18. How Niki Pham Built RN Forward to Track Nurse-Led Innovation

Welcome to The Bossy Nurse Podcast, a show about nurse creators, innovators, risk-takers, and the ideas that shape their success.

In this episode, Marsha Battee speaks with Niki Pham, RN, Founder and Writer of RN Forward, discusses nurse entrepreneurship, her nurse-founded company database, and why nurses belong in conversations about health tech, AI, and innovation. .

Find the all the resources mentioned in the show and full details at The Bossy Nurse website.

Transcript

Marsha 0:08

Welcome to another episode of the Bossy Nurse Podcast. I'm Marsha Bati, your host. And today we are going live with Nikki Fam, and she is the founder of R and Ford. We're going to talk about all of that good stuff. So I brought Nikki on because she does a lot of work and research with nurse entrepreneurs. And I can't wait to get into that conversation with her. And she has so much to share, not only with the research she does, but with her own database of nurse-founded companies. So let's welcome Nikki. And Nikki, if you could give us 30 seconds of who Nikki is.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

I know the feel. Nikki is 31, living in San Francisco Bay Area, which is how I kind of fell into this ecosystem really. I love matcha, boba. I still work as a bedside nurse. And then on the side, I do research on nurse entrepreneurship.

Marsha 1:04

Yes, and we're going to get into all of that good work. But first, um, like I start off probably with every Bossy Nurse podcast, let's talk about your origin story or, you know, where did you grow up? Was nursing always a part of your thought process when you were younger and that you were going to go into nursing, or did you just happen into it from how you, you know, moved about the world? But tell us a little bit about where you grew up and what brought you here.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Yes. So I grew up in Houston, Texas, and I actually became a nurse because my dad told me to do it. Like it's very stable. You'll always have a job. And he's true. He's right. Uh, I actually wanted to be a teacher, but it was actually kind of sad now that I think about it, because the teacher I talked to was like, how do I be a teacher? Uh she was like, Don't, don't become a teacher. And I'm low-key kind of happy she told me that because that made me go, okay, well, nursing is teaching. Nursing, uh teaching the patient is kind of sort of the same. Um, and so that's why I decided to do my BSN at the University of Texas. I graduated uh back in um December 2017 and then immediately moved straight to the DC metro area and got my first job as a CIC nurse.

Marsha 2:26

So going back to um going back to getting into nursing school. Now, when you first got into nursing school, your dad told you, hey, this is more stable. Um, of course, uh jobs are, I might get in trouble for saying this, plentiful in the nursing world, although we'll talk about the nursing shortage or nursing shortages. Um did you immediately like nursing when you first started the curriculum? Because you know, the curriculum is very different from, I know, a teaching curriculum. I mean, the first two years are probably learning the, you know, all of your histories and, you know, prerequisites. But did you really start to like nursing when you first fell into it?

SPEAKER_01 3:06

I never disliked nursing. I think the pressure cooker environment that we've created for ourselves, not we created by ourselves, the higher beings at play created for us, has made what is notoriously, not notoriously, um, historically a very good job for women to have, even minority women to have, and level up in a socioeconomic society uh has made it very difficult to stay in. And that's the kind of reckoning we are at at this intersection in time. Can we sustain the nurses we have now to last into the future? Because we are having a somewhat of a brain drain with everyone leaving and staying. So I know I never disliked nursing. And I'm grateful that by the time I hit my two years, COVID had started, uh, I switched to travel nursing. And those chunks of period in between that I would take off is a great reset for the mind. The way I currently work now is I'm per diem. And that scheduling flexibility has allowed me to be like, actually, I need to step back and not do bedside um as intensely as I was. And it's only because of this type of schedule that I can pursue my other nursing passions, which is studying nursing entrepreneurship.

Marsha 4:35

Yeah, I I agree with the sentiment of like working per diem and travel nursing, just the more opportunities for time that you have. Um and you mentioned um in the very beginning that you came to Washington, DC, and I didn't hear the actual um unit you started on. I'm just curious about the unit. I was one of those girls. Oh, in the ICU?

SPEAKER_01 4:58

Yeah. See the ICU too. Um but I uh I'm a lot more relaxed now. Yeah. And uh my uh type A personality is now more geared towards like this entrepreneurship journey. But in my personal type, I would say I'm pretty type B now. I'm pretty like awesome.

