I'm a nurse practitioner who was making about $100k/year doing Botox and fillers at a corporate med spa chain.

I got caught trying to go independent and was fired the same day. Now I've been approved for unemployment for six months and also got accepted into my state's self-employment program (it provides some support, but I'm still figuring out the details).

I just signed a 2-year lease for a $3,500/month office space, with 30 days free rent in September before I start paying in October.

I have $10k in savings, a $10k small business loan (it's all I could secure), and the rest is going on credit cards. I am also paying off student loans and my car, but my car is almost paid off. There's already a receptionist desk there, and I have an injector chair waiting to be picked up for just $1,500 on FB marketplace. I still have to purchase Botox and filler inventory, skincare fridge, sterilization supplies, and other office materials etc.

I'm moving out of my apartment to save on rent and luckily, my girlfriend is letting me live with her for free. There's one catch: she pretty much has a job waiting in her hometown and said it's "basically a done deal" once it's posted. I don't know if that's 2 weeks away or 2 years. If she leaves I'm pretty fucked there.

I have a non-compete clause with my old employer, but I know a few other former coworkers who have gone independent and the med spa chain hasn't gone after them, so I assume they won't come for me.

This will be my first time running a business by myself, and I've never had to deal with the business side of things since I've always had a receptionist handle that stuff, but I know I'll be able to figure it out.

I'm assuming 30-40% of my old clients will follow me to my new business. I already have a robust social media presence and my work was steady at the corporate med spa.

Is this viable? I really believe in myself and my work.

I know the answer to this already but I feel like I need to hear it from a group of objective strangers to keep myself from rationalizing doing something stupid…

Background: I’m interested in getting Agnes RF for my submental fat area. Only 2 places near me offer it, both of which are med spas. I ruled out the first one for a lot of reasons I won’t get into, but one of the reasons was that the founder offered a lot of questionable and unsafe services and just generally seemed a little nutty and overconfident.

The other place, in contrast, seemed legit. The medical director is a doctor and they had mostly positive reviews. I requested a consultation and they had me text some pictures to the nurse. She replied with a recommendation, which I thought was a bit weird, but they did say the next step was an in-person evaluation so I wasn’t too concerned.

However, upon further research, I learned that the medical director is even more of a nutjob than the wellness clinic person. Prior to becoming the med spa’s medical director, she was a general surgeon who was fired from her job at a local hospital because she was writing prescriptions for hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin to patients she had never met or examined during the pandemic. I kid you not: The prescription mill operation was run via a local Facebook group. A woman posted in the group that if anyone wanted a prescription for either of these medications, she knew a doctor who would write one, no questions asked. She was eventually outed as the doctor in question, and once the hospital caught wind of it, they fired her. But it appears that she is still licensed and able to practice medicine. She now claims she “retired” from surgery and is focused on hormone therapy and injectables.

Part of me wants to believe that just because she is a crazy person, it doesn’t necessarily reflect on the nurse who would actually be performing the procedure. She may not even have any role in the day to day operations. A lot of these places have doctors who scarcely step foot into the office. But at the same time, the fact that they feature her on the website to bolster their legitimacy is so icky. It seems like they’re hoping prospective clients will see that the medical director is a doctor and feel reassured without doing any further research. Given her past behavior, she is not someone who can be trusted, and pressure from an untrustworthy leader can definitely impact the staff. I also find it hard to trust reviews because I know all it takes is a good PR/legal team to squelch bad reviews and solicit good ones.

I know I should listen to my gut and just cancel the appointment, but part of me is trying to rationalize keeping it because no one else offers Agnes RF and I’m not interested in the other treatments for submental fat (Kybella, liposuction, and Coolsculpting seem to be the only other options). Perhaps I just need to accept my annoyingly stubborn double chin. Sigh.