Acupuncture Together (with Videos!!!) – How My Clinic Started

Acupuncture Together is the name of my new clinic that opens next Tuesday, May 27th! Located in Cambridge, MA, I managed to get this clinic ready to go in less than 2 months – holy moly! The videos on this blog could be straight out of the TLC channel. When I left my last practice I had nothing except a big pile of furniture to keep (which was fortunate) and a lot of experience from already having started a practice, as well as my incredible gift of experience working at Manchester Acupuncture Studio for the last 7 months. I had to start over again from scratch, essentially, but this time with many more ideas and an ability to just surge ahead with my family backing me up and nothing else to really stop me.

My work started immediately after leaving my former practice, initially plagued by feelings of indecision of where to go and what to call my new practice. So with several weeks of Craigslist scouring, realtor calling and space searching all around the Boston region and beyond – from Salem, NH down to Stoughton, MA and in between – keeping an open mind to the possibilities while maintaining my list of essentials (handicap accessibility, parking, size, price) as well as reading as many CAN forum posts relevant to the business as possible, emailing other incredibly helpful CAN acupunks (THANK YOU!), and visiting several other community acupuncture clinics to feel the different vibes and see the way others are practicing – I finally walked into this space in Cambridge and felt it really would be perfect.

Part of my lease agreement was that I would get a full build-out where they would knock down a wall, put up a wall and a door (I was extremely fortunate to have a friend who happens to be an architect draw up a floor plan – he did an amazing job!), put in a new carpet with carpet padding and paint the walls.

At the same time I emailed about 100 people a fun online survey (from surveymonkey.com) asking them to vote on a community acupuncture business name for me out of a list I had created. Acupuncture Together wasn’t even on it, actually – but it turned out the number one choice (“Town Community Acupuncture”) is already taken in Cambridge (Cambridge Community Acupuncture), which led me to a sudden creative thought on Acupuncture Together which I actually liked better than all the other ideas I had originally had. It’s simple and it tells you exactly what you’re getting yourself into (I think it does, anyway). And the domain name was available, too.

All the while I began to list all the things I would need, the order in which things would need to be done and, essentially, re-buffered my business plan. I felt (and still feel) really enthusiastic and motivated to get my new clinic up and running asap. I ordered items to be shipped and shopped like crazy (trying to get the best deals possible, of course).

Finally – I just spent the last 6 days straight with my amazing parents who came to visit and work hard with me to get the space beautiful and ready for the patients! I really don’t think I could have done it without them.

Here are some fun videos of the days as the progression occurred:

www.youtube.com/acu2gether

I’m now sitting at my office desk, looking out the window as the sun sets – feeling a tremendous satisfaction for all the hard work that has been done, and looking forward to treating several people who have already scheduled appointments here next week! 🙂

I really feel indebted to CAN for making it possible to create such a clinic. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Author: Justine_Myers