The a16z Show - The Hustler's Guide to Nursing Jobs

Episode Date: March 30, 2020

This is the next cycle (Q1 2020) of Hustlin' Tech, a podcast series (from the a16z Podcast) about technology platforms that create opportunities for people. Recorded right before the coronavirus pandemic, these next 3 episodes touch on many things that are top of mind right now: from the profession of nursing; to taking care of the elderly; to fighting bureaucracy to get money and time back (and to get help delaying utility bills and rent payments that are eligible for an extension or waiver of late fees due to the coronavirus crisis).Episode #4, “The Hustler’s Guide to Nursing Jobs” features:Iman Abuzeid, MD, CEO and co-founder of Incredible Health, a hiring platform for nurses in the U.S. used by hospitals and health systems that helps hospitals find nurses faster, offers free continuing education to nurses everywhere, and puts nurses at the center.Stephanie Anyanwu, RN, who found her nursing job on the platform and also journeyed to the U.S. from abroad;...both interviewed by Ben Horowitz and Shaka Senghor.You can find the first cycle of this series (Q4 2019) -- including more about the what and the why -- here. Stay Updated:Find a16z on YouTube: YouTubeFind a16z on XFind a16z on LinkedInListen to the a16z Show on SpotifyListen to the a16z Show on Apple PodcastsFollow our host: https://twitter.com/eriktorenberg Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to Hustling Tech, the show that helps you if you have ambition and drive and need to get started, get into the tech world, and take advantage of the opportunities. Today with us, we have Iman, who is CEO of Incredible Health, and Stephanie, who is a hustler on the platform. Now, also with me is my co-host, as always, Shaka Sangor, who hustled his way out of, of the joint and became a best-selling author and all kinds of other stuff. So we're excited to talk to you all the day about all amazing things that you all have been doing. I think the first question I have is like, what was your why? So my why, so by background, I'm a medical doctor. I don't practice at all anymore.

A lot of my family members and friends are doctors and surgeons, and they were often complaining about understaffing, especially not having enough nurses on the floor, not wanting to rely on travel nurses or contract nurses to take care of their patients. And then at the same time, my co-founder, Rome Portlock, he's a software engineer from MIT, he's been building software for 15, 20 years, but sisters are nurses. And even though they're experienced and qualified, they're saying it still takes me at least two, three months to get my next job. And we're like, okay, this doesn't make any sense.

And what we discovered is a lot of the processes, the tools, software that HR teams at hospitals are using are very outdated. They haven't actually changed since, I don't know, late 80s, early 90s. We figured there just has to be a better way. Incredible health is the fastest growing hiring platform for nurses in the U.S. today. Hospitals and health systems use the platform to hire nurses in permanent roles in less than 30 days instead of it taking 90 days or longer. Wow. And why did you do it the way you did instead of just saying, okay, well, build software for hospitals or something like that? I think there were a couple reasons why we took a more comprehensive approach.

One is we understood the market and there's some fundamental problems like the nursing shortage. And to put it in context, that shortage is three times bigger than the software engineering shortage. And so our demand for health care keeps going up, but they're just simply not enough health care workers in the system. How do we land here where, like, what is the impediment? Yeah, there's probably two bottlenecks. The first is the number of people getting accepted to nursing schools. Nursing school is very competitive. It has a lot of wait lists.

Once you apply to go into the nursing school, you're not guaranteed to get in immediately. You have to go through some process. You have to wait. So that's why we have is such a shortage. And then the other big huge bottleneck is what happens right after nursing school. So unlike doctors, you know, we have residency programs, honestly, that are mostly funded by the government. But when it comes to training nurses, it's the hospitals that bear the majority of that cost. And so they don't always see a strong ROI on those training programs because nurses go through it and then they often leave.

Yes. Because their next opportunity. So it is actually quite hard for a new graduate nurse to land their first job. They have to be very geographically flexible in order to do that. Once you're at Stephanie stage, you know, when you have a few years under your belt. And that is a sweet spot where if you have one or two years of experience, you're pursuing a specialty already, you will get a job very quickly on our platform. Oh, wow. So how long have you been a nurse, Stephanie? For three years now.

