3. How Sarah Michelle Boes Built a $1 Million Nurse Business in 7 Months

Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_02 (00:04):
I literally was just like, okay, I'll give you this
three-hour course, I guess for$15.
And the first day I made athousand dollars in a day.
Wow.
And I was like, oh my God, Idon't make a thousand dollars
like sometimes as a nurse in aweek, like sometimes two weeks,
like depending upon like what'sgoing on.
Like, this is so cool, this isincredible.

(00:25):
Like, how do I just make athousand dollars every day?

SPEAKER_00 (00:32):
Welcome to the Bossy Nurse Podcast, a show about
nurse creators, innovators, risktakers, and the ideas that shape
their success.
I'm Mark Shabaty, and on theshow today, how Sarah Michelle
Bowes turned anxiety-written,one-size-fits-all nurse
practitioner board exam prepinto an engaging three-hour

(00:53):
crash course, a growingcommunity, and then a
multi-million dollar exit.
For decades, NP board prep haspromised certainty through
multi-day long lectures.
Yet, so many nurses still showup to task carrying more anxiety

(01:14):
and strategy.
Then COVID shoved everythingonto Zoom, revealing that the
familiar, gruesome stretches ofin-person lectures didn't always
cut it or exactly translate intoan online forum.
Times had changed, and nursesneeded targeted, digestible
practice and tools to regulatenerves in the moment.

(01:37):
So our guest Sarah tried adifferent approach.
A three-hour crash course thatblended essential content with
anxiety reduction tools.
She seeded it by giving it freeto classmates and building a
Facebook group where nursesshared their own successes with
passing their boards.
Within four months, and nowselling it as an offer, Sarah's

(01:59):
revenue crossed$100,000, then$1million around the seven-month
mark.
And within two years oflaunching the business, she sold
it for millions.
Sarah's story doesn't begin witha spreadsheet.
She grew up in rural easternKentucky with two teacher
parents who often juggled two orthree jobs to make ends meet.

(02:22):
Surprisingly, a house fire whenshe was a teenager forced to
move and became a hard reset forthe family's finances.
And then later in nursingschool, a public school day over
an IV push spiraled into herfirst public panic attack, and
the judgment that she wasn't cutout for nursing.
But she pushed through, and thengrad school, later titling her

(02:46):
anxiety into what Sarahdiscovered as her love for
teaching, and an innovative wayof reframing how nurses prepare
for their next step and how shecould build something
meaningful.
But again, it all started whereher resilience was forgot, the
mountains of eastern Kentucky,miles from the nearest grocery
store, and a childhood thattaught her to make do.

(03:08):
When I asked Sarah what thatfeeling was like growing up, she
didn't hesitate.

SPEAKER_02 (03:13):
Um chaotic might be a good word for it.
You know, when you grow up in areally rural area like Pipool,
for those who know Piepool, itis a bit isolating because even
though it has this very smalltown feel, everything is so
spread out.
And I'm literally living like inthe middle of the mountains.

(03:36):
And so when I try to give peopleperspective on what it's like to
grow up as rural as I did, Itell them that we grew up 45
minutes from the closest grocerystore.
And I think then people arelike, oh, I like I didn't
understand before, but now Ikind of get it.
And it was super commonplace.
I went to multiple differentschools, I ended up moving
schools quite a few times, um,just related to different things

(03:58):
going on.
And it was commonplace forschool to also be 45 minutes to
an hour away, and that's justlike commute is part of a life
out there.
And also tell people that I feellike I grew up two decades
behind.
Like even the music that I enjoylistening to, like it's a little
bit older than what I am.

(04:19):
Um, not that that's a bad thing,of course.
But I think overall growing upextremely rural um was a lot of
focus on kind of our innerfamily unit.
And you know, friends weren't asmuch of friends and connections
and networking weren't as muchof a focus.

(04:40):
And I'm glad now as an adult tokind of expand that focus and
get to expand my network and itall not all just be like the one
family unit, but it is very likehunkered down about you and your
family when you grow up in aplace like that.

SPEAKER_00 (04:55):
Yeah, very interesting.
I grew up in a small town aswell, and I was an hour and a
half to school on the schoolbus, an hour, hour 15 minutes to
an hour and a half on the schoolbus, but we were a lot closer to
the city.
It only took us 20 minutes toget to a grocery store,
probably, but it's just theroute of the school bus and how
long it would take.

(05:15):
Um, just hearing that story, I'mcurious because we're gonna talk
a lot about success and money inthis episode, but I'm kind of
curious at what your what yourhome life was like growing up in
a rural area.
And was money a part of thestory back then?
And did you have big dreams, biggoals in terms of finding

(05:38):
wealth?
Or was that just something thatwas always a struggle or
something that you never talkedabout when you were younger?

SPEAKER_02 (05:45):
I think for me, money was always part of the
story, but not in the sense oflike searching for wealth.
Like I never assumed once in mylife that I would have any kind
of like sustainable wealth, orespecially like generational
wealth, like all of that isstill almost like new and
uncomfortable to me even today.
But I grew up with two parentswho were both school teachers,

(06:07):
and I think a lot of my firstintroductions to money were we
don't have enough.
And so, even though they werecollege educated, which was a
really big deal back home, andthey have what looks like on
paper, good stable jobs, thatdoesn't necessarily you're
making the money that you needor also the money that you want.

(06:29):
And so we kind of got into thisscenario where my parents
essentially built a house thatthey couldn't afford and they
kind of lived above their meansbecause there's not a lot of
financial literacy in easternKentucky either.
And so they kind of gotthemselves into a bad spot.
And I tell you this, because alot of my childhood they worked

(06:50):
two or three jobs.
So they would go and they wouldbe school teachers during the
day, and then they would drop meoff at home with my siblings,
and now I'm the babysitter whilethey go work at Lowe's and Kmart
and these other side jobs andtry to do these other side
hustles to kind of make all theends meet together.
And then fortunately orunfortunately, whichever way you

(07:11):
want to look at it, our houseended up burning down when I was
a teenager.
And even though like that soundsreally terrible from the
outside, it did kind of give usthe financial reset that we all
needed to be able to actuallyget out of eastern Kentucky.
So when I was a junior in highschool, we did end up moving out
of eastern Kentucky and theywere able to kind of like reset

(07:34):
some of their financialtroubles, financial woes, all
the things, which is reallyincredible for my family.
And I think the other thing tonote just about money and being
school teachers, it was likesuper jarring for me as a
teenager to begin to wrap myhead around the fact that when
my parents were teachers ineastern Kentucky, they made, I

(07:55):
think it was 60% of what theymade when we moved.
And so even just having a fouror five hour gap, but being in
the same state gave them accessto crazy.
It's just like crazy to me thatall it takes is just like a
little bit of movement to theleft almost.
And you're like, oh, like wemake so much more money and

(08:15):
we're so much more stable here,and all these things.
But I also think like thatspeaks to kind of the culture of
Eastern Kentucky, too.

