By Nikhil Reddy, Youth Advisory Council member.
The following reflects Nikhil’s lived experiences, thoughts, and opinions.
This past June, I finished up my first year at Stanford. It was an incredible year of learning and growth as I explored my interests in business and computer science. However, above all else, one peculiarity so deeply ingrained within the Stanford and broader Silicon Valley ecosystem stuck with me: entrepreneurship.
Honestly, before starting college, I had no clue what entrepreneurship meant. It was a foreign and abstract concept that I tied to a select few individuals “destined” for something ‘greater’ than a normal job. I think many students share this notion.
As I worked through my first year of college, I understood a different definition of entrepreneurship. Some of my friends and classmates – whom I routinely talked to and grabbed late-night food with – began taking leave from university to work on their start-ups. That shift humanized entrepreneurship for me. Ultimately, entrepreneurs are often just regular people who see something broken in the world and believe they can fix it.
This summer, I worked at FTV Capital in San Francisco, where I had the opportunity to meet and learn from founders across industries. Some entrepreneurs were barely out of college, while others were 30-year-old industry veterans. But the one thing they all had in common was that they desperately wanted to solve a problem that existed in the world. Shoe resellers want to make streetwear more accessible; marketplace builders want freelancers to find projects faster; health-tech founders want patients to have a better experience.
I think anyone can be an entrepreneur. It’s less about a mythical “destiny” and more about curiosity and the willingness to take a shot.
Healthcare entrepreneurship, in particular, is interesting to me. Healthcare feels personal in a way few other industries do. Everyone has a story: a confusing insurance bill, a friend who couldn’t get mental health support, or a family member waiting months for an appointment. At the same time, healthcare is massive, making up nearly 18% of the U.S. economy [1]. That combination – deeply human and hugely complex – creates both the need and the space for innovation.
I’ve started to notice how broad those opportunities are. Some companies are rethinking mental health by lowering barriers for students to connect with counsellors virtually. Others are building wearables that track sleep and exercise in ways anyone can understand. Telehealth has allowed young people to talk to a doctor from their dorm rooms. Even something as small as apps that explain insurance benefits in plain language can take away stress for teens navigating the system for the first time.
Of course, healthcare entrepreneurship is not simple. Regulations are strict, data privacy is non-negotiable, and the stakes are high when people’s health is on the line. But the hardest problems are often the ones worth working on.
Healthcare entrepreneurship can sound abstract, but innovation shows up in practical ways. For example, school-based health centers (SBHCs) can be considered a form of innovation! They’re built into students’ daily routines and trusted in ways outside clinics sometimes aren’t. At their core, because SBHCs are rooted in the day-to-day realities of students, they improve health outcomes. That’s the same approach entrepreneurs take: solving problems by putting people’s needs first.
If my first year of college taught me anything, it is that entrepreneurship doesn’t belong to a select few. It belongs to anyone willing to notice a problem and take the first step toward solving it. And who knows? The next big innovation in healthcare might not come from a pharmaceutical giant or a Silicon Valley veteran – it might come from one of us.
Citations
- How has U.S. spending on healthcare changed over time? Peterson-KFF. Accessed September 1, 2025. https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/u-s-spending-healthcare-changed-time/