Fostering entrepreneurship is a crucial part of maintaining a vibrant economy, but providing would-be entrepreneurs with the tools they need to put their ideas into action is easier said than done. Hearing about importance of developing a solid business plan is one thing; adapting it when your assumptions turn out to be faulty is quite another.
While studying business administration and management at Harper College in Palatine, IL, Daniel Micic got an opportunity many 20-year-olds can only dream about: a chance to try his hand at helping to run a real company.
“Somebody gave the school an actual business,” said Micic. “They wanted the students to learn how businesses were run, so they gave it to the school, and students would come in on their own time.”
From working at the student-run business for six months, Micic discovered that he had a knack for sales. Enthralled with the experience, he decided to start a business of his own as a side project alongside his studies, selling medical supplies to nursing education programs.
After researching a name, getting a business license and landing his first two customers — his school’s biology and nursing departments — Micic got Medical Shipment off the ground in 2007. Today the company operates an online marketplace, selling nursing education supplies to hundreds of schools across the country.
“For the first three or four years I was doing it, I was going to school and I had a loading page with contact information up on medicalshipment.com,” he said. “When I quit my job, I decided I really needed to revamp my website and go full steam ahead.”
One of the biggest wins in his company’s early days, Micic said, was landing an exclusive contract to sell smart vending machines for prescription medicine to the educational market. A number of his clients were asking him if he could get ahold of these vending machines, which are used by nurses at many hospitals but were not available to the schools training them.
“I reached out to the manufacturer, and they’re a multi-billion dollar company, so I’d always get the same runaround, getting passed along. After talking to nine different people over six months, I finally got ahold of someone,” he said. “It came down to him asking me: ‘Why would I put my ass on the line to work with you guys? No offense, but you’re only three people.’”
The two ended up drawing up a contract, and the deal helped Medical Shipment become a leading player in its market.
After getting his niche business into the Inc. 5000 in 2015 and 2016, Micic is now looking to get into the hospital supply industry, where he says the sky is the limit.
Although it’s certainly possible that he would have started a business either way, Micic said the opportunity to get his hands dirty at Harper College made a big difference in putting him on the path to entrepreneurship.
“When I was younger, I always had side businesses putting out fliers around the neighborhood to rake, mow lawns and shovel,” he said. “But it definitely propelled me starting my own business, and it was kind of blind luck that it was there.”
Image via Medical Shipment.
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