SPEAKER_00 (08:22):
Yeah, and I'm sure, well, I would imagine maybe your
parents didn't even realize thatjust a move to another city
within the same state would havedrastically changed your lives
like that.
And so when you were growing upin those circumstances, knowing
that, like you said, yourparents lived above their means.
What was your feeling aboutmoney at the time?

SPEAKER_02 (08:45):
Oh, money was very scary to me.
I was like, there's never gonnabe enough.
There's never gonna be enough,like I can't work enough jobs
for there to be enough.
And it kind of became this likeingrained thing that I was even
as soon as I became a teenagerwho could work, like I
immediately had three jobs.
But I didn't need three jobs.
Like I was I was paying for mycar insurance payment.

(09:06):
Um, and I was like paying foryou know different things that
pop up, like your prom dress orwhatever else.
But like, did I really needthree jobs?
No, but like the hustle wasalready ingrained in me.

SPEAKER_00 (09:18):
Yeah, and that's what you saw at your parents,
I'm sure.
Three jobs, a couple of jobs.

SPEAKER_02 (09:21):
Yeah, yes, a little side hustle here, do this over
here.
And I was like, okay, like thisis the system and this is how we
figure out money.
Um, and hopefully one day, youknow, my parents were very
insistent about me getting acollege degree.
Like that was their big thingthat they harked on.
It was like, hopefully, one dayI'll get a college degree and
just have one job.

SPEAKER_00 (09:39):
Yeah.
Relief, yeah.
And so um thinking about wereyou a good student growing up,
middle school?

SPEAKER_02 (09:47):
I was a phenomenal student.
Okay.
Um, I always like when I decidedto go to nursing school, a lot
of what hinged on that decisionfor me actually was I had a high
enough ACT score and a highenough GPA that I was gonna get
automatic admission into UK'snursing school as long as I
maintain my grades like duringthe pre-nursing period.

(10:08):
But I got a little bit morelengthy and buffer, which is
really cool.
But yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (10:12):
Yeah, awesome.
So um, how was the decision foryou to really choose nursing?
I know I I've read some of yourstory and listened to some of
your story about the decision,like nursing wasn't far off from
school teaching in in terms ofincome.
What was the decision for you todecide to go into nursing?

SPEAKER_02 (10:34):
I grew up always wanting to be a teacher.
And when I wavered, it actuallywasn't to nursing.
It was I wanted to be an authoror I wanted to be a journalist,
like I wanted to write.
Like that was really excitingand enticing to me.
And my parents were like,absolutely not in any way can
you do either of those things?
Like, if you want to write,write on the side.
If you want to be a teacher,that's a hard pass.

(10:56):
Like you've got to picksomething in the medical field.
And when you think about comingout of rural Kentucky, like what
they're thinking is this job isso stable.
Like this job, like, we knowSarah will be good for the rest
of her life.
And they actually really pushedme to become an MD instead.
But I couldn't really afford todo that.

(11:18):
Like, I was paying for all of mybachelor's degree on my own,
which was its own hefty bill.
And I knew like after thatbachelor's degree just came more
debt if I went to medicalschool.
But I think like the other piecethat I didn't really understand
then, that I understand aboutmyself now, was I had so much
anxiety about the uncertainty ofwhether I would get to medical

(11:41):
school.
So in my brain, I'm like, Ican't run the risk of doing four
years of school to get a degreeI really don't want just to go
to medical school and then notget into medical school.
Like, I just can't run thatrisk.
Um and for me, I'd had thisreally incredible experience
with my grandmother because, youknow, growing up, as I've said

(12:01):
multiple times now, reallyrural.
We had to travel for her carewhen she was diagnosed with lung
cancer.
And so the closest place for herto get her initial care was
actually two and a half hoursfrom home for us.
And it was during thesummertime, and me and my
grandmother were incrediblyclose.
And so I actually traveled withher and I stayed with her in the
hospital.

(12:22):
But it was kind of like my firstand really like only
introduction to nursing and whatI thought nurses were, um,
especially this being anoncology unit.
I thought they were people thatbrought ice cream, which I
thought was really cool.
I thought they were people thatplay board games.
That was really fun because theydid that with me, which is
incredible that they paused todo that, like knowing what I
know about nursing now.

(12:42):
Yes.
Um, but I had this reallyphenomenal experience of like,
these are just reallycompassionate, caring humans.
And obviously, like they caredabout my grandmother and her
care, but they really caredabout me.
And so I was like, well, I havethis automatic admission if I
want to go the nursing route.
And I know I'm gonna get intonursing school, and I know that

(13:03):
I can get this degree in fouryears, but also like in the back
of my mind, like if I reallylike let's say I get through my
nursing degree and I'm like, Ireally do want to be an advanced
provider.
Like, I know that doors opendown the road for me, and I can
probably do it cheaper.
So even then it was kind of allabout the money all the time.

SPEAKER_00 (13:22):
Yeah, yeah.
Amazing.
Yeah, it's it.
I remember those type of storiesand feelings about everything
was always about money.
And um, growing up in a, youknow, as a poor family, you
know, it was no, you have to dosomething in the medical field
or be a lawyer, you know.
That's your safety net.
Yeah, that's your safety net.
You have to go into medicine,you have to go into legal

(13:42):
studies or something like that.
Um, one thing you did mentionthat I want to go back to is I
know you've talked a lot aboutyour mental health story and
your anxiety that you hadthroughout your career.
And we can talk a little bitmore about that.
I know you had some intensethings going on after learning

(14:04):
about your daughter and theheart defect and things like
that.
Curious at where your anxietystarted.
I know you publicly have statedabout your first public episode
of your anxiety and extremeanxiety.
When did that start?
Do you remember it starting as ayoung girl, or did it come when

(14:26):
you were in nursing school orolder?