Marsha 5:22

Whatever I can figure out. Yeah, turn out it'll figure itself out. So I'm this is on a personal note. I'm a little bit curious. Where did you start off in uh what hospital, if you're able to say that, that did you start off with? And oh, I love the hospital I started at.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

I was at Washington Adventist in Silver City, Maryland. I've worked there. Gosh, okay. I had a new I don't equity. I had a great um mentor. I I loved my preceptor. She made me who I am today. It's a smaller unit, and during that time there was a lot of change because they were emerging their ICU staff from neuro to uh CV all in one. So it was interesting to learn the political dynamics as a new grad as well. And then um it allowed me to cross-train into neuro ICU too, which makes you more marketable. Well, I would just say I'm right personally am such an advocate for new grad programs. Like I every everywhere needs to have them. I know it is extensive and people do leave. Um, I think I'm the only one still working bedside um who has not gone to get a higher degree uh of my cohort of eight people.

Marsha 6:41

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

Probably other things at play for that, but I think Yeah, you were doing a lot of other things. Yeah, I could go back to school, but um that's a whole tan of worms in itself.

Marsha 6:56

Trust me, I know I know. Um yeah, I I started off nursing in Washington, D.C. area. So I was just curious if we had worked at some of the same uh places. Uh I worked at Washington at Venice per diem um for a very small short period of time. And then, but I started off at Washington Hospital Center um down the road.

SPEAKER_01 7:14

I never got center and at DW afterwards because I was like, oh, oh, uh reached the top of what I could do here. I'm ready to do ECMO and Impella and all this stuff. Oh wow.

Marsha 7:24

Oh wow. We gotta we gotta talk about that too. So yeah, and I worked at GW as a per diem nurse as well. So we have a lot of similarities that I'm just discovering on the call. So so yeah, so but I I worked ER, ER work. So um, so yeah, nursing. Um you started off CBICU, and those I think are coveted spots for a lot of nurses. I know a lot of nurses, you know, don't want to really go into med surge, and I'm a firm believer of you don't have to start your career on on med surge. Any nursing, any nursing specialty will give you the foundation of your nursing practice. That's how I believe. Um, I know there are another other uh generations of nurses who um don't really uh adhere to that sort of belief, but um, you started C V I C U Um and you moved, you said you were starting to do ECMO, Neuro. How did all of that come about? Was it really quickly? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

I don't I don't know. I uh had hit the highest level of what you could do pretty much device-wise. Um, and then I just felt like I'm ready to take on more. I was very keen my first two years of nursing school. I was like, I've already had my CRN. I did that like immediately when I hit my hours. I was like, I'm gonna learn everything, blah, blah, blah. Um, and then it I got to GW, phenomenal staff as well. And a COVID hit. So that kind of changed the game, I think, for everybody. And then I started travel nursing and learned what other health systems were like, why they do the things that they do. Um, learned what it was like to work at a unionized hospital versus a non-unionized hospital, um, how people understand evidence-based practice differently, how how we practice in the West Coast is totally different from how we practice in the East Coast. And I would say that these sentiments um also somewhat have similarities in how people and entrepreneurs are building um in the Valley, Silicon Valley, versus how we build an East Coast and New York, which is the other big tech club. So I would argue LA, Nashville, and Austin are kind of in there too. Yeah.

Marsha 9:44

Uh just a brief segue. I wanted to continue on the conversation of COVID hit, you started doing travel nursing. What brought you into the tech world? Because a lot of the work that you're, a lot of the research that you're likely doing, I'm assuming, and the work that you're doing right now with your own dashboard and your own platform is about work in tech, nurses in tech, health tech, biotech, med tech probably. So, how did you get involved in that tech space?