Well, I started at the beginning. Well, I'm Nigerian. I grew up in Nigeria, most of my adulthood. And I left Nigeria at an age of 19. There are two reasons that pushed me to become a nurse today. first one was I was sick back home in Nigeria and I had surgery. It was appendix, just a minor surgery, but it ruptured. And I developed sort of an infection and they were incapable of handling it and it went to a point where I almost lost my life. So the reason why I'm actually sitting and talking to you guys is because my mom actually worked with a doctor that she could

rely on and she had to look for him to perform the surgery for me. And that's really saved my life. So that was one of the reason I decided to become a nurse. And the second reason was I didn't immediately pursue the nursing career. I went into business because I wanted to help my dad out in his business. So that's why I went into business administration. But I was like, I'm not doing this for myself. I need to do something for me. And then what triggered it was when I was doing my dissertation in one of the biggest hospitals in Malta. It's called Mataday. I was able to communicate with nurses and doctors, and I was like, no, this is where I belong. So that was where I decided I was going to go into nursing. I called my brother. My brother was here. He's been here in America

for the longest. So he told me, oh, if you want to do nursing, come to America and do it. And that was where I started. I came over. I started with cancers where I did my pre-nursing, and then I moved over to Atlanta, Georgia, where I finished up the nursing school, and I started working at Northside Hospital, Atlanta, and then I finally moved here to California. And the nursing program, it was difficult to get in, I'll not lie. It was very difficult to get into the program. And what made it difficult? Was it, the process was difficult? The process was difficult? There are a lot of waiting list. So you can imagine applying when there's waiting list. So they go for those who are in the waiting list before you. I actually stayed home one more year after my prerequisites.

And then when it was time for me, I started at Chamberlain College of Nursing in Atlanta, Georgia, because I just moved to California three months ago. And then I stayed there for two years. It was very, it's nursing school is very chaotic. go through a lot. I nearly gave up. I nearly gave up nursing school. It's, I don't know how to explain it, but it's difficult. Not everybody goes in that comes out. I started with a lot of friends and a lot of them left, you know, so that could be another reason again where we're having the nursing shortage because they make it very, very rigorous. It makes sense once you get into the nursing itself because they're training you to take care of this.

critically ill patients. So you have to meet up to that standard. That's why they really screen us in school. The other thing, it's a regulated profession. So, you know, just like many other healthcare professions, like you have to have licenses. Yeah, you have certain certifications. Makes sense. Yeah. So that, that, the regulation part, like, who puts the cost of the, you know, getting the licenses and all that? Is that on the student nurse or is it some type of stipend? Like, how does that work out? That the hospital I applied to, the, where, I got my first nursing job, paid for it. So that was okay by me.

They paid for it. I got the job before I graduated. So they told me, oh, they're going to pay for it as long as you pass the boards. So I paid and they refunded it back to me. But Stephanie was in the fortunate position of having the job already lined up. So now, if you don't have a job lined up, many nurses have to pay out of pocket. So before I found incredible health, I decided I was going to most. to California to be close to family. I was putting in my application in so many hospitals and

I didn't get any call back. I just get this automated email saying, oh, unfortunately, we consider other candidates. It's not that you're not qualified, but there were too many people that applied. Which is pretty weird given there's a nursing school. Yes, exactly. Those same hospitals, you'll find them looking for nurses to work for them. So I didn't just understand why that was happening. So it was my brother that told me to try it. So I just filled in my application with incredible health and I just got a call immediately and they told me, oh, this is how it works. And once any hospital is interested in you, they will send a message. You just respond. And it was it was kind of like an easy way and different process applying to hospitals.

The employers are coming for you, not you going to them. They're chasing. So you're like an NBA player at the time or something like that. Exactly. The employers apply to the nurses instead of waiting for the nurses to apply to them. Yes. That's awesome. So with that model, like, do you end up at different hospitals or like private practice? Like how does that work the model itself?

So you have a lot of hospitals applying to you. So you have that opportunity to be like, oh, no, I don't want this one. I want this one. That's what I was doing. I had lots of hospitals that wanted to have an interview. me, but I already had the list of hospitals I wanted to go for. And those are the ones I selected. So you just, you just have an advantage to choose what you really want. Yeah. So when a nurse, we say when a nurse goes live on our platform, it means they're actively looking. Actually,

within days, they can get several interview requests from multiple hospitals. And then we give them three days, which interviews to accept and which ones to decline. For those that get accepted, our software also facilitates that first phone screen with the recruiter. And we also, our customer support team supports both a nurse and the recruiter through all the way to the end of the process. So no one gets dropped in the funnel. So in my source, that means that on any given week you can be at different hospitals. Like, is that how it works?

