Getting Better, Not Bitter: SimpleNursing's Reinvention Story

Nurse Mike reveals how Simple Nursing almost went bankrupt before finding its true purpose and transforming into an evidence-based nursing education platform. Through strategic partnerships, data-driven content creation, and patience the company reinvented itself by analyzing thousands of NCLEX questions to provide what students actually need.

Don't be scared, be prepared. Nursing school doesn't have to be the scary, confusing, daunting, mysterious thing it's made out to be.

To submit your stories & comments, visit: https://simplenursing.com/podcast/

Episode Transcript

Nurse Mike (00:11):
So let's talk about the transition of when Simple
Nursing was going to go bankrupt.
The long story of this, orshort story long, is.
Simple Nursing kind of startedas an accident If you guys have
saw the other videos of theorigin story of simple nursing
where we kind of just madevideos on a like little webcam
$30 whiteboard in my dad's likelittle library with a sock to

(00:33):
erase the board.
So it was kind of bootstrappeda little bit Actually a lot of
it it was.
It was a family affair, if youwill.
My brother's wife was workingthe phones as customer service.
It was only supposed to be asix-month gig, turned into like
a six-year gig and then my buddyfrom high school was doing
sales and just anyone who calledhe would talk about the program

(00:53):
and try to get them into amembership to help them, you
know, decrease study time, andhe was my carpal buddy from
nursing school.
Simple Nursing starts to gobankrupt around 2015 to 2018-ish
and the reason for that isbecause we weren't really an
educational company.
We were just like literally afamily business.
And there was this book that Ilived by and I loved called the

(01:17):
4-Hour Workweek, where theconcept was, if you make a
business online, just like, setup all the automation and then
you can only work four hours aweek and since you work online,
you can work anywhere in theworld.
So I was traveling a lot andworking remote and doing that
thing before COVID, like waybefore COVID 2015-ish, and I was
like living my best life.
But the thing that the author,timothy Ferris if you're

(01:38):
watching this, he didn't tell methat competitors will come in,
and so we were like the onlytaco truck on the street, if you
will, the only real big YouTubechannel for nursing.
But right around 2015, westarted getting other
personalities that were justcopying my style, but in better
lighting, better colors, betteraudio, because remember that we

(02:00):
had that really crappy webcam Ithink only one that you guys
know of is is still doing ittoday, and I think the lesson
for me at the time was like,okay, you have two choices you
can become bitter or you becomebetter.
And so, as we're watching 2015,we're decreasing like 30, 20 to
30 percent year over year, butthe weirdest part is like no one

(02:24):
in the family my brother's wife, my buddy from nursing school
that was doing sales.
My dad was like our CFO, likedoing our accounting.
No one had a concern that wewere going down.
It was really weird time Cause.
I'm like we all got intoboardroom I still remember this
like in 2018.
I'm like guys, look at thesenumbers.
They're going down, down.
So we have a decision hereeither, in the next 18 months,

(02:48):
if this keeps on going, all ofus here are gonna be without a
job, including me.
So I'm like what are we doingand why?
And I get if everyone liked thelittle talking stick and the
wildest part is everyone in theroom, including my dad, was
saying like you know thingsother than helping nursing
students.
Like, oh, my brother's wifegets to work from home.

(03:09):
My buddy from nursing schoollike oh yeah, this is really
cool.
You know, uh, sidekick moneyand blah blah.
And my dad like, oh yeah, thiswill save for your retirement
and we'll set you up with a rothira and all this stuff.
And that really hit me and hithome, because I'm like the
biggest question that you'll seeon podcasts, especially with
business or entrepreneurialstuff or self-help, is focus on

(03:30):
the what and the why, and for me, the what and the why was to
help nursing students passnursing school and really to be
something that I would use innursing school like the
Disneyland, right?
And no one around the table onthe team had the answer of
helping students.
And that was huge wake-up callto me because I'm like, of
course we should go bankrupt.
Of course we shouldn't be abusiness if we're not helping

(03:52):
the end user.
We don't want to be likeanother big box brand or a big
you know textbook company with abig question bank that really
doesn't really really listen tocustomers.
So that's when I started goingback to the drawing board.
I'm like, okay, we need to redoall 2,000 videos that we had at
the time.
We need to do it in a new way.
I don't know if actually anyonereally knows this, but we took

(04:13):
the color palette from aCosmopolitan magazine and that's
how we designed all the colorsin our new animated videos which
you see on YouTube now.
But it was still like there'sso much free stuff on YouTube.
What if we can't even competeanymore?
You really can't compete withfree.
So I had to really think about,like, okay, how are we going to
redesign this whole thing.
So it wasn't just the animationpart, which still cost a lot of

(04:37):
money.
It's like $100 a minute.
That was on the cheap end too.
We researched 70 differentanimation companies and everyone
in the first world was like$500 a minute at the time.
But we're looking at that.
But I'm like okay, well, howare these videos going to be
even better?
And I kind of just like let goand let God I was like Jesus
take the wheel.
I still remember like praying,like you know.

