Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in health and wellness but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Amy Kuretsky, Co-Owner of Constellation Acupuncture & Healing Arts, located in Minneapolis, MN, USA.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
Constellation Acupuncture & Healing Arts is a Chinese medicine clinic in NE Minneapolis. We offer affirming and accessible natural health care, including acupuncture, herbal medicine, cupping, massage therapy, and breathwork. Our patients come to us for support with everything from pain and tension, mental health and trauma support, sexual and reproductive support, chronic disease management, identity-affirming healthcare, and more. Our patients value the holistic and individualized treatments we offer as a central part of their healthcare.
Tell us about yourself
I first got interested in Chinese medicine after my own struggles with an autoimmune disease in my early 20s. After being disheartened by my own experience of being dismissed by doctors, I started researching other methods for more long-term healing (as opposed to short-term fixing) for my diagnosis of Crohn's disease. It was a long journey that began with an interest in nutrition and brought me to Chinese herbal medicine and acupuncture. I fell so deeply in love with medicine and how it supported my own health that I enrolled in a graduate-level program to become an acupuncturist. Now, ten years later, I'm still using acupuncture not only in my own life but to support my patients' lives.
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
I'm most proud of the business my business partner and I have grown over the last five years. When I first started as an acupuncturist, I was a solo practitioner trying to get the word out and bring new patients into this medicine. Fast forward to 2017, and I merged my solo practice with another practitioner and friend. Together, we more than tripled the size and scope of our business. Now, we're in a clinic with five treatment rooms and have a staff of six practitioners and two administrative staff. Whereas I used to treat 20 or so patients per week as a solo practitioner, now our clinic can treat over 100 patients per week and bring this medicine to a larger population of people.
What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?
I think that growth is the hardest thing about being a business owner. In some ways, we're all taught or conditioned to want growth (both in our businesses and in ourselves as people), yet we forget how hard it feels to grow. Success is amazing and has so many benefits, but there are so many growing pains that go alongside it as well. It's rare ever to have success and growth without challenges, and yet I think that as a society, we don't hold enough space for the grief and heartache that comes along with outgrowing our old ways of being as we move into our new levels of success.
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
- Find a group of other business owners in a similar stage of business to you. Lean on them, let them lean on you, and care for each other as you all grow alongside each other.
- Trust your gut and your heart. There's a lot of one-size-fits-all business advice out there, but just like how one-size-fits-all clothes rarely actually fit us, the same is true for one-size-fits-all advice. Read and hear what's being written and said, but then filter it through your own intuition and trust that inner knowing deeply.
- Get HR help when it's time to grow a team. Managing employees is a whole different skill set than being great at the service you provide. When it's time to grow a team, get a mentor or coach who specializes in team building or HR support and lean on them along the way.
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://www.constellationacu.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/constellationacu
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/constellationacu/
If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.
Turn your craft into recurring revenue with Subkit. Start your subscription offering in minutes and supercharge it with growth levers. Get early access here.