Episode Summary

Before Dr. Linda Matteoli was the CEO of Origins Incubator, she was seeing patients out of a rented room that smelled like burnt hair, working at a desk she and Scott built themselves out of two-by-fours because there was no money for a real one. Her first month in practice brought in $400.

In this episode, Scott sits down with his wife, Dr. Linda Matteoli, DO, to trace the real story behind her cash-based functional medicine practice: why she left conventional family medicine after a visit to her own doctor left her feeling unheard, the four blank months of research before she saw her first patient, the $6,000 program model she started with and why it eventually had to go, and how she built the Foundational Assessment, the appointment that became the key to scaling to 100 membership patients in about a year.

This is part one of a two-part conversation. Part two picks up with how Linda's own practice became the blueprint for Origins Incubator.

What You'll Hear

• Why Linda left conventional medicine after her own doctor didn't have time for her

• The 'glass of wine' conversation where she told Scott she was going all in

• Four months of research and writing before she saw her first patient

• Why the $6,000 program model stopped feeling right, twice

• How the Foundational Assessment changed the entire sales conversation

• Scaling to 100 members with one employee and an Excel spreadsheet

• What 'clinical intellectual property' actually means for your practice

Timestamps

00:00 Welcome and introducing Dr. Linda Matteoli

01:53 Why Linda left conventional medicine

07:21 The glass of wine conversation: deciding to go all in

10:49 Four months of research before her first patient

13:10 Lessons from her pre-med entrepreneurial life

15:54 What she'd tell her younger self

17:14 The acupuncturist's office and the burnt-hair building

19:08 The first $400 month and finding a mentor

21:01 Inside the $6,000 program model

23:16 Why the program model stopped working

26:18 The pivot away from programs

30:05 Building the 12-month membership and the Foundational Assessment

32:58 Selling without the pressure

36:01 Pricing, raising rates, and the family's financial squeeze

38:15 Scaling to 100 members with an Excel spreadsheet

40:40 Consistent outreach without being pushy

43:38 Why mentors and coaches still matter

44:51 How Origins Incubator got started

45:26 Inside the workshop: the four pillars

47:12 How to join and the Origins50 discount

49:38 Clinical IP, explained

52:04 Wrap-up and what's coming in Part 2

Guest Bio

Dr. Linda Matteoli is a board-certified family medicine physician and CEO of Origins Incubator, a business education and mentorship platform for functional and integrative medicine practitioners. After building her own cash-based membership practice from a near-zero start to 100 members in about a year, she now helps clinicians launch and scale values-aligned practices through Origins Incubator's four-pillar framework: clinical, legal and finance, operations, and strategy.

Resources Mentioned

Origins Incubator Workshop