(04:57):
Actually, this is like a realpersonal story too.
It was a huge access pointbetween me thinking we're going
to go bankrupt.
I'm going to go back to work asa nurse, which I hadn't been
working as a nurse for years atthat point and I'm like I don't
even know if I'll be a greatnurse, I'm just a great educator
and I didn't have a master'sdegree at the time.
So I still remember my mom.

(05:17):
I grew up super Christian.
I was actually supposed to be ayouth pastor growing up.
Anyways, I was on a trip withmy mom and she's like you should
fast and pray and like reallygive this to the Lord.
So I'm like okay.
So I got on my knees and Ididn't eat for two days and I
was like, well, god, what do youreally want from me?
How are we going to reallyimpact students?
Are we really just here just topay bills and die and really
just make money?

(05:38):
Like, what are we doing and why?
And it really just came to melike, okay, we need to get
myself out of the way, get yourown ego out of the way.
This is not like a self-madestory of like, we're going to
pull it up by your bootstraps.
And you know, like an Americandream, and everyone in the
company didn't have theexperience head of growth or

(05:58):
growth development or corporateexperience of, you know, leading
a company of that size.
If you will, I still rememberthe day it was the summer, I
think, of 2018, I was like, okay, what's 50% of nothing?
Well, it's still nothing.
So, oh my God, if you becomethe majority shareholder of my
part in the business and we makeyou the CEO, every money we

(06:22):
make, I'll give you over 50%into donations and nonprofits
and things that are outside ofmyself, you know, like charity
work.
And I tell you what, like sevendays later, I met my business
partner, lyman King, and I wasworking with a few business
coaches and we just outlinedexactly what that perfect person

(06:44):
would be, because they alwaysmy business coaches always say
like you're only one person awayfrom a totally different life.
I'm like, okay, so we put itdown and it was like, okay, you
need to be a five-year expert indigital marketing.
You needed to, like, manage afew million dollars in ad spend,
which obviously we didn't havea few million dollars, but it
was just the experience level,right.
But really the underlyingunderbelly of it was, you know,

(07:06):
not just someone with experience, but someone with grit, like
willing to win at all costs andreally actually being more
passionate about growth and thebusiness itself and really
expanding it than I was, whichis really tough to do as a
business owner.
You want to find other peoplethat are really more passionate
than you are, and they alwayscall it the three Ps People
first, then your product andthen how you pitch it or sell it

(07:29):
.
After that come to Jesus moment,and my mom was praying for us
and had her little mustard seedsand a little prayer group on it
.
Lyman King shows up and I'mtrying to talk this guy out of.
You know, helping us, becausethis guy is actually making
really good money a few hundredthousand dollars a year and he
has a baby on the way.
And I'm like dude, like I don'twant to wreck this guy's life.

(07:50):
I care about him.
So for five weeks, I'm like,dude, you don't want to take
this job, like don't want to dothis.
And he was persistent about itand really had that great.
He's like I really want tobuild something with my hands.
Like, put my name on.
I'm like, okay, all right, ifthis is what you want to do.
So he ended up, uh, straddlinghis full-time job at the time

(08:11):
and dabbling in simple nursingand helping us restructure.
And that's how, 2019, we justkind of like for the first time
after three and a half years oflosing, we stabilized.
I drained my entire savingsaccount and I'm like I'm gonna
go out with my finger on thetrigger, even if no one watches
these videos or if it's no one'sgonna pay for these or if it
really helps no one.
I know that I did my best and Ichose to get better and not

(08:32):
bitter.
And 2020 comes around, where wejust invested a ton of money,
like basically my whole savings,into, uh, this new pharmacology
boot camp or pharmacologyvideos, and 2020 comes around
and then, man, like it's like arocket ship for like I think we
increased that year by like 300because we had some of the best

(08:54):
newest animated videos onyoutube.
But it wasn't just the animation, it was because we took 10 000
and collects questions and weput them in the algorithm and it
was genius too.
It was basically the.
The concept was it was like whydo people say that certain
things will be on the NCLEX whenwe know that they're not on the
NCLEX?

(09:14):
So, for example, take any topiclike a heart attack, right,
myocardial infarction there's afew videos on youtube that are
like oh yeah, these 12 cardiacenzymes are going to be on your
NCLEX.
It's like, how do they reallyknow that?
So we took five big questionbanks for the NCLEX 2,000
questions each and then we putthem into this algorithm of like

(09:37):
okay, out of 10,000 questions,let's focus in on myocardial
infarction.
Where do all the questions comefrom?
Is it signs and symptoms?
Is it signs and symptoms?
Is it treatments?
What cardiac enzymes are theyasking for?
And only one cardiac enzymecame up time and time again and
it was troponin.
So we did this evidence-basedapproach with a few professors
from University of Tennesseethat systematized our entire