What I'm getting at is, is, so once that process happens, you get accepted, can you work for this hospital today, Tuesday, Wednesday? I'm at another hospital next week. like it doesn't work like that or is like this is my place this is where i'll be working for yeah great question the nurses on our platform are getting hired for you know as as employees at the hospitals we don't we've intentionally stayed away from contract work and temporary labor uh because honestly that's not what the hospitals want they're urgently looking for permanent labor and then the other thing we guarantee both of the nurses in the hospitals is hires in less than 30 days uh the average yeah the average

on the market is 82 days. So we really dramatically try to bring down that days to fill to less than 30 days. That's amazing. I mean, I just think it's really so interesting that because of the struggles that so many communities go to just to get quality health care. So I think, you know, having something that's bridging that gap, how has it been received in the industry, though? Like, what has the response and reaction been? It's been extremely positive. When we started, we were just in California and we're currently expanding nationally. So we work with all the top academic medical centers like Stanford and Cedar Sinai. Stephanie actually got her job at Stanford.

She's at the brand new hospital here. All right. All right. Yeah. So my partner, Mark Andreessen and his wife, donated the Stanford emergency room. Andresen Ariaga emergency. That's awesome.

We work with all the big health systems like HCA and Tenet and Providence St. Joseph and lots of community hospitals too. And so we really perfected the platform and our processes. he's here in California first. And then a few months ago started to expand nationally. And so now we have academic medical centers, big health systems and community hospitals and other parts of the country too. Now that you've got kind of the marketplace up and running, generally, you know,

when we analyze marketplaces, we always talk in terms of kind of supply and demand and, like, where do you have the bottleneck? And it seems like given there's a nursing shortage, you're going to, getting nurses is always going to be a little harder than getting hospitals, I would think. Is that right? Yeah. And so how do you think, you know, how do you think about that as things evolve and what your role is in kind of getting more nurses into the market? Yeah, I mean, in terms of getting the nurses on our platform, all of it really starts with our mission. And the mission is to help health care professionals live better lives and help them find and do their best work. In general,

this is a group that isn't, this group of workers that's not treated particularly well. You know, there's a lot of burnout. So we wanted to be the one. one company and service and platform out there that's giving them the best experience possible. And so really that's like the core of what attracts the nurses to the platform is that very strong value proposition that, hey, creative profile, sit back and relax, hospitals will apply to you. Now, in terms of that actual messaging and how it gets out, it's really a combination of

marketing and product. What we're doing on our platform is we're also providing a whole suite of free tools and software for nurses too. So salary calculators and, you know, completely free continuing education that's paid for by incredible health where they can. So you can go from being like an LVN to an RN and that kind of thing. Yeah. Wow.

So that's, and then the other thing is really building community around this, both offline community of nurses and also, you know, creating more of an online community for nurses as well. So there's one place that they can congregate. Yeah, Stephanie. When you first, when your brother introduced you to it, like how did you, how did you approach it? It's like, hey, here's an opportunity.

Yeah. Let me get you in a game. Like, what was that, what was your initial reaction to the introduction to the platform? It was different. And I was like, I want to see what this is all about. And that was why I got to see it's a better way to like get nurses to get job faster. And I was really impressed with it. So that's why a lot of my friends, nurses, that are in athletics.

Georgia that have plans to come over. Everybody's looking forward to using it because it's just easy and you don't have to deal with the long wait, the rejection emails that are automated. You're not like communicating with the hospital on how to get your interview set up. They're doing it for you. All you just need to do is to get the dates that is convenient for you and just show up for your interview. It was stress-free, hustle-free.

And what does that look like? like in terms of the continuing education, I'm always interested in different ways to learn. So what does that look like on the platform? Yeah, so nurses annually have to get continuing education credits or units. And that's to maintain their specialization or maintain their experience. And in some cases, you know, to get a specific state license, you need to have a certain number of continuing education like credits, basically. And a lot of these are online courses, actually. And they're across different topics, you know, we can cost hundreds of dollars a year.

