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OB/GYN Dr. Cheruba Prabakar ditched employed medicine, went cash-pay, and built a boutique surgical practice in the Bay Area from scratch. Dr. Una breaks down how she overcame fear, bootstrapped without a loan, and hit her first revenue milestone in year one.

Dr. Cheruba Prabakar spent 7–8 years in employed medicine before she admitted something felt off. Her dream of owning a practice had been buried under the assumption that private practice simply didn't exist on the West Coast. She joined the EntreMD Business School not with a plan, but with a question: is there another way? A year later, she opened her doors.

She bootstrapped entirely, no loan, no outside funding. She answered her own phones, hand-wrote appointments, and stood at a dark outdoor event in a ski jacket handing out cards to strangers. A patient showed up from that event two and a half years later. The work was always working. She just couldn't see it yet.

By the end of year one, she had already hit a revenue number she once thought was ridiculous to even write down. The milestone didn't make her comfortable. It made her hungry. She introduced membership programs, raised her surgical prices, and hired a second physician so her practice could run while she's on vacation. Now she's writing a book on fibroids, due out July 2026, because she wants every woman to know they don't have to wait eight months to see a surgeon.

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Key Takeaways
00:00 The number seemed impossible. Then it happened

01:08 The dream got erased because there were no examples

02:30 Joined EBS before having a plan. That changed everything

05:06 9 to 4. Kids' performances. No permission needed

06:52 The diplomas went up. Then real growth began

09:00 No loan. No safety net. Just resourcefulness

10:44 Cash pay. Surgery. Bay Area. Everyone said no

13:10 One patient on the schedule. Kept going anyway

16:42 6:30 AM. Dark. Cold. A patient showed up two and a half years later

19:00 Do the work today. Let the results catch up later

21:00 A million felt ridiculous. Write it down anyway

23:28 Memberships, raised prices, hired a doctor. That is how the number got hit

26:54 Fear shows up. Go back to the why

31:22 Five years in EBS. Not leaving

Additional Resources

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The EntreMD Podcast is the go-to resource for physician entrepreneurs who want to build profitable businesses without sacrificing their personal lives. Hosted by Dr. Una, each episode delivers real strategies and unfiltered stories from doctors who are doing it — building practices, growing revenue, and creating lives they love.

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