SPEAKER_01 10:17

Yes. So it happened very coincidentally. Uh, I have an apartment and I was looking for a roommate. And so someone who happened to apply, uh, she uh sent me a message. We met in person and she was like, Oh, I'm here in town for this program called Y Combinator. Um, and then a little bit more about me. I uh uh worked on a super yacht and I was just in New York City, and I was like, oh my god, super yacht. That's what I'm interested in. So I was like, I want to live with her because she just lived on a super yacht, didn't even consider what Y Combinator was. Um, lo and behold, uh she was building in healthcare as well. So the company she applied to YC with, um, and for people who don't know, Y Combinator, it is the accelerator that has incubated places like Reddit um companies, like Airbnb, the the companies that we interface with every day, they uh were the first to give them money, yeah, essentially. Uh, and their returns are great. Um, so she uh uh would I would go home from work and she'd be like, Oh, how's your day? And I'd be like, Oh, what are you doing today? And uh I was seeing it real time what being like an early stage founder was like, and she was doing user research interviews, um, pivoting and changing their business plans every day. And it got to the point where she was like, I think that we need to pivot to something else. And then she started user researching me. Um, but for me, it wasn't, it did not feel like I was being interviewed. For me, I was like, let me tell you about what headache I go through every day because those are the problems that you can monetize. And so I'd be like, oh, my colleagues in speech therapy, there's never enough of them, or like uh physical therapy and occupational therapy. They do all of this work, no one builds for them. Like, how to what who's looking towards them? Um and we would talk about like random things, and so she invited me to go to a networking event. She was like, Oh, I'm going to this thing called Health Tech Hang. If anyone is in the Bay Area, uh, they are they do happy hours every month. And uh you go in person, you meet people in the industry. And I was like, Oh, there's uh chicken wings. I I'll I'll be there. Uh so we went together, and when I got there, I was like, wow, people actually um like they don't know what they're doing. It's just like the the disconnect from real life healthcare being practiced is so different from this ideal world that they are building for. And so I ended up talking to a lot of people being like, that's not gonna work because you're gonna hit this hurdle when you're implementing, or like they're like, oh, this is the product that I have, which this is not the way you should build. Um, but they're like, oh, this is a cool tech solution that I have. Um, where can I sell it to? You should always start with your problem first and then know who you're selling to first, by the way. Um, so I helped them fine-tune that too. And she was like, You're uh giving them free advice, you should start charging for this. Uh and so that's how I started um consulting on the side, and then I uh found it very invigorating. I hadn't been very uh fulfilled by the Ed Sai nursing for a long time. All of that energy I had as a new grad dissipated uh during COVID. And so I was pretty much going to work just to go to work, really. Um, but nothing that filled my cup until she introduced me to this very interesting and creative world where you can use your domain expertise that all nurses have to create solutions. Uh there's there's something to be said about entrepreneurship when you're building within a healthcare system and you're making change just within that system. But I have found that if we as a nursing community want to elevate our voice influence powered standing within the world, you gotta go extra outside of the hospital. You gotta go entrepreneurship and you gotta make billions. Not millions, yeah, billions.

Marsha 15:01

And you know, I'm glad you brought that up. I read an article, I think you were interviewed, I can't remember by which publication, um, A, it may have been but you were talking about entrepreneurship and how, and I see this often that we have med tech or health tech solutions that focus on nursing within a large health system, and they always want the nurses' feedback, or they always want nurses to begin these projects, start these projects. They'll even host contests on how you, you know, can come up with solutions on how to fix these things. And then and you spoke about this in the article about how we are creating whole businesses within an organization where we can actually, you know, give our you know, expertise to create and build something that's gonna make that healthcare organization millions and billions of dollars, whereas we can go outside and just do it on our own. But we are pulled into that healthcare organization and uh their processes and hey, let's let's let's give you, you know, the time off, let's give you a four-hour part of your shift so you can go work on this idea for the health healthcare, you know, for for our organization. So you can build this great thing and you'll get the recognition, but we don't get the dollars. So aren't war. Yeah. And so yeah, I I just when you said that, I just remember that conversation you were talking about. And it's so true because um I'm looking online a lot nowadays and reading a lot about um help tech and med tech companies, um, biotech companies, but mostly help tech and med tech companies that are started by people who are non-clinicians. Um, I actually set up a Claude workflow AI in AI where I have Claude email me every day if it can go out and find a tech company that's made with AI that has no nurse founder, that has no nurse on the team. So that's just part of a workflow that I've done for myself because I'm interested to see how what products and services or solutions that they're making that involve frontline healthcare workers, but they don't even have healthcare workers on their team. And like you said, when you went to that Y Combinator event, um, it's just interesting that people are building solutions for healthcare, but they don't have the knowledge or the expertise or the skills or the background to do so. So we have ample opportunity to, you know, bring the solutions that we have on a daily basis. We think of things every day that can improve our processes. We have that knowledge, we have the expertise to do it. And so I think we should all advocate for one another in, you know, doing this work. And just to go back, you mentioned Y Combinator, and you sort of, you know, gave a little bit of information about what that was. If you're interested in learning about funding and the basics of funding, everybody go back to the episode I had with Dr. Dan Weberg, where we talked about um venture capital, um, nurse capital, the venture company that he's a part of as well. Go back and listen to that episode where you'll get all the basics on what venture capital and funding, healthcare, med tech, biotech companies are. Um, and then we can talk about what Nikki actually does in her platforms. So she's been researching this topic for over three years and nurse entrepreneurship, economics of nurse entrepreneurship. And so let's talk about that. Let's talk about the research that you've been doing and what where how you found yourself, you know, building a database of companies for nurse founders.