And so we're just bearing that cost for nurses. Whether they're using our platform for getting a job or not, it's going to be available to all nurses. So it sounds like it's almost like you are kind of CAA for nurses, which is creative artist agency, which is one of the biggest talent agencies in the world. And so when you do that, do you start to think about... individual nurses profile and reputation so that you can market them better? How do you approach that? Yeah.

We spend a lot of time thinking and working on improving nurse profiles. And it's everything from the actual profile itself and the different fields that we're collecting. Because we are automatically with a lot of software screening and matching them as well. So this isn't humans doing it. It's all software doing it. Because if you're a recruiter, you don't want to log in and see 200 nurses. You want to see 14 that are the right fit for you at that time. time. And that saves them a considerable amount of time too. And because a nurse has got to have

a specialization, a location, and some kind of background for that to be a fit. Okay. We're matching on probably 40 or 50 different attributes. Some of the attributes are things like specialty licenses, certifications, location preference, commute times. And then in addition to the profile, we're also providing interview preparation too. Y'all should apply this to like dating apps. So it's funny you say that. So, Chief Nursing Officers refer to us as the Match.com of hospitals and nurses, which is kind of embarrassing, but it's accurate too. So, Stephanie, so listening to like the kind of the profile and the breakdown of like the matching process. Like, what were some of the things specifically that you had to kind of share to figure out how you matched up with the people who you was looking to be hired by?

So I was looking at my commute because I wanted something in the Bay Area. Okay. So I chose something I can, a place I can drive to, I don't need to drive more than 30 minutes. That was my goal. And that was one of the reason I chose Stanford. And I also chose Stanford because of the reputation. And the experience is there too. So those are part of the, those were part of my selections.

Yeah. I mean, one of our goals is the nurse has no idea what's going on behind the scenes when it comes to screening and matching. And it just seems like a magic. process. Well, that's why the rejection letters. You're rejected. You're qualified, but you don't match on some criteria that you don't know about. And so that's, okay, so that's really interesting. And then if somebody does an interview and doesn't get the job, is there a feedback process for how does that work? Anytime a nurse doesn't proceed in a hiring process, we ought to, you know, recruiters are able to enter the reasons why they were not hired. And each

nurse on our platform is paired with what we call a talent advocate. These are members of our team. They are all our ends as well. And I think of them as like advocates or career coaches for every nurse. So that's like also like a free service that we provide to the nurses too. So one day every hospital in America and every nurse is going to be on the platform. What can you do at that point? So number one we talked about was the shortage. And then the other one is just the inefficiency in the market. Like the the right, you know, the hospitals and nurses aren't even finding each other. A lot of what we've built so far and what we've worked on so far is to solve the inefficiency problem, right? How do we get the right nurses at the right hospitals quickly? Right. And that, that actually addresses

the shortage in many ways in that it's not just that the nurse isn't there, it's that you can't find them. Correct. Yeah, it's like ships passing each other through the night. Like they just don't, they just don't find each other. And, uh, in turn, In terms of solving the actual underlying nursing shortage, honestly, I know it's something we want to tackle because it's part of our mission and our vision. I don't know exactly how that's going to look like yet. One of the interesting pieces of the story of CAA is before CAA, top actor, our actress would make, you know, maybe $500,000 on a film. After CAA, 20 million. Why?

because every top actress and actor in the late 80s was on the CAA platform. So they could basically say, you can't make a movie without us. And the economics switched and flipped around and put the power in the hands of the people making the movies. And in healthcare, I mean, I know this. Just because, you know, my mother was a nurse. nurses are actually way more important than the hospital hierarchy treats them often. Yeah. And that actually has more variance in your outcome than anything.

So do you see a time in the future where by having all the nurses collectively together, you can actually make the profession more attractive? We're already seeing that. So on average on our platform, the nurse's salary increases by 17%. And commute time goes down by 15%. There's actually several reasons why nurses change jobs. One reason is I want to get paid more. Another is I want to shorten my commute time.

Another is I want to advance my career and I want to get more skills in a particular specialty area. And then a fourth one is just I need to relocate for whatever reason. Stephanie probably had like what two or three of those. Yeah, all of them. All of them, all the above. Advanced my career I needed experience too and all that. So what we're seeing in the marketplace dynamic is like, yeah, overall the salaries are skewing higher. Because, well, if you're an OR nurse in the Bay Area, for example, or in L.A., every single hospital has that shortage.