SPEAKER_02 (14:28):
Um, I've actually been exploring this quite a bit
in my memoir because I'm like,what is like the first seed of
anxiety?
Like, where did this come from?
And I can very clearly tell youlike anxiety has just been a
part of me for my entireexistence.
Like when I think back on mychildhood, like I a lot of like

(14:49):
my earliest memories are like mestanding behind my mom's leg,
like almost like peering out.
And I had a lot of uh issuesinitially, like going to school
and kind of like that detachmentprocess.
And I know a lot of children do,like, that's a normal, but for
me, it was definitely prolonged.
But where where I see itstarting to like blur a little

(15:10):
bit because we haven't talkedabout it yet, but I do have
diagnosed OCD, and I candefinitely see the OCD in my
childhood in the sense of youknow, when me and my middle
sibling were we're three yearsapart, and for a while, like we
slept in the same bed and likewe like did the whole sister

(15:32):
thing, you know.
But I can remember like gettingup and looking out the window
after 9-11 and like watching tosee if like planes were flying
over a house.
Now, why would planes be flyingover the mountain?
Like, there's there's no logicto that.
Like, we didn't live close to anairport, but that was the kind
of anxiety that I was living onloop, and I like started
developing even then, like thiskind of like hyper-vigilant,

(15:55):
hyper-responsible state.
Cause it's like, if I don't lookout the window and I don't make
sure there's a plane coming,then something bad's going to
happen.
And what I love to tell peopleabout OCD just because it gets
so stereotyped by the media, islike at its core.
What it actually is is not thehand washing or the germs or

(16:18):
anything like that.
Like this one flavor, it'sreally this intolerance of
uncertainty.
And so when people are washingtheir hands of 100 times, what
they're actually trying to do isget the certainty of I'm not
going to get this sickness or Idon't have these germs on my
hand.
And so when I'm checking for theplane over and over and over,
like I'm trying to make sure weare safe.

(16:39):
And so for me, a lot of kind ofmy anxiety behaviors were really
around safety.

SPEAKER_00 (16:46):
Thank you for revealing that to the audience.
I'm sure that's very helpful tounderstand, even though we're
mostly nurses probably listeningto this podcast.
I know that some of that anxietyactually may have almost
hindered you from completingnursing school and actually had
an instructor who may have said,you know, this may not be the

(17:11):
your your you know place.
How did you tell us that storyand how did you handle that?

SPEAKER_02 (17:17):
Yeah, I very much like for a long time, I was kind
of able to try, try being thekeyword, harness my anxiety into
a box that I felt like gave me alot of momentum in things like
school because I would be soanxious about getting the grade,
doing the thing, looking acertain way, that it was this
fuel for me.

(17:38):
Um, but what ended up happeningwas I was halfway through
nursing school at the time, andyou know, it's a dreaded med
surge semester that everybodyalways haunts about.
And there's so much anticipatoryanxiety, and like yeah, I can
like very also vividly rememberthe first day of that class when
she's like, you know, like thatstereotypical movie scene where

(18:00):
like look left, look right, likethat person's not gonna be here
with you.
She basically was like, 30% ofyou are gonna fail this class.
Yeah.
Oh, thank you.
Um, you know, that's a lot thatlike the material itself is just
harder, and that's really whereyou kind of have to like step up
your game and your criticalthinking ability and how you're
gonna show up as a nurse.

(18:21):
And you're not really like beingbabied anymore, not that any of
nursing school is babying, butlike it's been our first
semester in an elementaryschool, like being in medsearch
is different, yeah.
And I felt even more likepressure and high stakes because
I had very purposely chosen todo my med search clinicals where

(18:42):
my mama had received her cancercare because I knew I wanted to
work there one day, and so likefor me, every shift felt kind of
like a mini job interview.
Like, I wanted to show up and Iwanted to do really well.
And we were halfway through thesemester.
I had just had a midtermevaluation, everything was
looking good.
I got in all-satz factories,like moving right along.

(19:04):
And my instructor asked to passmedications with me that
morning, and I was like, oh, nobig deal.
And because we were halfwaythrough at that point, basically
we had kind of been given likefree reign with the nurses, and
so like our instructor just likerotated people every week of who
she's gonna pass meds with or doa skill.
And it hadn't been my turn in along time.

(19:26):
And we went to pull out themeds, we're pulling them out of
the Pixis, and we pull out someIvy Zofran, and that's gonna be
administered Ivy push, and thenturned to her and I was like,
Hey, you know, I've never donean IV push before, like, I'm
gonna need you to walk methrough this.
Like, what is this like?
And you know, it's it's reallyhard for me to understand even

(19:52):
today how the situation devolvesso quickly, you know.
Now having like my experience asan educator and my experience
with students, and like astudent who like paused and
stopped and was like, Hey, Idon't know how to do this,
instead of a student who justpushed forward anyways.
Like, that's much more scary anddangerous to me.
Like, I would much rather thestudent just stop.

(20:15):
But that was the wrong response,and she was very upset that I
did not know how to do it.
She was like, you know, you'rehalfway through the semester,
you're halfway through thisprogram, like I don't understand
how you don't know how to do Ibe pushed, and you have about
two minutes to figure it out.
Okay.
Wow.

(20:36):
Uh so my anxiety is like level1000 at this point.
Like, I'm like, I'm starting tosweat, even like remembering
this memory.
And so I go out to the nurse'sstation.
There's this nurse who I've beenput with several times who I
really liked.
And I was like, hey, Corey,like, can you do this with me?
Can we kind of like walk throughthe process together?
I've got to figure this outfast, but I need to go do this

(20:56):
with my instructor.
And as we're in the process, andwhat I was so hung up on
actually was not even theprocess of like how do I pull it
out of the vibe?
Like, I knew I knew the basics,right?
But my brain was stuck on, andit's such a good reflection of
my OCD, actually, was is thiscompatible?

(21:17):
Will this be compatible withnormal saline?
And I know that sounds so sillyand so minuscule, but I wanted
to be absolutely not as anursing student.
I wanted to be absolutelyserious.
So my instructor came into anursing station, saw me doing
this with this other nurse.
Um, and that was not the waythat she wanted me to figure

(21:40):
that out.
I guess she wanted me to figurethat out on my own.
So she ended up yelling at me inthe nurses station.
And as a result of that, Iactually had my first public
panic attack ever.
Like I was very much like Icould contain myself and my
anxiety enough that I couldalways like make it to a
bathroom.
Or I was very much an anxiousperson that had panic attacks in

(22:02):
the middle of the night.
Like I would wake up and I wouldbe anxious and I would have
panic attacks.
So it was very different for meto like have my classmates
looking at me and some patientswalking by and the other nurses
in a nursing station.
And I literally I just likedon't have any air left in my
body.
So go to the bathroom, I getmyself sorted out, I come back

(22:24):
out, and the nurse that I hadbeen figuring it out with was
like, told my instructor, like,hey, like I can do it with her.
Like, if you guys want to takelike some pause or some time for
each other, but that wasn't alsowhat my instructor wanted to do.
So we went in the room and wepushed through, and I cried most
of the time that I pushed themedication into a line.