SPEAKER_01 18:45

I realized that there actually have been a lot of nurses who've done the risk taking and have built scalable companies. It is just not written down anywhere. And the more research that I did, the more I realized like, what a lonely road it is to be a nurse founder and build alone. I found that the more nurses that I started talking to, I'm like, so how did you learn, you know, how to build your advisory board? How do you know, you know, if you if this is a good deal or not, if you're giving away your equity for this in exchange? Or how do you know if you need a fractional hire versus, and this could be like a fractional CFO, uh chief financial officer to do your accounting. When are you ready to start hiring fractional people versus hiring people full-time? How do you uh navigate the co-founder relationship? That's also another big one. And they were just like, honestly, it was very isolating. And I uh just did the best that I could with the resource that I had. And I found that it was more so important to me that I take all of this information I learned and I make it public. So, what I did with the nurse um founder company database that I have live on my website or in Forward is that I just did a major rehaul. And now you can click on the nurse founder and it will lead you directly to their LinkedIn. Reach out to them. And if you are building within a certain business model, say care delivery, or you're building in software, uh, you can filter it and then it'll show you all the companies uh that have are currently active andor inactive, and you can find nurses to reach out to there. I've also done um a thorough research on what accelerators they participated in. So if you're like, oh, I want to apply for Antler in um Austin, what is Antler like? Uh, you can reach out to the founder there. And or even directly click and then read their website. And then another thing you can see there is who has gone through the motions raising capital. Uh, Dan talks about how Nurse Capital with their Nurse Founders fund, even though they're a small fund, they focus on more late pre seed to early stage A company. So that means that the company is still early enough where their valuation is not very high. So you can get better returns that way. But that means that sometimes a pre seed to series A company is not making that much revenue yet. So there's a lot more moldability there. You can ask those nurses, like, hey, what was it like raising money to go from pre seed to seed? What were the expectations? Oh, who invested in you? Can you introduce me to that investor? Because they know what it's like to invest in a nurse founder. They know the work ethic of a nurse founder and our domain expertise. So that it's like kind of straight to the noise. Because if you're gonna cast your net stupid. And be like, I'll take money from everybody, that is not a smart or strategic decision to make. One of the findings of my study is that if you are invested in by a tier one company, your chances of reaching my definition, our definition of scale is 100%. If you can convince a Sequoia capital, a flare capital, a 16Z to give money to you, automatically 100% of the time, you will reach our definition of scale. My definition of scale to be included in the company at the scale's company is if you one have raised a million dollars or more. And by raise, it could be in research funding. NIH gives tons of money away. It's just more geared to people who are in academic. So they kind of had have a leg up on that. You can um win prize money. That also counts to your uh number of raised money. Or I think have 51 employees or more. To have 51 employees or more, there's a lot of work to be done. You're making money. So there's a reason why you have such a high employee count. So that's one other um qualification for scale. And the final one is acquisition. An acquisition can be an exit. Somebody was like, oh my God, this business is so good. I'm gonna pay you millions of dollars for it. And then I'm gonna buy your company. That counts as an exit. Or you can um an IPO also counts as an exit. And that's when your company goes live on the stock exchange. Like um, I think hinge help IPO'd, even though they're not run by nurses. But um that's that's like the dream. And the ultimate dream is to be valued at over a hundred um uh billion dollars, which you're now considered as a unicorn company. Um, and that's where I want nurses to go. And so this database kind of keeps everything in one area. I'm always updating it. And so when more news articles show up about this company falling, maybe they're your competitor, maybe not. Um, you can you can track it. Um, if they've recently raised more money, uh, the number count of how much they've raised will go up. And this way uh I'm able to see like how are nurse founders actually doing within the broader market of building in healthcare. Uh, right now we have raised, all nurse founders have raised about 639 billion. But it's really interesting because most of that money, like a third of that money, went to staffing companies. And the timing of it is also interesting because I was during COVID, we were really feeling the crunch on staffing. And so they went to all those travel nurse agencies. Uh, a lot of per diem nurse staffing agencies like your care revs, your IntelliCare, uh, were the ones that also have raised, I think, like Series C or higher. But in this new day and age where, you know, AI is democratizing building software. If I wanted to build something like you did with your notification at Workflow, subscribe to the podcode. Like, yeah, get a codex, build it today. It won't be the prettiest code, uh, but it is an MVP, and that can help you sell your product to the people who are willing to give you money to buy, or even hire like proper chief technical officer so you can scale even higher. Then um, I mean, it it works. Yeah. So starting to see a lot more people building in software too, which I think is very interesting. Yeah. So I'm keen to see where this goes.