So you can, you have the opportunity to optimize. And you can leverage that knowledge, right. Exactly. That's incredible. So one of the things I'm always interested in when, you know, talking to entrepreneurs is that leap, that leap of faith. What did it take for you to take that leap from doctor to entrepreneur? were there moments where you were a little bit hesitant or afraid or were you just like, no, I want to just do this and make this thing happen?

Yeah, and like dealing with, I'm going to build software. We're talking about 10 years from the time I decided to not, from the time I graduated from medical school and decided not to do residency to the time I founded an incredible health. So during that time, I had worked in management consulting. I was exposed to hospital operations and strategy. I had done my MBA at Wharton on the East Coast. And then during that time, in business schools where I was really starting to get more exposed to entrepreneurs because a lot of my classmates were founders and CEOs.

And then the other thing is starting a business is something I've always kind of had in the back of my mind for a very long time. Both my grandfathers are entrepreneurs. I'm originally from Sudan. And so, yeah, I got some hustlers in my family. Right. But I knew I needed to, like all the stars. need to align before you take the dive, right? So I knew I needed to move to the Bay Area, because this is controversial, but it is still hands down the best place in the world to build a technology company. No question. Yeah. I needed to have the right co-founder. When I moved out to

the Bay Area, you know, I didn't know anything about software. I didn't know anything about how to build a product or ship or anything. So I actually got my first job was as a product manager at our early stage healthcare technology company in the Bay Area. And that's really where I learned to work with software engineers and designers and data scientists and what it takes to launch a product and grow a business. And so after a couple years of that, left with one of the lead software engineers, Rome, was my current co-founder to work on this. And so like multiple things had to come together for me to make that decision. So I needed to have the right co-founder. I need to be in the right location. Honestly, I needed to have enough savings. And of course, needed to have the right

idea and the right opportunity. Right. Yeah, that's a really great insight understanding that you had, We see a lot of entrepreneurs who have an idea, but not the skill set to go pursue that idea and the fact that you recognized, okay, not only do it, I need the skill set. And you not only got the skill set, but you got the network to put together the team to build a company that was going to work. That's really impressive. So one of the things that when we started the conversation, we talked about, kind of like origins, right? So your family's from the Sudan and your family's from Nigeria. I just came back from a Kragana, and one of the things that I loved was just like the hustle

and just seeing people that was like no matter what the circumstance were, they was going to figure out how to get out there and make it happen. How much of that plays a role in where you are today? That's what like both of you are. Like how much do that play a role? Well, I came from a hustling family. My dad is a hustler, and he brought us up to hustle. Like you have to take care of yourself, and you have to take care of adults.

around you. So we always hustle. And one of the way he taught us how to hustle is by going to school. He made sure we go to school and he always tells us, you do not have to stop at the square cup. You need the round cap. So he was always bent on pushing us to advance our career and do good for yourself. Similarly, my family, my Sudanese family has had similar values in that you got to pursue education, you got to do your best. No matter what field you go into, you just need to aim to be the best. And no matter what it takes, whatever hurdles you face, like you just have to overcome them. And that has played out. I'm one of five siblings, so that has definitely played out and they're all thankfully doing great. You know, a lot of things that get people caught up, a lot of just listening

to your stories, Deb, both of your stories, you know, if something goes wrong or you get rejected from a job and so forth, a lot of times people here will interpret that as, okay, that must have been something like, you know, systemically, the country is set up to stop me. But neither of you had, I mean, whatever that was, you just dusted it off. How are you able to do that? Because it is kind of a cultural outlier. Yeah, great quick. That's a good question. Okay, so I'll take the specific example of raising venture capital. When you look at the statistics, it's proven pretty much that the odds are stacked against people who look like me. And are your gender? And yes, my gender and the fact that I'm a minority. Black women raise 0.01% of the venture capital.

