Where Do I Even Start? A Nurse's Guide to Launching Your Own Practice

Quick Answer

Five Square is a membership that helps nurses open and run their own aesthetics, wellness, or functional health practice, even if you have no idea where to begin. You can keep your job while you start, and the membership walks you through the parts that stop most nurses: forming your LLC, the legal and compliance setup, getting paired with a medical director, training and certification, your EMR, your pharmacy and product accounts, and your first marketing. Many nurses see their first patient within 30 to 60 days. You don't figure any of it out alone.

If "I don't even know where to start" is exactly why you haven't started, keep reading. That feeling is the thing we built the whole onboarding around.

"I don't know where to start" is the most normal place to be

Almost every nurse who joins Five Square says a version of the same thing first. One of them left it in her Five Square Nurses app store review, and it's the cleanest description of the feeling we've seen:

"This app provides me with the resources, medical oversight, and community needed to go from idea to creation. Highly recommend for nurses with an entrepreneurial spirit who feel lost in the thick of it all." - C. Miller, RN

She's talking about the Five Square Nurses app, and it's worth pausing on, because it's where all of this actually lives. It's a free app on the App Store and Google Play, and it's your home base for the whole thing: your medical oversight, the step-by-step training, your accounts, and the entire community of nurse business owners. You can open it on your phone between patients, on a lunch break, or on the couch at 9pm, and pick right back up where you left off. For a lot of nurses, downloading that app is the moment "someday" turns into step one.

Feeling lost in the thick of it all is not a sign you're not ready. It's a sign you're looking at the whole mountain at once: the LLC, the medical director, the insurance, the training, the products, the pricing, the marketing, the first patient. Anyone would freeze looking at all of that at the same time.

What actually stalls nurses is never the clinical part. You already do harder things on a Tuesday than anything a first aesthetics or wellness appointment will ask of you. What stalls people is that nobody ever hands them the order of operations, so the whole thing sits as one giant undefined to-do. So let's walk through the order.

What does Five Square actually do to get you started?

Here's the honest version of what the membership is. It's the structure around a nurse-owned practice, so you own the practice and keep the profits, and you don't have to invent the setup from scratch.

Every membership includes:

• A medical director relationship. The medical oversight most states require, arranged for you and licensed where you practice. Sourcing this alone typically runs $1,000 to $3,000 a month, and finding one is where a lot of nurses give up before they start.
• Business and legal setup, walked through step by step. Forming your LLC, your EIN, business banking, insurance, and staying compliant in your state. You're not Googling "how to start an LLC" at midnight after a shift.
• Training and certification, virtually. Most aesthetics nurses go through the Launch While You Learn virtual training and get certified and confident without waiting on an in-person course. Wellness and functional health nurses build on skills you already use, so the training meets you where your license already is.
• Your EMR, set up with you. Charting through Aesthetic Record, at member pricing, configured during onboarding instead of left for you to sort out.
• Pharmacy and product accounts. The vendor and store accounts you need to actually order product, opened for you, with member pricing.
• Marketing and sales support. Templates, strategy, and real help filling your calendar, plus weekly Marketing and Business Development office hours.
• The Five Square Nurse Community. A private network of nurse business owners across 15 states (with a goal of 30 total to be launched by the end of 2026), with weekly live calls, Ask The Expert sessions, and a forum where someone has already asked the question you're about to ask.

That last one is the piece screenshots explain better than words. Inside the community there's an entire "Getting Started" track that maps to exactly this: Start Here, a Getting Started Guide, Starting Your Business, and a getting-started path for each track you choose.

What the first 30 to 60 days actually look like, step by step

This is the part that answers "where do I start," because it's the actual order. Onboarding runs these in parallel, so business setup, training, and your medical director pairing all move at the same time instead of one blocking the next.

