{"id":366,"date":"2012-02-24T07:00:56","date_gmt":"2012-02-24T12:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.meghirshberg.com\/blog\/?p=366"},"modified":"2012-02-01T07:08:41","modified_gmt":"2012-02-01T12:08:41","slug":"interview-with-andrew-and-kathy-abraham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.meghirshberg.com\/blog\/2012\/02\/interview-with-andrew-and-kathy-abraham\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview with Andrew and Kathy Abraham"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Andrew<\/a>

Thirty-year-old Andrew Abraham was trained as a physician. In his first year of residency, Andrew started his company, Orgain, which manufactures a certified organic fluid nutritional supplement\u2014an organic \u201cEnsure\u201d. Founded in 2009, Orgain is now profitable, and its revenues exceed $6 million and growing rapidly. The company has no full time employees. Andrew and his wife Kathy live in Orange County, California, with their two young sons.<\/p><\/div>\n

Andrew and Kathy Abraham on the advantages and disadvantages of leaving a professional career to start a business, and why Andrew hung up his stethoscope to gamble everything on a drink. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0 The first year of medical residency is an unlikely time to start a business.<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0 I was working hundred hour weeks, and Kathy was pregnant with our first child.\u00a0 Kathy used to joke that she slept more in a night than I did in a week.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0 What were you thinking?<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0 The idea for this business grew from my own personal story. In 1999, when I was a senior in high school, I was diagnosed with a rare cancer called rhabdomyosarcoma.\u00a0 I was treated with surgery, chemo, and radiation. I lost a lot of weight, and couldn\u2019t tolerate food. \u00a0I completed my senior year from my hospital bed.\u00a0 My treatment was effective, but at the time I had to sustain myself on these \u201chealthy\u201d drinks that tasted horrible.\u00a0 I started reading the labels\u2014it was all terrible stuff.\u00a0 The first ingredient was GMO corn syrup, then artificial<\/strong> colors and flavors.\u00a0 So I started making my own shakes at home.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0 So you decided to create a product that you wish you\u2019d had when you were in treatment?<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0 Exactly.\u00a0 Once I got the idea, I couldn\u2019t sleep at night, I couldn\u2019t stop myself.\u00a0 I\u2019d wake up in the middle of the night with packaging and ingredient ideas.\u00a0 I just had to create this company, and it couldn\u2019t wait. It was a different kind of stress than medical training\u2014I actually enjoy the challenges.\u00a0 But in retrospect, maybe I should have waited until I\u2019d finished my residency.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0 It sounds like your sense of mission was a huge part of your decision.<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0 Definitely.\u00a0 If I had an idea for an organic gummy bear\u2026I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 This beverage has an impact.\u00a0 Emails and letters have poured in.\u00a0 Some people who\u2019ve written us told us that it is their sole source of nutrition.\u00a0 They have diseases like esophageal cancer, and can\u2019t swallow food.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0 You no longer practice medicine, and are devoting yourself full time to Orgain.\u00a0 Weren\u2019t you tempted to stay in medicine, after all that training?<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0 I was made chief resident, and then offered a job at my hospital.\u00a0 Also my dad, a pediatrician, wanted me to come work with him in his thriving practice. I did practice medicine at my father\u2019s clinic, but I realized that wasn\u2019t what I wanted to do.\u00a0 Working at my dad\u2019s clinic, I saw 30 or 40 patients a day.\u00a0 But at Orgain, I am helping thousands of people on a daily basis.\u00a0 It was a tough decision, though.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0 Medicine would have been more secure, financially.<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0 It\u2019s been a huge leap.\u00a0 I\u2019m always on my toes, learning on the go.\u00a0 I\u2019ve had to learn a whole new language, the language of business.\u00a0 When we were getting started, a buyer for a national vitamin retailer asked if we could give him FOB pricing.\u00a0 I said, of course.\u00a0 I had no idea what it meant.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0 Kathy, did you worry about your family\u2019s security, when Andrew decided to leave medicine?<\/p>\n

Kathy:\u00a0 Of course you worry, but I couldn\u2019t help but notice Andrew\u2019s passion and drive for this.\u00a0 The force of it gave me confidence that this company would succeed.\u00a0 I thought, something good will come of this.\u00a0 There have been some dark nights of pure fear and anxiety, but as long as I saw him happy I was OK.\u00a0 If he had gotten wobbly, I would have worried.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Andrew:\u00a0 When I\u2019m wobbly I keep the door closed.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kathy: I think it also helps to have a backup plan.\u00a0 Andrew can always return to medicine.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Andrew:\u00a0 Kathy thought she was marrying a doctor, not a businessman.\u00a0 I switched the security contract along the way.\u00a0 A few times she\u2019s handed me my stethoscope and white coat and said, can we go back to a normal life?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0 In a way, leaving a professional career to start a business is a double-edged sword.\u00a0 You do have something to fall back on, but there\u2019s huge \u201copportunity cost\u201d to abandoning a profession.<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0 I see another issue for professionals in business.\u00a0 They may go into it a little cocky, believing that business will be a walk in the park, easier for them than for others. They can think they know more than they really do, because they\u2019ve had training and become expert at something. They are in for a serious reality check.\u00a0 I finished college in three years, and then had all my medical training, but I\u2019ve been completely humbled by the food and beverage world.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I keep in mind some great advice my dad gave me:\u00a0 boast about your weaknesses and let your strengths speak for themselves. I know my limitations and I\u2019m not afraid to tell people.\u00a0 I\u2019m now OK with admitting I don\u2019t understand, could you please explain it to me.\u00a0 I always seek out others with more experience.\u00a0 But I am confident about what I DO know.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0 Do you have any advice for professionals who are considering starting a company?<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0 Do as much as you can to develop your business while you are working your professional job, until you reach the point where you can no longer do both.\u00a0 Don\u2019t just drop everything for a great idea.\u00a0 Figure out what you think you\u2019ll be sacrificing by making the switch\u2014how much time and money it will take to get to profitability\u2014and multiply by five.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Andrew and Kathy Abraham on the advantages and disadvantages of leaving a professional career to start a business, and why Andrew hung up his stethoscope to gamble everything on a drink. Q:\u00a0 The first year of medical residency is an unlikely time to start a business. A:\u00a0 I was working hundred hour weeks, and Kathy was pregnant with our first child.\u00a0 Kathy used to joke that she slept more in a night than I did in a week. Q:\u00a0 What were you thinking? A:\u00a0 The idea for this business grew from my own personal story. In 1999, when I was a senior in high school, I was diagnosed with a rare cancer called rhabdomyosarcoma.\u00a0 I was treated with surgery, chemo, and radiation. I lost a lot of weight, and couldn\u2019t tolerate food. \u00a0I completed my senior year from my hospital bed.\u00a0 My treatment was effective, but at the time I had to sustain myself on these \u201chealthy\u201d drinks that tasted horrible.\u00a0 I started reading the labels\u2014it was all terrible stuff.\u00a0 The first ingredient was GMO corn syrup, then artificial<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,21,25,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interviews","category-responding-to-setbacks","category-the-entrepreneurial-personality","category-the-spouses-concerns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.meghirshberg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.meghirshberg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.meghirshberg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.meghirshberg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.meghirshberg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"http:\/\/www.meghirshberg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":504,"href":"http:\/\/www.meghirshberg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366\/revisions\/504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.meghirshberg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.meghirshberg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.meghirshberg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}