(22:45):
It was this whole ordeal.
And so at the end of thatclinical day, she was like, you
know, I just don't think you'recut out for this.
Like, I think you're too anxiousto be a safe nurse, and I don't
really know how we move forwardfrom here.
And the other layer was, youknow, we talked about how hard
this med search class was.
At that point, even though we'rehalfway through the semester,

(23:05):
we're just about to take anotherexam.
I had failed the first exam byone question.
And everyone knows in nursingschool, like the skills are all
weird.
So, like the passing was 76.
I got a 74.
So it wasn't like I got a 50.
Yeah.
But I had had a lot of anxietyduring that exam.
And I hadn't really figured outthe course yet.

(23:26):
So in their minds, they're like,okay, you failed an exam and now
you're having panic attacks inclinical.
Like, we don't, this isn't theright fit.
But what I wish like could havehappened even for a moment, just
like, what's going on here?
What do you need?
Where are you not resourced at?
Like, how do we help you moveforward instead of just being

(23:46):
like, oh, like it's time for youto go?
Because I know I fullyunderstand and I can appreciate
as an educator, like,accreditation is based on your
first-time pass, right?
But also, like, here I amhalfway through my program.
I've never had a single issuebefore this semester, and now
they're like, oh no, you gottago.

(24:06):
Like, they don't even like pauseto ask.

SPEAKER_00 (24:10):
It makes me think, I wonder, was that part of that
motivation of wanting to haveyou consider something else?
Um, was it was it the pass rate?
I never would have thought aboutthat, but I wonder if that had
something to do with it,especially if you have a small
class, a pass rate, one studentcould make it, yeah, derail your
pass rate.

(24:31):
So I'm so sorry that happened.
And um, you know, I I all thetime when I talk to nurses or
even, you know, the nurses I'vehad the opportunity to talk to
on the show about, you know,bullying or or anything where
we're not supported.
I just always wonder, like, havewe learned yet?

SPEAKER_02 (24:52):
Like, why are we reliving the same loop?

SPEAKER_00 (24:54):
Right, right.
The same story, the same nurse'sstory from nurse to nurse.
It's the same, you know, story.
Any nurse you've had, you know,challenges on whether it's a
unit.
And you were a nursing studenttoo.
It wasn't like you were baby.
Yeah, it wasn't like 19.

SPEAKER_02 (25:09):
That was oh my goodness.
Like it's just a baby.
Because I graduated nursingschool when I was 21.
And I just yeah, yeah.
I tried to think about thatperspective sometimes too.

SPEAKER_00 (25:18):
Yeah.
So you push through it, right?
You decide to.
I don't know if that was adriver for you hearing that from
your instructor, or what wasyour decision-making process
after that?
Do I quit?
Do I keep going?
How did that happen?

SPEAKER_02 (25:35):
Uh it started with collapse.
I was like, oh my God, like I'vealways been a successful
student.
I've never had a problem.
Like, I always put the work in,get the result.
And like, I wasn't likeinherently smart in the sense of
like, I don't need to study.
Like, I had to put the work into get the grade, but I had
always done that and it alwaysworked.
And so I really kind of had tojust take a couple of days and

(25:58):
figure out, okay, like, do Iwant to be a nurse?
What does that look like?
And actually, what I ultimatelydecided in that time was I
didn't really want to be anurse.
However, I couldn't afford tostart over.
Like I couldn't, like, none ofthese classes transferred, like,
that wasn't gonna work out.
And the thought of spending moremoney and more years in school

(26:22):
to get a degree felt moreimpossible than anything else.
And so even though like I knew,like, hey, I don't really like
love nursing, and I do have alot of anxiety, there's like
almost there's no reason not totry to go back and just see if I

(26:42):
can pass it and make it through.
Because I think the otherthought I had to myself that
even though I don't enjoy thisnow, I've only been in the
hospital two semesters.
Yeah.
So my my previous semester wasjust like a general med surge
unit.
I'm on this oncology unit now,and like it's okay, but it
wasn't like what I dreamed andenvisioned, you know.
Yeah, and so maybe like when Iget the PEDs or when I get the

(27:05):
OB or when I get the ACU, like Imight find something that clicks
for me.
Um, what I didn't know then, Iknow now, is like I very much
just wanted to teach.
And that was way more, like, assoon as I had kind of my first
teaching moment, which we cantalk about too.
I was like, oh, like this iswhat I I just didn't know yet,
right?
But I decided to stick throughanyways, and it was a very,

(27:27):
very, very terrible semester forme because ultimately the action
plan that they put together wasI would do every assessment,
every med pass, every lastlittle thing.
Like I could not walk in apatient room without my
instructor anymore.
And that is so high pressurewith someone that you feel like

(27:48):
is already like against you.
Yeah.
So I would, you know, clinicalwould start at like 6, 6:30,
whatever it was.
I would get up at 4 a.m.
and I would be like goingthrough my assessment guide, and
I would be going through all thethings, and I would be looking
up meds, and like I would justbe trying to like prepare,
prepare, prepare in whatever wayI could.
And in the process of doingthat, I started to figure out

(28:11):
the actual class portion.
And so even though I had failedthe first exam, I did good on
the second exam.
So that was like a ball in mycord, like, hey, like, let me
figure this out, let me stay.
And what was actually so coolfor me was at the end of the
semester, and I really feel likeit was a testament to like me as
a student, too.

(28:32):
They offered this thing wherebasically, um, you know, like
the Hessies and the ATIs and allthat, all these predictor exams,
they had their own version ofthat.
And they were like, any examthat you have passed this
semester that um if you scorehigher on the predictor, it will
replace that grade.

(28:54):
And so I was like, okay, this isa cool opportunity.
Yeah, uh and so I ended up, Igot like an astronomical score
on that predictor.
Like it was like a 94 or 95%chance that I was gonna pass the
NCLEX someday.
And so it took me from likebarely skating by in the class
to getting a B in the class too,which was awesome.

(29:14):
Yeah, yeah.
Um, and about a year after thatexperience, you know, I moved
into my next clinical and I verymuch like tried to like stay
under the radar.
I was like, nobody look at me.
Like I like the instructors,everybody's scary to me now,
like everything feels high riskall the time.
And actually, what a gift it wasto go into Pete's and OB where

(29:34):
they kind of want you to behands off, anyways.
Like your words are not reallythere.
It was good timing.
Yeah.
But um, in my senior year ofcollege, they put out an ad
essentially for tutors.
And somebody asked me, like,hey, you know, you kind of
figured out the med surge thing.
Like, do you think you couldhelp this girl figure out the
med surge thing?
And I was like, I mean, I cantry.