1. Kickoff. You meet your onboarding contact and the community. You get your welcome and your first "do this next" list, so there's never a blank screen.
2. Your business, formed. LLC, EIN, and business banking, walked through with you. Insurance sorted. This is the paperwork wall that stops most people, and it's handled early so nothing downstream waits on it.
3. Your medical director, paired. You're introduced to your medical director and get set up for the oversight your state requires. You watch the training video, then connect directly with Dr. John McRae's team to get moving.
4. Your accounts, opened. Aesthetic Record for charting, plus your pharmacy and product accounts so you can order what you need at member pricing.
5. Your training. You move through the Launch While You Learn modules at your own pace, virtually, and get certified as you go. Wellness and functional health nurses lean on the clinical skills they already have.
6. Your first marketing. Your first outreach, your service menu, and your pricing get built with you. The community walks you through your first posts and your first patient conversations.
7. Your first patients. You start seeing people. Most new members hit this inside 30 to 60 days, because everything above ran at the same time instead of in a line.

None of this is a "here's a course, good luck" handoff. There's a live New Member Onboarding call every week, weekly Ask The Expert sessions, and Marketing and Business Development office hours, so when you get stuck, you get unstuck the same week.

You start before you feel ready, and that's on purpose

Most programs make you wait. You watch every module, sit through every call, and someday down the road you finally see a patient. By then, half the people who started have lost momentum, and some never book anyone at all.

Five Square is built the other way. You start your practice while you're still finishing the training, because the training sticks when there's a real patient on next week's calendar. Kayla, an ER nurse in North Carolina, had never injected anyone when she joined. She watched the videos, took notes, and set a goal of 30 people in 30 days. Here's how she put the advice she'd give another nurse who's scared to start:

"Believe in yourself, even when you don't know how to do something. Figure it out. The clinical knowledge from your nursing career is more than enough to get started, and there's a community of people around you who want to help. Do it scared."

She launched April 4. Her first month: 46 appointments, 28 good-faith exams, and $10,320 in revenue, run out of a single room inside a salon she'd been a client at for years. Results like that depend on your market and the hours you put in, so treat her month as one real example and not a promise. The point is she was exactly where you are, "never done this before," and she started anyway.

Do nurses actually succeed after they launch?

Getting launched is step one. What you probably want to know is whether it works after that. Here's the honest picture, including the numbers, because income claims in this industry deserve a skeptical read.

Results vary a lot, and they depend on things no membership controls: your market, your hours, how long you've been building, and how consistently you market. As practices mature, many established members report months in the $10,000 to $20,000 range. Some months land higher and some lower, and nobody at Five Square will promise you a number.

What's more useful than any single figure is the math underneath, which is public. Neurotoxin appointments bring in $200 to $600. A syringe of filler runs $500 to $800. IV sessions run $150 to $350. Functional health consults run $150 to $300, often with patients coming back monthly. A part-time practice covers its $899 membership with two to four appointments a month, and everything past that is the business growing. If you want to see what that looks like with your own pricing and services, you can run your own numbers in the Five Square membership earnings calculator.

The nurses themselves say it better than a revenue range does:

"Five Square Aesthetics & Wellness is the reason I was able to launch my career as an aesthetic nurse injector. From setting up my business and legal support of creating an LLC and making sure I'm compliant within my state, to getting set up with an EMR, having a dedicated medical director, weekly live calls with experts, monthly community meetings, to a vast network of nurse entrepreneurs at all stages of business, it was the best decision I made." - Krystle N., 5-star Google review

"As a nurse, taking risks is not in our vocabulary. Five Square made me excited about starting my own business. Timely responses, professional, highly knowledgeable, and a team that wants to see me succeed. I say my risk was absolutely worth it." - Patricia G., 5-star Google review

"I started with Five Square last spring and they have helped me every step of the way. They offer an abundance of resources to help you be successful. Trainings, weekly meetings, and check-ins." - Kendra P., 5-star Google review

Inside the community, the wins show up in real time. A nurse a few weeks into her launch posted that she was already up to eight bookings, most from people she'd never met, nearly all of it from one post in a local mom's Facebook group. Another shared that she signed up for the same-day exam tool and saw a husband and wife for their good-faith exams in under ten minutes when her clinical director wasn't available. Scroll the forum on any given week and it's full of small wins like these, from nurses at every stage.