Marsha 25:59

Thank you, Nikki. And I know Nikki has mentioned many different terms on this particular episode. She's mentioned NG Chay, Sequoia Capital, A16C, which are venture capital uh capital firms, um, accelerated programs, seed money, pre uh A C A, you know, A B, you know, rounds. Um, so you can get all of that information again in the Dr. Dan Weberg episode. We talk about all of those definitions so you know exactly what um she's talking about, because I know this language isn't really, you know, native to nurses at all. We don't, we don't, we're not taught this stuff in nursing school. Um, we're not taught any of this information about venture funding, venture capital. You know, we just don't get those programs unless it's those new and innovative programs that teach innovation. Um, and I know Dr. Weberg had um talks about innovation programs on that particular podcast episode as well. So I'll share the episode link in the actual show notes. And so I wanted to go back and talk about the requirements for being on your platform. I know um 51, 50 plus employees is one, um raised a million dollars in funding plus or um and what I think there are two other requirements. Just one more. Yes, one more. Yeah, you have to be acquired. So you have to to be on your platform, do you have to do all three of those things or one of the three? Okay, so uh good to know. Um, there we had an episode in the first season with Sarah Bose. She actually sold her company as well. And and I I don't know if she's on your platform already, but she did sell her company. So if you're interested in learning about that whole process of how nurses start from selling in a Facebook group, a program for $15, which is what she did, starting in a Facebook group of a of a two or three hour video program, you know, that she just created for her, the people in her community, selling it for $15 in her Facebook group, launch, launching that into a multi-million dollar business and then selling it and exiting that company to sell it to, you know, another, another, um, I think it was a um learning platform for nurses, like in terms of credentials and and uh test prep and things like that. So I'll put that link in the episode as well so you can see how people can start off with very humble beginnings, um, which is the way that Zerevo started off um with as well. Now, when people want to actually get onto your platform, they have those three requirements or one of the three requirements. Now, do they just reach out to you, you know, on the platform?

SPEAKER_01 28:40

Email me.

Marsha 28:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:41

I'm always talking LinkedIn, trying to find all these points. So if you know of someone, let me know. There is a um, there's a prompt workflow that I've hashed out that will tell me if you are included or not included. I'm hitting borderline um findings all the time. I had to be very strict in the criteria because, for example, staffing companies. Many nurses have started staffing companies. Uh, I am not particularly interested in adding every nurse-founded staffing company. Yes, the business model scales, uh, but to be a meaningful staffing company, I have raised the standards for that. However, if you are a company that builds in healthcare and has an impact in healthcare, there are small uh nuances that we look for. For example, if you're selling a electrolyte brand and you are a nurse, you will not qualify. Your product is direct to consumers. There is no evidence behind the product that you are selling that it does actually have health benefits, therefore you will not be included. However, if you're if you have done research on this one electrolyte, and there is like so many papers out there and it's proven to work, and you have doctors telling the patients, be like, you need to be on this electrolyte supplement, or you've your health will get worse, then you qualify. Because now it's backed by science and people are actually recommending recommending it. And my criteria for people who are selling direct to consumer is a lot more strict, too, because there are a lot of direct-to-consumer products that toe the line of health and wellness, but uh, I want systemic healthcare impact. And so if you sell directly to businesses or health systems, the odds of you getting into the database is higher.

Marsha 30:53

Okay. So there, and this makes me think about coaches out there, just a number of coaches, you know, how we have health coaches who are yeah, and they're and they're selling just directly to, you know, whether their product or solution is for nurses individually or um just direct to consumer where they're doing coaching services, even though um they may have the credentials to prove that their programs are successful, um, that probably would not qualify, I'm assuming, since it's not systemic.

