his communications ability. He achieved national recognition for his work as Medical Director of the Anti-aging and Wellness clinic in Las Vegas. He is a frequent spokesman for the American Society of Aesthetic and Plastic Surgeons and appeared weekly on his own television program for nearly two years. He was appointed to the Board of Directors for the Lipoplasty Society of North America, representing practitioners of liposuction surgical therapy across North America. He advocated transition of the organization into a non-profit institution, sponsoring research on the science of liposuction and body sculpting surgery. He engineered many advances in the process, established a financial endowment, and facilitated liposuction becoming the most popular surgical procedure in North America. He established a national endowment supporting the science of liposuction and body contouring. He was later named secretary and eventually chairman of the new non-profit organization. Dr. Garcia is a member of the Board of Directors for the Aesthetic Society Education and Research Foundation, an entity that raises funds to allow plastic surgeons to perform ground-breaking research relative to cosmetic surgery. Dr. Garcia is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons and is certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery, the American Board of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons, and the American Board of Anti-Aging Medicine. He earned his Doctor of Medicine in 1983 from the University of Illinois at Chicago. This was complemented by a Bachelor’s Degree in Biology from Northwestern University.
Q. What inspired you to (start a new business venture) or (to make significant changes in an existing business)? How did the idea for your business come about?
A. I have always been involved in sports and I also had an interest in preventing or at least, slowing the aging process. The seeking of new technologies was not only for patients but for my own benefit. In searching and learning about what was available, I became interested in methods to enhance the body’s own ability to heal faster. Initially using platelet-rich-plasma (PRP) only in surgery, I began incorporating enhanced PRP over time, by adding growth factors as well as mesenchymal cells to further improve the capabilities outside of traditional surgery. These growth factors and mesenchymal stem cells can be harvested from the patient themselves or can be obtained from a tissue bank where the materials have been examined and cleared to be safe and usable in human patients.
Q. What three pieces of advice would you give to budding entrepreneurs?
A. The three pieces I would suggest is 1) stay on top of all new innovations in the field so you can decide what and when to implement new advances. 2) Be honest with your patients. Hyping the results will do you no good as some people do not respond as well as others, so remain conservative in what each patient may achieve #) Be humble. Boasting that you are the best will hurt you in the long run. Remaining collegial with your competitors will put you in a position of respect, which goes a long way in building your reputation
Q. What would you say are the top three skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur?
A. 1) Dedication to continued education 2) Be innovative in your approach 3) Learn to think out of the box when it comes to new innovations and technologies
Q. How many hours do you work a day on average?
A. My average work day is 10-11 hours per day
Q. To what do you most attribute your success?
A. Patience. Knowing when a patient needs your offerings and offering them the option when it is appropriate for them and not before will yield long-term returns
Q. How do you go about marketing your business? What has been your most successful form of marketing?
A. The most successful part of marketing is the dissemination of new information. I am a physician and although I know social media, I am not an expert in that field so I look for good people that have social media as their focus to help me achieve my business goals
Q. Where did your organization’s funding/capital come from and how did you go about getting it? How did you obtain investors for your venture?
A. I have only used bank loans to build my business. Being a sole-proprietor, I wanted to remain in control of my business in terms of how to grow it and make it successful. Although I have had offers from investors to help build my practice, I have chosen to grow my business utilizing the profits from an honest and successful practice only. Until such time that I want to expand my business to multiple areas and have physicians work under that umbrella, I do not feel venture capital is needed or desired form my standpoint.
Q. What is the best way to achieve long-term success?
A. Long-term success has its best chance when you research before bringing on new methods or technologies. Embracing new technologies is a good thing but making sure the technology can deliver the results they claim is key to maintaining a truthful and honest report with your patient
Q. Where you see yourself and your business in 5 – 10 years?
A. My plan is to expand my business to other locations by using additional physicians, where the innovations and protocols can be offered to more patients in a caring and honest fashion, not preying on patients with hype and false promises of what our technology can deliver
Q. Excluding yours, what company or business do you admire the most?
A. Cytori, based out of San Diego
Q. How important have good employees been to your success?
A. Good employees are key to the growth of a practice, as the saying goes, ‘they can make you or break you”
Q. How long do you stick with an idea before giving up?
A. Depending on what the idea relates to in the field I work in, I usually give it 6-12 months before I move on.
Q. What motivates you?
A. Helping people feel better
Q. What are your ideals?
A. Honesty and integrity are the ideals I base all my decisions on
Q. How do you generate new ideas?
A. I educate myself on new technologies, see and read what others are doing, and monitor their success and honesty. I then consider either bringing that on as part of my business or creating something new out of two or more ideas, creating something innovative
Q. How do you define success?
A. Building a business that can last for a long time, even after I have left or retired
Q. How do you build a successful customer base?
A. Educate your consumer first, and always be honest with them. Making promises that cannot be kept will make your business fail and you will have to start over. That process is costly, is time-consuming, as well as damaging to your reputation. Salvaging a reputation that is tarnished is a difficult task
Q. What is your favorite aspect of being an entrepreneur?
A. I like making the decisions myself and taking repsonsibilty for my decisions.
Q. What has been your most satisfying moment in business?
A. Returning clients that come back and promote my business to others. Organic growth is slower moving but longer lasting.
Q. What do you feel is the major difference between entrepreneurs and those who work for someone else?
A. I think entrepreneurs are more forward thinking and love taking responsibility while those that work for others many times just tread water and do not grow to where they themselves can be independent in business terms
Q. What kind of culture exists in your organization? How did you establish this tone and why did you institute this particular type of culture?
A. Our culture is that of a “tribe”, there may be a hierarchy of job descriptions, responsibilities and tasks, but we all work toward a single goal, that of growing a successful business. Each employee is a crucial spoke in our wheel, without whom the wheel fails and progress stops.
Q. In one word, characterize your life as an entrepreneur.
A. Empowering
Q. If you had the chance to start your career over again, what would you do differently?
A. I would question what others say more critically. Doing so would have helped me avoid some hurdles that arose in my path
Q. How has being an entrepreneur affected your family life?
A. Time commitments to fulfill goals can make for challenges with family commitments, but establishing a balance and understanding between all the parties is the only way to avoid conflicts and hurt feelings.
Q. What is your greatest fear, and how do you manage fear?
A. My greatest fear is failure and I overcome it every day by challenging myself daily, striving for a better outcome every day and at every opportunity.
Q. How did you decide on the location for your business?
A. Locating in Las Vegas came as an opportunity for me where I felt there was more room for growth and a better future.
Q. Do you believe there is some sort of pattern or formula to becoming a successful entrepreneur?
A. Education balanced with sacrifice on a personal and a financial level.
Q. If you could talk to one person from history, who would it be and why?
A. Abraham Lincoln because he was tasked with an incredible challenge that he had to overcome for the benefit of a nation.
Q. Who has been your greatest inspiration?
A. Winston Churchill
Q. What book has inspired you the most? (OR what is your favorite book?)
A. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
Q. What are some of the biggest mistakes you’ve made?
A. I allowed others that wanted to bring me down professionally or personally to affect the focus on my task.
Q. How can you prevent mistakes or do damage control?
A. Make the mistakes early so they are less damaging.
Q. What are your hobbies? What do you do in your non-work time?
A. I exercise or I go fly fishing
Q. What makes you happy?
A. A thank you from someone else.
Q. What sacrifices have you had to make to be a successful entrepreneur?
A. I have given up family time to make by venture succeed.
Q. If you were conducting this interview, what question would you ask?
A. What are your regrets?