(29:55):
Yeah.
And I started working with justone student.
And by the end of that semester,like I was tutoring privately 40
hours a week.
And it was all on my own time.
And it was all on my own.
Like I made up the pay rates andall these things.
I was like, this is so cool.
And I love this so much.

(30:17):
And I just want to do thisforever.
Like I'd rather just tutor andteach.
Like, nursing is fine, but Idon't think like it's my final
destination.
And now I know that for sure.
Was that through a company whereyou have that opportunity, or is
that something you started?
Um, initially it was through atutoring service on campus that

(30:40):
was specifically tutoringathletes.
But as you can imagine, thereare not a lot of nursing major
athletes.
There were actually two in theentire like athlete pool.
But one of the athletes that Iwas tutoring told her friend,
who then told their friend whodidn't tell their friend.
So then it really was all justlike word of mouth.

SPEAKER_00 (30:57):
Yes, all through me.
So when you found that new loveof nursing education, you
graduated from college, you gotyour first nursing job.
When you got your first nursingjob, and I think that was bone
marrow transplant, you weresaying earlier before the
school.

SPEAKER_02 (31:14):
Actually, I started very briefly in peez oncology.
Okay.
Um, but I only spent a fewmonths there and then
immediately went to bone marrowtransplant adults.

SPEAKER_00 (31:22):
Okay.
So when you got that job in bonemarrow transplant, were you
already thinking about gradschool to become a nurse
educator?
Or how did that sort of happen?

SPEAKER_02 (31:33):
Well, I graduated nursing school in May of 2016.
I had my master's in nursingeducation by February of 2018.
Okay.
So I was ready.

SPEAKER_00 (31:44):
Yeah, you were ready.
Move right along.
Yeah.
Did you happen to work in thesame hospital as an educator?
Or did you sort of move along?

SPEAKER_02 (31:55):
I what I ended up doing was the hospital system
that I was working in, which wasattached to the nursing school
actually that I went to.
So I worked in UK healthcare,they had this really incredible
opportunity that if you went toan in-state school or it took
less than a certain amount oftime, they would just pay for it
outright.

(32:16):
And then you would owe them timeon the back end.
And so I ended up working withinUK healthcare for five or six
years.
It was like two of a day ofhowever long I needed to stay
for them to pay for all of mydegrees.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (32:30):
Okay, awesome.
Awesome.
So you're educating nurses a lotbetter, probably opportunity for
you, probably feeling a lotbetter, I'm sure, with the
choice that you made in terms ofyour career path.
Um, so but then you decided Iwant to be a nurse practitioner.
And how was that decision?

(32:51):
And I know you had to study forit, and I know this is where the
business part came in.
So let's hear a little bit aboutthat.

SPEAKER_02 (33:00):
So I finished my master's in nursing education.
At this point, I'm 23.
And I'm like, nobody's gonnahire 23 year old.
Like it doesn't matter thedegrees I have, it just doesn't.
Um and at the time, what myemployer announced actually was
that they were gonna stop payingfor school.

(33:21):
And I was like, okay, like Ijust like I thought I was kind
of done with school for a bit,and I don't really know if I
want to be a nurse practitioner.
And this will sound crazy, butwhat I told my husband was it's
free, so how can I pass it up?
But also, like, even if I neveruse a degree, like it's gonna
get me to teaching jobs faster,it's gonna make me a better

(33:43):
teacher.
So I should just go ahead and doit.
Like, we're in the right seasonof life, like we're not married
yet.
We were like, we were engaged atthis point.
We're not married, we don't havekids.
Like, if I'm gonna go hard, likethis is the time to do it.
And going to school full timeand working full time is
definitely uh going hard.
Yeah, definitely.
So I was able to do a little bitof an expedited nurse

(34:04):
practitioner program because Ialready had the master's nurse
in education, which wasincredible.
And as I was actually finishingup my nurse practitioner degree,
I got my first teaching job.
And that was at a local nursingschool, and I loved it
immediately.
I was like, oh, I'm like in myelement.
I'm so excited.
I was very like over-eager, veryover-ambitious for it to be

(34:27):
amazing, incredible, andawesome.
But it truly was.
And this leads us right up towhen COVID started.
So in March of 2020, with themost incredible of incredible,
of incredible timing for me, Ihad put in my notice to leave my
bone marrow transplant job.
So I left bedside nursing theweek the world shut down.

(34:52):
And I still don't know how I hadlike that kind of insane luck.
Yeah.
And there was so muchuncertainty with my teaching job
of like, are we still doingthis?
Like, we can't get in theclinical sites now.
What is this gonna look like?
Which was another reallyfortunate and incredible
opportunity because what theydid was they just pivoted
everything online, which isfine.

(35:14):
But we did, especially in thebeginning and it evolved, but in
the very beginning, there was nolike, here's your lesson plan or
here's what you do.
They were just like, get on Zoomand figure it out.
And I was like, all right, I'mjust gonna get on Zoom and
figure this out.
Like, how do I teach somethingthat should be in person online?
Because it's clinical, like it'syeah, it's not even the course

(35:35):
portion.
And I was teaching students howto put catheters in the water
bottles and tissue boxes and allthis like fun, creative,
innovative stuff, and it reallyjust like lit up my brain of
like, how do I make thismeaningful and purposeful?
And how do I keep these studentsengaged, even though they're at
home and they have all these newdistractions, um, and just all

(35:56):
this anxiety too, because theworld is just chaos and nobody
knew when we were going back, ifwe were going back, and it took
us a long time to go back,actually.
But I left my nursing job, I wasteaching online, I'm finishing
up nurse practitioner school,and because during COVID, all
the review courses pivotedonline.
So, what used to be this liketwo-day in-person conference

(36:19):
experience, they now just likeplugged on Zoom and thought that
would work.
And doing two 10-hour just likestraight lecture.
Getting on a computer, yeah, onZoom, like it would have been
horrible in person, but likeZoom was next level horrible,
right?
So bad.
Um, and actually, my very sweethusband, he found me asleep on

(36:41):
the second day.
Like, I was just like, you know,I kind of like sat in the floor
for a moment and I just kind oflike leaned over and I just fell
right asleep, and I missed likea whole two hours of the
lecture, but I was just so wornout.
And the other kind ofcompounding factor here was my
exam kept getting delayedbecause of COVID.

(37:02):
Like, I showed to the testingcenter and it would be closed,
but you don't know until you getthere.
Get there, yeah.
All that anticipation of like,I'm gonna take the thing and I'm
gonna do the thing, and then youget there and they're like, oh
no, not today.
And uh my favorite time that Igot rescheduled, which is like
next, just like next level ofextreme anxiety.