SPEAKER_01 31:24

Unless you are selling your coaching business, let's say, for example, you do GLP1 health coaching. That's where I'm um yeah, girl. It's it's a very popular business model right now. Is it just you as a coach or have you hired a ton of people to do this coaching because the demand is so high? Uh, are you paying out of pocket? Are you partnered with a health system? Are you partnered with an insurer? That's that extra little level of guilty that I want. Because if you're just um sending email blasts to or on TikTok trying to get people of their own volitions sign up for you, that is not enough to get into the industry or into the database. Um, but if you're working with an insurer, like you, you have established a systemic presence because now you have access to the millions of people under this insurer uh and they see an ROI, a return on investment, and you have been able to prove that you're saving this insurer, I don't know, millions of dollars with your coaching. So it's it's a little bit more sticky versus um, I coach and I will write you a health plan. Yeah, yeah. To the people who are doing that, because there is a market for that, it is just not scalable within the defined nurse-founded company um metrics we have set out.

Marsha 32:53

And so I see too, and uh correct me on the number. I from the time of this uh recording, I think you had about 80 plus companies on your uh website. And I'm curious because that's a large number to me for basic venture-backed nursing companies. I mean, most if they were venture-backed, but I feel like that's a large number in the nursing world. Um, so I'm curious what lessons have you learned from the research on those companies and the information that you know about those companies that you could sort of impart to any nurse who's thinking of starting a business in terms of, you know, the best tips that you may have or the things that they should not do because of what you've seen with the companies you've actually researched? Um, I'm just curious if there's any advice or, you know, any type of feedback or suggestions that you could um give to a nurse who is just starting out with something that will with the potential of being a systemic or system-wide sort of solution within healthcare. Or not, it doesn't even have to be in healthcare, does it? It needs to be in healthcare. It needs to be in healthcare. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 34:07

So what type of I can't add your shoe brand or your scrum company. Sorry. Um, and to be clear, the 86 that I have published right now, I actually have 125. Um, and that'll come out with the next launch. So subscribe. Um, shameless plug. Um the 86 that I have right now are all companies that have scaled or have the potential to scale. So if you have a business model, you just started out, and you don't have to be like, I have $215,000 that I got in a check, blah, blah, blah, to be included. Um, your business model just has need to have the potential to scale. Of the 86 that I have now, 40, 54% have actually reached our scale metric. Um, so that's like a good amount. We're just finding that it's the network access problem that we as nurses don't have the uh connections to that is getting us to that next stage of where we can grow rapidly. As for your question about like what advice I would give nurses to nurses just starting out, uh, and I think Dan mentioned this too. Are you ready to commit your entire decade of your life to this problem? Is it something that you are willing to quit your job for? Um go home, talk to your family members, and be like, are can you support me through the trials and tribulations of the next decade? Because it's like a super bumpy road. Uh there are a lot of like things, this will affect your life a lot. And finding that balance for you is going to be also trial and error. And you could also get easily burnt out. Um, so sit down and ask yourself and ask what support systems you have before going down this very long, arduous path. Um and then I would also say the business category you're building in definitely determines what your path to scale looks like. For example, if you're gonna build in medical devices, you cannot bootstrap that. There are zero companies in the database that have been able to bootstrap a medical device. And this is because there's a very heavy break challenge as a medical device. You need to get it patent, you get you very often get it multiple tested multiple times before you can even sell the product. You need to go through FDA regulations to do that. You need lawyers, you need people who can help you navigate getting um an FDA regulation. So if you're building a medical device, um, the returns are high because you can sell it, you know, per unit. I don't know, depends. Um so that way, if you're going that route, a lot of people in the database have done it through getting grants. So you need almost some type of research institution to back you, is the trend that I have seen. If you're building care delivery, like you can bootstrap the house down and just sell your company for a million dollars. That has also been done. That uh infinity infusion services is like our girl in the database. She uh uh Amy Rosewright started her company during COVID, I believe. And she had all of the network connections to start her infusion business. She knew the pharmacy uh decision makers. She at distribution, all she needed to do was set up an LLC and start hiring nurses because the income from uh these pharmacies, specialty pharmacies needing a nurse to do infusions at home, the demand was high and she can get that contract. And she actually sold her uh company for $50 million without taking a single dime of outside money. That's the way, honestly, that's the way to do it because you have 100% control of your company. Uh you keep, you you keep the whole $50 million too. So that's pretty nice. Uh, I think oftentimes there's a glamorization of people being like, oh, I've raised $25 million from this venture capital money. I think the sexy thing now that everyone is talking about is what you were able to build on very little. Yeah. Because now you have, you can be like, oh, I only gave away 15% of my company. And that's a flex. Yeah. And you maintain control of your company because you're the one doing it day to day, and you're seeing how the market is moving, and the customers are asking you for this. So why the heck are you still building this thing like two iterations ago? And to update your board members who also hold shares every day and like pull them along in this, like, this is where the market is taking us, just to get their vote to be like, yes, you can pivot over. Um, is also kind of annoying. There's a lot of politics behind that as well, and a lot of uh intrapersonal relationship management there too. And then if you give up too much of your company, I mean they can kick you out, and then all this hard work that you've done um would be for naught, other than an experience, I guess. Is that a kind of but uh there's a lot of things you need to consider um when you are building your product down to the category that you want to build in, uh, and you know, the sacrifices you have to make personally and then the sacrifices you have to make business-wise when you invite uh other chefs into the kitchen.