Yeah, that's 0. That's approximately zero. Now, when I'm talking to other CEOs about this, especially CEOs that look like me, I'm like, okay, that's, that's what you. That's what it's happening behind the scenes and that's what the data shows. But you actually have to ignore that information. You have to completely ignore it and pretend it's like not even there. It's a psychological web, right? And a trap. So when you're going into, you know, a fancy VC firm and you walk in that room,

you have to be the way you communicate, your assertiveness needs to be the same as your white male counterpart that came in the room actually minutes before you. probably, right? And you have to match that level of confidence and assertiveness in order to get like the term sheet. So you really collect, basically you just have to ignore all of that. It's still true, you know, like I still acknowledge that it's there, but. But if you get it in your head, then it's definitely stopping you. Exactly. And what I see is that you need like a hundred percent substance and competence, and then you also need 100 percent confidence, right? You need both are, both of those are required if you're going to do something that's crazy, ambitious.

And probably the number one piece of advice that I do give to minority CEOs is like, yeah, you've got 100 percent substance, but like your confidence is only at like 40 percent. That's not, you're not going to get that far. You need to, you know, bump that up to 100 How do you teach people to get their confidence where it needs to be? Because that's so easy to fall into that. Well, they really didn't understand me. They really didn't see me. And like, how do you get people to get in that mindset where they can cross that chasm? And even racism aside, just there is like a cultural bridge that you have to cross getting into like high finance world. This is the hack I used. I don't.

need it anymore, but I use it in the beginning. It's very controversial. I love controversy. Say more. Let's go to the controversy. So when I was first starting, you know, raising that seed round or whatever, I created like an alter ego for myself. Okay. All right. And the alter ego. Who is the alter ego? The alter ego is named Chad. It's a very white name. Very. Right. And Chad had a whole persona. Like, Chad was six feet tall, blonde hair, blue-eyed. Last four generations went to the Ivy League. Went to like Phillips Exeter or Hanover for high school. You know, just like the epitome of American privilege, right? And when I was like, before I walk into that room, and by the way, this is any situation where I'm selling and CEOs have to

sell a lot to investors, to employees, to customers, I'd be like, okay, for the next 60 minutes, I'm not going to be man with like 30 years of baggage and, you know, I'm just going to be Chad for the next 60 minutes. And you walk in the room and just act, what would, you know, what would Chad do? What would Chad say? Of course you're giving me the money. I'm Chad. Yeah, right. Right. Exactly. Like, Chad walks. Do you know where I went to school, bro? Exactly. Chad walks into the room. Like, not only does he have insane amount of confidence. Like, he owns that entire room. He owns the entire block, right? And so, you know, now I don't need, now Chad and Eman have become one, right? Like, yes. I don't need the alter ego anymore. but like in in when I was starting out like it helped see what's so amazing is that you said I need that

as opposed to that's unfair yeah I mean it's you know I think about my my life choices I realize most of it was choices and like I can choose how I wanted to show up in the world and it's one of the things that like we really connect around is just like if you're an entrepreneur like you're entrepreneur It doesn't matter if you're black, white, ex-convict, whatever, like, those are. That's, like, the core of, like, your driver. And, I mean, I've ran into every type of, I literally have every built-in excuse you can imagine one human being having, right? But for me, I always just saw that as, like, how do you just throw up in the world? Like, my alter ego is a rapper.

I grew up with hip-hop from the beginning, right? So when you listen to, like, the Sugar Hill gang, and they would tell these just fantastical-ass stories. and, you know, they probably still sleeping on their grandma's couch. And then that started becoming reality as rappers began to understand. They can, you know, monetize the skill set in a different way, right? And so for me, it's just like in order to get from, you know, just making a record to, like, turn into a business and just hustling, you know, you got to work in different ways. Like, I'm like, okay, that mentality works. but also they were telling our story.

You know, if you listen to, like, the rappers who are hustlers, they're talking about the guys in the streets, you know, but they monetized it in a way that accelerated beyond the streets. So for me, it was just like tapping into that identity of like, okay, I've done this before. I've done it, but it was all the wrong product. You know, all the things that come with that. So for me to walk into a meeting with somebody and say,

hey, I got this idea, you know, here's what I'm trying to create or whatever. Like, that's small things to overcome, you know. But the conversation internally is, because those voices of doubt never go away, at least for me, they never go away. So it's always like, how do I counter it, right? How do you counter the voice? It's like you're not good enough or this is going to stand in your way or that's going to stop you. Sometimes you've got to get out of your own hair. You got to get out of how that internal dialogue can be disruptive when it comes to, like, stepping over those bridges and gaps.