(37:23):
They canceled my exam, which wasfine, and they rescheduled it
for me, which was something theyhadn't done any other times.
And they rescheduled me.
This is no joke, theyrescheduled me to a testing
center in Dubai, and there wasno phone, there's nobody you can
call.
Their their service online keepsshutting down.
So for like a week, I couldn'teven get it rescheduled out of

(37:44):
Dubai.
Like, I couldn't even cancel theappointment.
And I'm like, the last thing Iwant is to like them think I'm
supposed to show up, and thenlike I miss my appointment, and
then I get I have to pay again,all this stuff.
I mean, it was just oh wow, trueunending chaos trying to take
this exam.
So my anxiety was level 10million.

(38:05):
Um and actually, I was soanxious.
I ended up like breaking a toothin the process, I had to get a
tenile implant, like all thiscrazy stuff.
But when I finally got to takethe exam on my fifth try to take
the exam, it was one of theeasiest exams I'd ever taken.
And I was oh my god, I did everyreview out there because I was

(38:27):
so anxious, and like what Iactually needed was not to spend
thousands of dollars on a creditcard and reviews.
I really just like needed theconfidence in myself that I
could do the thing.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (38:39):
And and I was accidentally you started a
business.

SPEAKER_02 (38:43):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I was sitting in the parking lotand I was waiting for my friend
to come out, and I was like, ohmy God.
I was like, what if I just dolike what I've been doing on
Zoom with my clinical students?
And I just like put this into alittle course, like talks about
anxiety, but also like talksabout the content a little bit.
Like, how do we merge those?

(39:03):
Because I had seen it be sosuccessful with my clinical
students.
So like I kind of already hadlike a format and a vision in my
mind that I'd been working onfor months.
I just didn't know that's what Iwas working towards.
Yeah.
And that weekend, it wasMemorial Day weekend.
Our air conditioning unit wentout and we were too broke to get

(39:23):
it fixed.
I'll never forget that detail.
I'm like sitting upstairs,sweating, trying to put this
together, this course.
And my husband is outsideliterally with cinder blocks.
I'm like watching him throughthe window, putting together his
own homemade smoker because wecouldn't afford a smoker, and he
really, really wanted a smokerfor the summer.
And I ended up, I gave thelittle three-hour course that I

(39:49):
made to all of my classmates forfree.
And I was just like, invitesomebody in this Facebook group
with me and like see what youthink.
Tell me what you think, tell mewhat you don't like.

SPEAKER_00 (39:58):
All the curious, what was that course focused on?
I know you talked about um sometest taking strategies and
reducing anxiety.
Within a three-hour course, whatdid you focus on with that?

SPEAKER_02 (40:10):
So, what I did was I called it a crash course.
And I really just tried tocondense down of what's the need
to know information?
Like, what are the need to knowblood pressure guidelines, for
example?
And then what I did was kind ofcreate this like calm response,
even though it was recorded oflike, okay, we have Sally come
in today and her blood pressureis this.

(40:31):
What do you think?
What guidelines should we use?
And I would pause and I'd belike, and then you can answer at
home.
So if you knew it, great.
If you didn't, great.
And so we could talk through it.
And then I would be like, okay,but if this popped up on the
exam and you felt reallyanxious, here is a tool that you
could have used to get throughthis question faster.

(40:52):
Okay, I see.
Even just simple test takingstrategies, like if two answers
are opposites, this problem withthose answers and kind of like
walking through the basics too.
Um, but even seeing that live islike so helpful for people to
then be able to use it later.

SPEAKER_00 (41:06):
And then you started sharing it with your classmates,
and that's how it's worsethough.

SPEAKER_02 (41:12):
Yeah.
They're like, what do you mean?
This three-hour course for free,and like I have a media rapport
with you, because A, I kind ofalready know you, um, even
though it was an online program.
But B, like people startedpassing.
And what kind of happened waspeople would pass and then would
come into my Facebook group andthey would post about passing
and how impactful it was, andother people would get excited

(41:34):
and they want to try it.
And at the time, because Ididn't know anything about
business and I didn't knowanything about really anything,
all I had was Zoom recordingsand a Vemo.
I literally was just like, okay,I'll give you this three-hour
course, I guess for$15.
And the first day I made athousand dollars in a day.

(41:56):
Wow.
And I was like, oh my God, Idon't make a thousand dollars
like sometimes as a nurse in aweek, like sometimes two weeks,
like depending upon like what'sgoing on.
Like, this is so cool, this isincredible.
Like, how do I just make athousand dollars every day?
That was my first goal.
I was like, how could I justlike replicate this process,
make a thousand dollars everyday?
And like we would be set forlife if I could figure out how

(42:19):
to do that.

SPEAKER_00 (42:20):
Can we back up a little bit?
Um, because you started withyour classmates.
How did that end up into aFacebook group and then people
starting to know about yourFacebook group?
And was your Facebook group onlyfor your classmates at first?
And then you would have theminvite people in, or how did you
go about doing that?

SPEAKER_02 (42:39):
Yeah.
So what I did was I said, I wentto our like schools Facebook
group that we had, because itwas an online program.
And I said, if you will comeover here and join this group
and invite one person that youknow, and sometimes people would
like invite their husband, likethey wouldn't even invite the
nurse practitioner student.
But I was like, But if you willjoin the group and invite one
person, I will give it to youfor free.

(42:59):
Oh, wow.
Okay, and so I gave it to thefirst 100 people for free.
If they would just invitesomebody else in.
And then when I hit the 100people mark was when I started
to sell it.
Yeah.
So I mean I hit 100 people inlike three days, like quickly,
very quickly.

SPEAKER_00 (43:14):
Yes.
And so when you were startingoff with the Facebook group and
you were bringing people overinto your group, were you also
teaching in that group, or wasthe first thing you were just
focused on is like gettingpeople into this course so you
can, you know, get somesuccesses behind your belt, or
were you actually teaching andposting in the group as well?