Marsha 39:58

That's what so much, so much wealth of information. Um, and if you're interested in learning more about some of the companies that um Nikki has highlighted, go to rnforward.com. This is where you can just start your whole research process. Even if you've never heard of this world of entrepreneurship, nurse entrepreneurship, nurses building companies that they're able to exit and sell, you know, for multiple millions of dollars. Um, I think going to rn4.com will give you like sort of like that baseline knowledge to know that there are companies out there doing that, not just the big, you know, Airbnbs and the Ubers and you know, this big social media companies. So um so with that said, and I'll include that link in the show notes, of course. Without said, I'm I'm curious that so with this database that you're building, this is going to be, I mean, it is a wealth of information that you have already. Where do you see this information and data taking us into the future? Um, do you see it like as a sort of pipeline for venture capital firms who aren't necessarily tied into the nursing community to sort of see that nursing nurses are creating amazing companies and we're just as competent and capable as you know, some of the companies that they're seeing from day to day? Um, or where where do you see it going?

SPEAKER_01 41:23

I'm a strong believer in that nurses have the domain expertise to build the products that we are going to use every day. And I think we should finally stand up and say, and I want to make money off of that, because that was my idea. I think the database, because it's a living, breathing, live database, is great for many different types of stakeholders. For we've mostly been talking about other nurses or nurses who want to explore entrepreneurship. But, you know, a venture capital firm who is doing due diligence and they're thinking, do I want to invest in nurses? I don't know. There are not many nurse founders. They can go to this database and see, well, historically, nurses have been able to raise money. They have been able to take um this company and exit Nikimes, or they've been able to take this company and raise up to Series D or E, and these companies are still alive. Uh, I think that's very valuable for people looking to invest in nurses. I think it's all also valuable for policymakers to start looking at this as well because they're they I want them to see a dollar sign on your head because right now we're negative dollar signs. I want them to see like, oh, if we actually invest in innovation within our healthcare system and not make it a quality improvement project, um, and actually let you retain your IP and make a little money off of off of your idea. You'd be like, okay, we'd like to invest in this idea. You can pilot it at our health institution. Um, and then we want 15% of your company's shares. That is way more than the four hours of education time that they're gonna give you. And that's frankly, what I think you deserve. Because all the tiers that you've done to uplift your health system, it needs to give back to you. I think it also will create more of an engagement within the nursing community because we have checked out. There's no skin in the game for us. It it feels like we are a cog in the wheel and you're easily replaceable. But what they don't know is all of this domain expertise can really generate them some money and money talk. So uh that kind of what I see this database being for nurses. Uh, I'm uh pushing really hard to make it free. Uh, and honestly, I might just keep it free. Uh I I don't see myself monetizing the database at all. All I ask is for a subscribe to my newsletter. And the newsletter is where I talk about more of the daily updates, not daily, monthly updates on what's happening within healthcare and innovation and entrepreneurship. What companies are building for nurses? Because I know you are tracking that as well. You need to add me to that. So like have that, them send me a notification to my email too. I have a separate place of me tracking companies that are um building as nurses at for and your nurses as end users too. But yes, that's kind of where I'm seeing this going. And I'm gonna do my hardest and not be swayed to keep this as something that is free for all nurses to use forever.