And so, Stephanie, what's your alter ego? Like, super nurse? He's like, I don't need an alter ego. But I don't have an alter ego. I just be like, I just bring myself out and I don't see the fact that I'm a black woman. I just see myself as this human being and I'm just going to have that confidence and do what I want to do. And that's it. Because I feel if we start putting it in our head, you can't go where you want to go.

It's going to come in your way and being who you want to be. So Stephanie, like when you introduce a friend to the platform, you know, do they believe you? Are they skeptical? What do they think? I would say they were shocked. Huh. Yeah. Because like four people right now want to like know more about it and they called me.

I explained it to them and they were like, wow, they didn't know such a thing exists because it's easy. Like I have a friend right now that sends an application in and she has not heard from them. It's just so still reviewing. And she applied to four positions. Two already. They've sent her an automated email saying no. But I know that place is short. So I told her to just fill out the application.

She sent me a link. She said, I need to refer her or something like that. So I explained how it works. I was like, once you fill out the application, they'll get back to you and tell you how it works more. And employers will apply to you and you choose which one you want. And she was like, oh, wow. So it's interesting that you talked about going to different hospital websites for the application. Because there are other worlds where people are trying to.

trying to find employment like LinkedIn and other social media or other online platforms where people can apply. So LinkedIn and Indeed and even the own hospital's job board, these are basically job boards, post a job and then waiting for people to apply. The issue is that from the hospital standpoint, it's quantity over quality. So there's a ton of applicants, but there's usually a very small in-house recruiting team that's sifting through all of that manually. they don't have a supportive software or anything. And so what happens is a lot of people fall through the cracks. They're doing all the screening and the matching manually.

And because we use our software to do a lot of that heavy lifting for the recruiter, the screening piece, the matching piece, they're looking at a much smaller group in order to hire, right? That's how we're able to speed up the process to less than 30 days and reduce the amount of work and increase the efficiency by 25 times for the recruiter compared to using a jaw board. What about the age of nurses, like in the field? Like, have they all been consistently responsive to the technology?

I know sometimes I can be a little bit intimidating for people who are, you know, of a different generation. Like, how is that translated well to across generations? Great question. I think the average number of years of experience of nurses on our platform is about 12, but we have everything from one year of experience to 30 years. So we have to cater to the entire demographic. What that means, I mean, that just puts the onus on us to make sure our software is incredibly easy to use, even if you're not tech savvy.

So, for example, we use a great service called Twilio, right, for SMS. We put a lot of emphasis on our iOS and Android apps because nurses are on their phones. They're not. They don't really check email. Many of them don't even have laptops, right? So it's on us to accommodate all the different demographics. So, Iman, so now that you made the leap and the platform is up and it's working and things are happening, what are some of the biggest lesson learned that you can look at the before and then after? What are some of the lessons that you learn?

That's so many. They're all summarized in your book, actually. Trauma. Yeah. The first one is the one I referred to you earlier is just about the importance of confidence and assertiveness. And that alone just helps you overcome a ton of obstacles. The second lesson is CEOs to manage your own psychology. I completely underestimated the mental impact of starting business from scratch, especially

one that has big ambition and vision. And so what I have, you know, I have a therapist, and that's cool, right? And I have an executive coach, and I surround myself by other CEOs who are also going through similar, similar issues. So really paying attention to my own psychology has been really important lesson. Very important. So Stephanie, with that in mind, kind of like the same question. Like you talked earlier about having this moment where you almost quit. Like what is the biggest lesson you've learned from just forging through? Keep going. Yeah. And have the patience. Patience. Yes. And I'll say another lesson I learned was change. I'm not the type that I don't like

change at all. So coming to California is a huge change and I don't regret doing it. So I'm always open now to change. Yeah. It's a major life less than a lot. From Nigeria to Europe to Atlanta to California. I mean, I think this is just really, of all things, it's incredible like to hear. And I'm always excited just about how they get to spaces of success and how they overcome obstacles. So this, this conversation's been really insightful and I'm deeply appreciative of y'all being here. Great, thank you. That's great conversation. I hope, you know, from listening to this episode, that it inspires more people to go into nursing, especially more men. So I hope we can get rid of some of the stigma around nursing,

that it's just for women. Like, we definitely need more men in nursing. Thank you so much for joining us on this episode of Hustling Tech. And thank you to our guest, Iman and Stephanie. So much knowledge of this episode, if you're a real hustler, listen to it twice.