SPEAKER_02 (43:32):
I so what I tried to make that group into and was
really successful was if you hada question about anything, post
it here and I will answer.
And I'll make sure you'll get areputable answer with a source.
Because a lot of the onlineFacebook groups at the time, and
probably still today, likestudents would just be feeding
off of each other and theiranxiety and asking all these

(43:54):
questions, but like nobody wasactually like, hey, this is the
answer.
So I definitely did that, andlike manically into the middle
of the night, like people wouldbe asking questions all the
time, and I would be likepulling sources and looking
things up and all this.
Because that's the other thing,too.
Like, I love to tell peopleabout starting a business, is
you don't have to be an expertto do it.
And even if I studied all day,every day, all the medical

(44:18):
knowledge, I would never knowevery answer, I would still be
looking things up, anyways,which is why the sources are
important, right?
Um, but beyond that, I also didlearning posts every day.
I had a lot of fear and anxietywhen I started the business of
if people saw my 25-year-oldface, which looked 12 then, um,

(44:40):
has aged me a little bit, I looka little bit more tired.
Um, that they would immediatelylose all rapport with me and
they would not want to interactwith so I changed my Facebook
picture, I hid my profile, didall these things, so you
couldn't even see my face.
Um, and so I never did likevideos or things then that had

(45:00):
my face, it was all voiceover,and so I was just like sitting
behind a computer screen all thetime, like putting up daily
learning posts of like, what doyou think about this patient?
Somebody asked a question, Iwould come in, answer the
question, and give a source.
But just even being the onereputable source, because it was
me for a long time.
Um, and we made a substantialamount of money before I ever

(45:21):
hired anyone.
Um, people were obsessed.
They were like, Oh my god, whatdo you mean I can just get like
free answers to any of myquestions?

SPEAKER_00 (45:30):
Yeah, of course I'll be in this group.
And there's the odds behind thecurtain, just doing that.
Yeah, it's like a word.
Yeah, yeah.
So this is fascinating.
And um, I want you to share tooabout how you started off with
the business because I think alot of us think, oh, we have to
get a logo, we have to get awebsite, we have to get, you
know, an LLC started up andrunning.

(45:50):
And you started off with likeFacebook Messenger and Venmo or
something like that.

SPEAKER_02 (45:54):
Yeah, literally for months.

SPEAKER_00 (45:56):
Um how crazy was that, first of all, because I'm
sure I mean if you're making athousand dollars a day over a
$15,$25 course, that's a lot oforders.

SPEAKER_02 (46:06):
A lot of people, and it's a lot of people DMing me
questions too, like not evenjust in the group itself.
I was incredibly overwhelmedfrom the jump because I didn't
anticipate people being asexcited.
I didn't anticipate like when Istarted it, I was like, if I
could just pay for my dentalimplant, like that would be
cool.
Like I wasn't I couldn't see thevision.

(46:28):
My husband immediately after thefirst day, he saw the vision.
I was like, nope, can't seethat.
Um but for the first threemonths, which is such a short
span of time, but felt likeforever at the time.
I did not have a website of anykind, actually, almost four
months.
Wow.
And in that time I made ahundred thousand dollars.

SPEAKER_00 (46:46):
Wow, four months, no website, a hundred thousand
dollars and Venmo and FacebookMessenger and Cash App in Cash
App.

SPEAKER_02 (46:53):
Like I started maxing out Venmo.
And you know, people always wantto overcomplicate or really just
like over-perfect, like theythink it has to be this way to
put it out there.
And I love sharing my storybecause there is nothing perfect
about it.
Like, if you had asked me then,I'd be like, oh, like the

(47:14):
PowerPoints are really good.
Um, literally the PowerPoints Imade on like Microsoft
PowerPoints.
So you know, like the style,like it was not a great
PowerPoint, but the content wasreally good and I was engaging
with my people and that kind ofoverrode.
But I didn't even have an LLCuntil we hit 100 grand because I
just didn't know.

(47:35):
And when we hit 100 grand, I waslike, I guess we should probably
pay taxes.
Like you think we're supposed tobe paying taxes?
And my husband's like, I don'tknow, like we could call up an
accountant.
So we live, we went to this like95-year-old accountant in the
middle of the city, and he waslike, Oh, yes, you need to be
paying quarterly taxes.
And I was like, Okay, you justlike you tell me what to do.
And it was like so old school,like he made us do like

(47:57):
handwritten checks, like hedidn't even explain the online
system because he just didn'tknow himself.
Yeah, that's like how like outof a loop that we were.
Yeah, I would say the first likebig business thing I did
actually wasn't even LLC.
I started to be afraid thatpeople were gonna steal my
content and just resell it astheir own.

(48:19):
Because I'd seen that happen toa couple of different just
creators in general, and so Iwent and copyrighted my courses.
I don't know why that was likethe first move, but I was like,
I feel like this is this makesit official.
Like if I have copyrightprotection, but I literally I
got copyright protection andthen two weeks later we had an
LLC.
Like that's how like out oforder we were.

SPEAKER_00 (48:41):
Or well, the order worked just right for you.
And yeah, yeah, yeah.
Curious.
So with the with the fast movinggrowth that that you had, um do
you still I'm curious, do youstill have that course, that
three-hour course?
Is it somewhere in just tuckedaway?
Are you are you still selling itor is that just something?
Oh no, no, no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 (49:00):
Oh, okay.
It's like uh memorabilia at thispoint, it's like nostalgia of
the opening days because theother thing is like the courses
have to update all the timebecause things on the exam are
changing all the time.
But if you go to the websitetoday, we sell a rendition of
the crash course, but it's waynicer and way more polished than
it was back then.

(49:20):
Yeah.
And by the time I ended upselling my company, we had
probably about 22 to 25 hours ofrecorded content that you could
purchase.
And then we also had a six-weeklive program and like a 2000
question, question bank.
Okay.
So we were we were full steam bythe yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (49:41):
So I know, so I know the ending of of that is selling
your company.
But before we get there, how didyou handle that growth?
Okay, you figured out, okay, Ineed to talk to an accountant
because we're supposed to bepaying taxes and doing something
with it.
And so to go from$100,000selling courses in four months
just by introducing it to yourclassmates to now multiple

(50:05):
millions of dollars sellingthose courses and then selling
your business, how was thattrajectory for you from that
first$100,000 to, okay, this issomething huge?
And were you always thinkingabout selling or acquisition, or
was this something that justhappened?
Like, how did that come about?

(50:26):
How did that conversation aboutacquisition and business and how
great we've done come about?

SPEAKER_02 (50:31):
It was so fast.
Everything happened just soinsanely fast that I feel like
even today, you know, it's beenthree years since we sold.
I feel like I'm like stillwrapping my head around the
whiplash of the two years that Iown the business because I
started it in May of 2020 and Isold it in June of 2022 for
people's brains to kind of wraptheir heads around.

