Entrepreneurship usually starts with recognizing a potential idea and patiently working to make it long-lasting. Across the United States, small businesses contribute a significant portion to the nation’s economy, highlighting the ongoing importance of individual initiative. Some settle on a single industry for their career, while others hop between sectors, with a recurring creative ethos applied to quite disparate markets. It is in this second group that Nathan Larson’s career falls, across hospitality, experiential marketing, photography, and healthcare technology.
In 2010, he co-founded the Snapdragon Inn in Windsor, Vermont, which converted the historic home of literary editor Maxwell Perkins into a boutique lodging property. The fact that the property was originally a residence with ties to authors like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway gave the project a unique cultural context. Under Larson’s leadership, the inn combined modern amenities with a focus on preserving the building’s heritage, aligning with Vermont’s tourism industry, which attracted millions of visitors that year, according to state records. His approach demonstrated how innovation could be harmonized with effective business planning to support a sustainable venture.
After the Snapdragon Inn, Larson helped form the Windsor Station Pub in Vermont. It became a local hangout for visitors and residents during the same time frame that he formed NL WILSON, LLC, a holding company overseeing a portfolio of projects in experience marketing, hospitality, automotive services, and retail. This framework enabled a series of small businesses to pool administrative resources and test new consumer experiences during a period when boutique operations were making inroads against large chains. In developing a single model for disparate activities, Larson illustrated how cross-industry thinking can assist small regional businesses.
Larson’s entrepreneurial vision spilled over from conventional hospitality. He became part of the team that opened the Land Rover Experience Driving Schools in North America. This program allows customers to test-drive the company’s vehicles on off-road terrain. He oversaw adventure schools and outdoor activities for high-end resorts throughout the continent over the next few years. They included fly-fishing schools, sporting-clay instruction, falconry programs, and other outdoor facilities aimed at attracting visitors seeking unique recreation. In 2015, visits to luxury resorts in the United States were reportedly seeing consistent growth, reflecting an ongoing industry trend toward curated experiences, a shift that Larson’s efforts aligned with.
By the mid of the next decade, Larson was taking the same focus on customer experience to the healthcare sector, which was struggling with increasing costs and an aging population. In 2016, U.S. healthcare spending reached a significant milestone, presenting both challenges and opportunities for industry innovators. Using his marketing and service design experience, Larson collaborated with Dartmouth-Hitchcock, a New Hampshire-based academic medical center where entrepreneurs and physicians were exploring new models for patient care. Out of this partnership came the concept for ImagineCare, a chronic disease management service line that employed remote medical sensing to monitor patient health and promote improved behavior.
ImagineCare, established in 2014, was among the early ventures to integrate remote patient monitoring with a focus on consumer-friendly design. Larson was a co-founder, emphasizing how behavior change can be fostered through open communication and accessible technology. Remote monitoring programs were becoming more widely accepted then. A 2017 survey by the American Hospital Association indicated a significant rise in hospitals adopting telehealth relationships with patients and consulting physicians compared to previous years. ImagineCare’s model reflected many of the features that have since become common in telehealth platforms, particularly following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Following his time at ImagineCare, Larson worked in healthcare innovation in a variety of positions. He joined Optum, a UnitedHealth Group division, where he worked on population health strategies. He then joined UnitedHealth’s Research and Development team, where he worked on Level2, a program for Type 2 diabetes remission through personalized treatment and ongoing monitoring. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that in 2020, millions of Americans were living with diabetes, and initiatives like Level2 aimed to address the scope of this public health challenge.
Larson’s later roles extended his reach into mental health and virtual care. He moved to Health Rhythms, a wholly owned subsidiary working on passive-sensing technologies for mental health management. Eventually, he worked at Teladoc, the largest virtual healthcare service provider in the United States. Both jobs provided him with opportunities to leverage his skills in designing the consumer experience for remote and tech-based services, a space that grew exponentially during the COVID-19 pandemic. By 2021, telehealth usage had increased significantly from pre-pandemic levels, according to a McKinsey & Company report, underscoring the relevance of this research.
In the course of these evolution processes, Larson has held fast to a consistent methodology that blends creativity with operations planning. From the adaptive reuse of a Vermont historic building to the design of a patient-focused digital health platform, his work is united by an emphasis on how individuals engage with services. Peers have characterized his approach as one in which the story of a location or product is as important as the dollar metrics, a nod to his early career as a photographer and storyteller.
Larson’s career also reflects the larger shift toward interdisciplinary entrepreneurship. Statistics from the Kauffman Foundation indicate that almost half of all new entrepreneurs in the United States today are coming from outside traditional business fields, with more and more bringing backgrounds in the arts or sciences into their firms. By synthesizing artistic education with business development and healthcare strategy, Larson embodies this new profile of American entrepreneur.
Today, he still coaches start-ups through the Black River Innovation Campus in Vermont, providing mentorship to rural-based start-ups. The mentorship position connects to his old interest in community development and experiential learning, offering a bridge between his early career work on hospitality projects and his subsequent research on technology.
Nathan Larson’s journey from small hospitality businesses to healthcare entrepreneurship illustrates how a diversified professional background can provide a basis for innovation. His work demonstrates the potential of creative leadership across disparate industries, including boutique accommodations and digital health. It spans young adulthood and middle age, reflecting a life of wonder and resilience.
