Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
After working in the healthcare industry for more than 17 years, I noticed a pervasive and growing problem: there were unpredictable nursing shortages occurring across the world and no way to quickly find the support needed to care for patients. I knew there had to be a better way, so I got to work designing the parameters for what would become a tech-enabled staffing platform to connect credentialed medical staff to medical facilities in as short as 24 to 36 hours. I brought in two strategic partners — Jeff Richards and Kirk Martin — to help bring SnapNurse to life. Since our launch in 2017, SnapNurse has become mission critical to the US healthcare system as stresses of COVID, walkouts and strikes, natural disasters, and the ever-increasing aging population have left massive voids in care.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
There’s a critical nurse shortage nationally and the healthcare staffing market remains fragmented. Additionally, because most of the existing staffing agencies are hamstrung by old, manual processes and systems, it can take weeks to fill a request. With SnapNurse, we paved the way for a new standard of staffing, fully automating the process of finding, credentialing, mobilizing and paying nurses the same day as their shift. This has enabled nurses and other healthcare professionals to continue doing what they love most — helping patients — and many have created lucrative careers as a result.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
We used to have fun happy hours after work when we were a small company, but I think a company has to be careful to put parameters in place around these when there is alcohol involved. It can end up in a bad way if some individuals on the team don’t know how to limit themselves. I learned that it is good to celebrate, but limit it to a celebration and not a drinking session.
We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
Stephen Powell has been a key advisor to the company for many years and helped guide us through bumps in the road and see the future potential of the company. He kept telling us we were going to be a billion-dollar company (when we were a $1M a year company) and we would laugh it off, but here we are now…a billion-dollar company! He helped us believe in ourselves to be bigger than we ever dreamed. I remember thinking if I hit $150M, that would be HUGE and I would exit at that time. Now, I am excited to keep growing the business to its full potential. As we’ve grown so fast over the last few years, we’ve been heads down on managing that growth and scaling efficiently, and Stephen has been essential in bringing that broader marketplace viewpoint. Francis Najafi, who invested a significant amount of money into the company, has also guided me through some rough cash flow waters and helped me make some significant new C-level hires.
Another, who I’ve never met but unbeknownst to him serves as a mentor of sorts, is
Elon Musk. He dedicates his life to his work and is an example of a very hands-on CEO. I read about him sleeping in his office and going onto the floor and working directly with his engineers. That’s the type of CEO I strive to be. I like to keep my finger on the pulse of the business.
In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?
Disruption generally won’t occur unless there’s a pervasive need. If there’s no need, it won’t be adopted and will eventually fade away. So, I think disruption is always positive because it indicates there was a significant need that wasn’t being met. It demonstrated that there was a better way and the market it was disrupting embraced it.
Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.
You will make sacrifices in your family and all your relationships. The notion that you can have it all is nice, but it’s not going to come initially. You’re going to work a lot. You have to have a supportive partner and some support with your kids (if you are a parent). Depending on the type of business you’re building, there is a lot of sacrifice and sometimes that can come in the form of your family or spouse and it can be tough to accept it. You will constantly feel guilty about working so much, but you need to focus on the future you are building for yourself and for your family.
Sometimes you don’t realize how much work it takes. So you have to be prepared. If you’re not ready to make those sacrifices — if you’re trying to grow a rapid-growth startup — entrepreneurship may not be for you. Ultimately, you have to decide what’s right for you.
But at some point, you also don’t want to keep living that way. You have to find balance and take some time to be with your kids and friends. That balance will likely only come once some success has been achieved and you can make the right (expensive) C-level hires that can take some of the day-to-day workload off of you so you can focus on more strategic objectives and grow the business without the 100-hour work weeks.
We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?
We’re continuing to expand our platform capabilities and move into more markets across the US Our goal is for our platform to become the Amazon of healthcare staffing by which facilities and hospitals can connect directly to fully credentialed providers who can fill shifts instantly.