(10:00):
video set and it was like we'regoing to teach and really get to
the point on NCLEX standardsand only give you the
need-to-know information.
So I think that was the biggestcompetitive advantage between
anyone else on YouTube not onlythe animation, but also the
memory tricks and really theneed-to-know topics.
All right, guys, we're doing anew segment called Call Like
Confessions.
We're doing segments throughoutthis entire podcast, but this

(10:23):
one we're answering a couplequestions that people submitted
to me and we're answering themright now.
So keep your eye on socialmedia because we're going to be
dripping these out.
So first question, kevin, allthe way from Kenya, is what's
one piece of advice that you'dgive to every nursing student
right now?
I think the biggest piece ofadvice is don't be scared, be
prepared.
Nursing school is sosystematized it doesn't have to

(10:47):
be the scary, confusing,daunting, mysterious thing.
If you ever find yourselfconfused or lost.
The reason why we do simplenursing is because I wanted to
use it as a nurse, and if yousimply watch one video before
you study on that particulartopic we've seen it time and
time again, hundreds ofthousands of students in the

(11:09):
past decade it will decreaseyour study time.
It'll highlight the book foryou.
Basically, one eight-minutevideo will wrap up an hour of
you being lost in your textbook.
So if you just literally dothat one thing, we've seen
students have decreased stress,decreased study time
dramatically like 60% less studytime and doubling doubling the
productivity.
And a lot of students don't useit correctly.

(11:29):
They'll like watch it beforetheir test and it really doesn't
help as well.
So I know that this is notsupposed to be like a you know
self-promotion plug, buthonestly it's one of the best
things that I wish I had andwe're just trying to have other
students use it.
All right, trevor H fromPortland Oregon.
What's the worst piece ofnursing advice that I ever got?

(11:50):
Med-surg, Everyone's got to bea med-surg nurse.
You ever hear that before?
I know I have Okay.
So how many instructors anddeans and you know I call them
the old crust of faculty thatalways say like you got gotta do
it the way I did it.
It's like going pantyhoseshopping with your grandma.
It's like well, these aresturdy, you know, these are
great.
It doesn't like.

(12:10):
No, I'm like if med surgenursing was the only nursing, I
would not be a nurse.
I tell you that much Because Iwas, like, born and raised in
the emergency room, like on theambulance.
I'm like I'm going to be an ERnurse critical care.
So that's the worst piece ofnursing advice you don't need to
be a med-surg nurse to be agreat nurse.
I've seen a lot of new gradswith no medical experience go
into the ER, icu and otherplaces.

(12:31):
Just know it's going to be asteep learning curve if you're
not already working as a tech inthose units.
But you don't have to be amed-surg nurse.
Don't let them fool you.
A lot of students ask what isnext for Simple Nursing.
So we have a lot of new goodieshere.
So we are dropping a new albumwith Memory Music.
If you guys didn't know, wehave three albums on Spotify,

(12:52):
apple Music, google Play reallyanywhere and it's basically
parodies of popular songs.
So, for example, journey Don'tStop Believing.
We do Don't Stop Breathing.
And then the Liver Cirrhosissong.
It's beginning to look a lotlike cirrhosis.
It's great.
So we're going to be dropping afew new songs.
So please follow us on socialif you want to keep up to date
with the newest releases.
We also have new tools.

(13:13):
So think about this right.
Simple Nursing has helped youthrough nursing school, two
years, right, a few thousandvideos.
Then we help you with yourNCLEX, with our NCLEX prep.
We just released an exit prepfor ATI and HESI, or really your
proctor exam.
But the next part is really,really cool.
We have just released a newgrad prep course.
A lot of students were askingwhat do I do after the NCLEX and

(13:35):
how do I prepare as a new grad.
So we made 30 videos where wedeep dive into interviewing
hiring managers from some of thetop, most prestigious hospitals
and really they drill down intolike, what interview questions
do you ask?
Why do you ask those?
What do you look for?
Resume builder tips.
We follow around preceptors,get their advice on where new
grads mess up.

(13:55):
And then we have so many othervideos where we sit down with a
new grad herself after a year ofbeing a new grad, and also
Professor Allison, who teachesnew grads.
And the last thing that we'reworking on, which I love, it's
basically kind of like a netflixfor ceu.
So you guys don't know this yet, or maybe you do.
Uh, continue education units.
You need, I think, 30 every twoyears.

(14:17):
They can be a pain in the butt,like old case studies are dry
and crusty.
So I I'm like guys like what ifwe did like a streaming service
, right, kind of like Netflix orit was like medical mystery
case studies and maybe differentpodcasts, where you can get all
of your CEOs in one bundle, andalso like your skills videos
and everything.
So that's going to be droppingsoon, so please follow us.

(14:38):
Oh, and I'm getting a callright now.
Who do we have here?
Diddly d is that?
Hey, mike, I think I'm here atthe studio.
Can you let me in?
Natalie! What's going on?
! Yeah, come on down.
Come on down to the front stage.
All right, guys, I gotta go,but we will see you next time
with a very special guest.
So remember, don't be scared,be prepared and don't let the
bedpans bite.