Marsha 44:57

Awesome. Thank you so much, Nikki. Um and before we wrap up, uh I do have a question that I'm curious about. Now, I'm in AI every day. I'm, you know, building small things and workflows with uh cloud code and using codecs as well, um, open AI, um, you know, using all types of things like GitHub and stuff to sort of um launch things into the world, you know, or just from my eyes only, just to see what I can create. So I am actually curious at how you created uh the dashboard yourself. Um, did you, you know, have this idea of doing this work through all the research that you've been doing over the three years? Um, did you say to yourself, okay, so I know how I want to sort of put together this platform? Will I use the AI that's out there or will I go to, you know, hire people to help me to do this? So I'm kind of curious at what your process was in your business and building this dashboard.

SPEAKER_01 45:59

Oh kind of embarrassing, um, but it's not all on a bit. There is because I'm doing research on this, uh they want all the sources. And so while I do use, I used a sonnet, uh Claude Sonnet 4.7 to uh search the internet for it, but I painstakenly went through and archived all of the new sources, all of the uh funding announcements and press releases and pictures of nurses holding a big check and being like they got five thousand dollars from doing this very small, like one day competition. Um, so researchers who look at my body of research can go back and be like, oh, that this is her terrified. Yeah. Right, gone through an human in the loop, uh, have uh validated that all myself. Can it be, can I use AI to generate all of this? Yes, but there's no guarantee that there's not any hallucinations and then pick up numbers. So I've exclusively kept that as just like an internet searching surface. This this is a type of news press, whatever that I'm looking for. Um when I'm in the process of automating the types of articles that I want to link on the database, so uh new um press releases or new wins that the Nurse Founders and their companies have gone through uh can surface in real time. That's one of my um on my do list that keeps growing. Um but my tech stack is very simple. It is um Claude. It is Framer, is my website hosting, and it's Notion. It's a living, breathing notion. And Claude syncs up very well with Notion. And so I WhisperFlow is not a plug. Uh I use Whisperflow because talking is a lot easier than typing. I'll use Whisperflow to prompt Claude to add like this link to that link, whatever. If I'm too man lazy to manually, you know, and paste it into myself. But that's a very simple text. It can be a lot more complex, but I have not had the time to go through and uh AIFI my workflow. Maybe for iteration.

Marsha 48:42

No, but this is good to know. Yeah, yeah. It's good to know that you can actually do this manually. And I think that's a post that I saw you do several months back where you said you're manually entering some things. And I'm like, oh wow, you know, this is you know, starting from the graphic and the basics, and you can actually do that. Um, but yeah, and and like you said, using uh Claude Code or Claude, um I do use Claude Code a lot. Um, Claude has, you know, Claude chat, cowork, and code. So you can use either one of those things to build something just by speaking to it. And I'm glad you brought up WhisperFlow. Whisperflow is just an app where you can talk versus typing everything that you have in your brain. Claude now actually has a feature where um it's not as good as Whisperflow, but Claude does have a feature where you just click the you know microphone button and you just talk to Claude and you tell it what you want it to do. So um, so I wonder if Whisperflow is going to go out of business because of that. And all the other apps who are doing this are going to go out of business because now these AI um companies uh are building the tools that integrate them into them. Um so yeah, so well, thank you, Nikki, so much for sharing all of your wealth of knowledge and the research that you've been doing with nurses and entrepreneurship and giving us the tips, tools, and strategies that we need to actually get started on our own if we're interested in doing so. Um, again, for the nurses who are watching this or listening to this, uh, you can go to rn4.com and just browse the website of nurse entrepreneurs who are building companies, probably similar to the ideas that you already have as a nurse, because we have so many solutions that we have in our head. Um, but these nurses have actually put them down on paper and uh done the work. So that means you can do it as well. And I'll also link um another couple of podcast episodes that I mentioned here with Sarah Bose and actually Dr. Dan Weberg. So you can listen to those episodes all about venture capital and you know, starting a business and selling it for multiple millions of dollars just by, you know, yeah, yeah. Uh selling billion. Yeah, uh just by selling uh small products um and then moving that into something bigger. I do have one more question. Um more question. Innovator, creator or risk taker? Which one would you describe yourself as? Creator or risk taker.

SPEAKER_01 51:12

Or innovator. Um or innovator. Well, is an innovator inherently also a creator and risk taker? Whatever you feel it is. Now I'm like philosophically, uh, I say innovator. Okay. Just based off of my thought process where I'm like, well, one is all of the it's it cut encapsulates everything. So I would say innovator.

Marsha 51:38

Awesome. Okay, thank you so much, Nikki. It was a pleasure to have you on the show, and I'll chat with you offline. Bye.