Five Square's Google rating sits at 4.8 stars, and the reviews consistently name the same things: the setup help, the medical director, the training, and a team that answers when you're stuck.

What does it cost?

Straight answer, because the price matters and hiding it wastes your time.

Membership is $899 a month for one track, $1,299 for two, and $1,699 for all three. You can add a specialty to an existing membership for $400 a month. You pick aesthetics, wellness, functional health, or any combination, and plenty of nurses start with one and add later.

The part that surprises most nurses is how low the startup costs actually are. You don't need thousands sitting in the bank to begin. A box of tox runs around $300 and pays for itself fast once you're injecting, malpractice insurance is under $100 a month, and Aesthetic Record is about $200 to set up and roughly $15 a month after that. You can be seeing patients on a few hundred dollars of supplies and reorder product as your schedule fills. There's no percentage of your revenue taken out either, so it's a flat monthly membership and the practice stays yours.

Is Five Square legit, and do you take a cut of what I make?

Fair questions, and the ones every smart nurse asks a search bar before booking a call. Five Square supports nurse-owned practices across 15 states, with a goal of 30 by the end of 2026. Members run their own LLCs, own their own patient relationships, and keep their profits. Five Square does not take a percentage. The membership provides the structure: the medical director, the training, the compliant setup, the accounts, the marketing, and the community.

Compliance is handled state by state, including states with strict ownership rules. The discovery call is a two-way fit conversation, and the team will tell you when the honest answer is "not yet" or "start smaller."

So where do you actually start?

You start with a 15-minute conversation about your license, your state, and what you want your practice to look like. You bring the skepticism and the questions. The team maps the path, tells you what your first 60 days would look like, and is upfront if now isn't your moment.

If "I don't know where to start" has been the thing keeping you parked, this is where you start. It's one call, and you'll leave it with a real answer about whether this fits your life right now.

Schedule a discovery call

Frequently Asked Questions

I don't know where to start. What's the first step to opening my own nurse practice? The first step is a discovery call. From there, Five Square walks you through the order of operations most nurses get stuck on: forming your LLC, legal and compliance setup, pairing you with a medical director, training and certification, your EMR, your product accounts, and your first marketing. These run in parallel during onboarding, and most new members see their first patient within 30 to 60 days.

Do I have to quit my nursing job to start? No. Most nurses start part-time and keep their paycheck while the practice proves itself, building in evenings and on weekends and scaling in on their own timeline.

How fast can I start seeing patients? Many new members see their first patients within 30 to 60 days, because the medical director relationship, business setup, and training all run at the same time during onboarding rather than one after another.

What does Five Square include? A medical director relationship, business and legal setup guidance, virtual training and certification, EMR setup at member pricing, pharmacy and product accounts, marketing and sales support, and the private Five Square Nurse Community with weekly live calls and expert sessions. Everything runs through the free Five Square Nurses app, so you can access it all from your phone.

How much does Five Square cost? $899 a month for one track, $1,299 for two, and $1,699 for all three, with add-on specialties at $400 a month. Startup costs are low: a box of tox is around $300, malpractice insurance is under $100 a month, and Aesthetic Record is about $200 to set up and roughly $15 a month after that.

How much do Five Square nurses make? Results vary widely by market, hours, and how long a practice has been building. As practices mature, many established members report months in the $10,000 to $20,000 range, with occasional standouts higher. No honest program promises a specific income.

Does Five Square take a percentage of my revenue? No. Members own their practices and keep their profits. The membership is a flat monthly fee.

Do I need to already know how to inject? No. Most aesthetics nurses get certified through the Launch While You Learn virtual training, so you don't have to wait on an in-person course to start. Wellness and functional health nurses build on the clinical skills they already use.

What states does Five Square operate in? Nurses run practices across 15 states, with a goal of 30 by the end of 2026 and the highest concentration in the Pacific Northwest. A discovery call is the fastest way to confirm your state.