(50:53):
So we had made our first hundredthousand dollars in those first
few months.
I was like, okay, I guess weneed a website, I guess we need
an accountant.
Like, let's do the thing.
And in November of that year,that first website really like
kind of went down in flames.
It was a shamble, and thewebsite itself ate up a lot of

(51:15):
my time.
So, what I love to do is becreative and create content and
teach and talk to students.
And what the has started topivot into is now I'm fixing a
website every day, and also Idon't know how to fix a website.
So I'm like trying to overcomethat learning curve all the
time.
And the way that the website youmade a bad hire, is that what

(51:39):
happened?
I made a terrible hire for awebsite twice.
I finally got it right on thethird try.
Okay.
But the first guy couldn't evenget the website open.
The second guy got a websiteopen that I could do
subscriptions on because thatwas what I wanted to do.
I wanted to go from lifetimeaccess to a subscription model
because that made so much moresense for me than people just

(52:00):
sharing this course for alifetime with all their friends
and family and anyone else whobecomes a nurse practitioner.
But the subscriptions weremessed up in the sense that if
you canceled, it didn't give youaccess to the end of your paid
month.
And so I would have to go inevery morning and manually fix
accounts as they canceled.
Oh my goodness.

(52:21):
And that became veryoverwhelming very fast because
I'm like trying to do all thisforward-facing stuff, and now
I'm trying to fix the back endall the time.
And it's just like there's notenough of me as a human.
Oh, and I'm still teachingfull-time, by the way.
I still have my full-time job.
So I'm like, I'm trying to doall the things.
And so I give you that backstorybecause I ended up right before

(52:42):
Thanksgiving hiring a businesscoach.
And I literally I had a friendone time who wanted to start a
taco truck, and she called up abusiness coach.
And the business coach said,That's a terrible idea.
Don't do that.
Um, which for her, that was theright call.
Okay.
Okay.
I was gonna be like a tacotruck.
That's a great idea.
No, no, no, no.
For for this specific human, itwas a terrible idea.

(53:03):
But I was like, um, I guess I'lljust call up that lady who told
Katie that the taco truck was abad idea, and maybe she can help
me figure this out because I wasat a point where I was so
overstimulated and overwhelmedthat I was just gonna kind of
let it die.

unknown (53:17):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (53:18):
And I was like, and I've got something here because
between August and November,when I called her, I mean, it
was almost Thanksgiving, wejumped from 100,000 to 250.
So I was like between what datesagain?
August and August toThanksgiving.
Wow.
Yeah.
I was like, so I can't just letit die.

(53:38):
Like this is like this is ourgolden egg.

SPEAKER_00 (53:41):
Um this is a$25 course by this point, just$25 at
that point.

unknown (53:47):
Wow.

SPEAKER_00 (53:48):
So you're that's a lot of sales then.
That's so many sales, so manysales.
Wow.

SPEAKER_02 (53:53):
$50.
Yeah.
So I call her up and she's like,oh my god, what has happened?
She's like, what do you mean?
You just made$250,000.
I'm like, I don't know, I justdid.
So can you help me figure itout?
And she's like, well, I've nevertold anyone this ever on a first
call.
She's like, by the time you talkto me next week, like, I need

(54:15):
you to hire somebody.
I don't care who it is, I don'tcare if it's another instructor,
I don't care if it's a VA, likeyou've got to hire a human.
So I ended up hiring my firstvirtual assistant who mostly
spent her time in the back endof the website resetting those
subscriptions for me.

SPEAKER_00 (54:30):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (54:30):
Um, but it gave me just enough space in my crazy
schedule to envision everythingup to this point was recorded
courses.
And I really wanted to dosomething live because everybody
was asking for it.
But I didn't want to do a liveprogram unless it could be
different.
Like I wasn't, if I just wasgonna teach you for two, 10-hour

(54:51):
days, like I wasn't gonna do it.
Like that wasn't meaningful tome.
And so I started envisioning,like, oh, like what does this
live program look like?
And I started um puttingtogether the initial
infrastructure of what we end upcalling the live study group
program.
And the live study groups were asix-week program for at the
time, I think it was$500.
And the way that it was set upwas I give you a calendar and I

(55:16):
tell you exactly what days towatch the courses and what how
many practice questions to do.
And I literally just every day,this is what you do, and then we
meet up every other week forfour hours, and we actually go
through case studies andquestions together live.
And that also people like Ialready had a prompt audience.
Obviously, I made 250 grand atthis point.

(55:38):
Yeah, and so my first life studygroup cohort was just 30 people,
but it was still 30 people wepaid$500, like that was a really
big deal, and it was also supersuccessful, super fast.
Everybody wanted in for the nextone, and the life study groups
really kind of like catapultedus to the next level.

(55:59):
And as we've got these lovestudy groups that we're figuring
out, we bring in a real websiteteam and a real marketing team,
and we move to a real coursesoftware.
So at that point, we went fromour little rinky dink website to
being on Kajabi, if people arefamiliar with Kajabi.

SPEAKER_00 (56:15):
Uh so were you on WordPress and doing something
like member press in the backend or something?
Okay, because I yeah, I waswondering how you were doing
that.
Very painful, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (56:23):
Very, very painful in every way.

SPEAKER_00 (56:25):
Yeah, and Kajabi is an all-in-one um platform for
course creators, coaches, thatkind of thing, where you can get
payments and host your course atthe same time.
So, just for those who areinterested in knowing, all the
pieces, yeah, all in one, all inone nice.

SPEAKER_02 (56:43):
That's what I need in that moment.
But yeah, so Christmas thatyear, we launched a lot of study
groups.
It's a me as successful.
I go ahead and I hired my firstnurse practitioner.
It was somebody I used to go tonursing school with, and I was
like, all right, we've got it.
I've got a VA, I've got a nursepractitioner, I've got an
instructor with me.
Like, we are ready to propelforward full speed.

(57:05):
And by gosh, I think it wasMarch, we had made a million
dollars.
And I was like, what ishappening?
Like, I still like couldn't evenwrap my head around it then.

SPEAKER_00 (57:19):
And that wasn't even a year, correct?

SPEAKER_02 (57:21):
No, it wasn't even a full year, it was like seven,
eight months in.
We made a million dollars.
And so that's when I firststarted having the inklings of
like, we are on a rocket shipright now.
Yeah, this rocket ship isincredible, and like we're gonna
have to really like start torethink like, okay, like we need
a question bank.
Like, we don't have a questionbank yet, and we're gonna need

(57:42):
an app and we're gonna need allof this like specific software
to us, and like you start likeputting all those pieces
together, and also we made amillion dollars without ever
writing a single ad, like it wasall word of mouth, which was so
cool and so incredible.
So I'm like, okay, we probablyneed to hire an ad team, like,
we probably need to like startfiguring out all these other
pieces.

(58:03):
But what my fear became is justlike their partition market's
only so big, like it's kind of aniche thing.
Yeah, so how long do we rollride this rocket ship before it
plateaus?
Because if you're gonna sell abusiness, you want to sell it on
the high, you don't want to sellit on the plateau or of a dip.
And at that point, we're like,we're growing month over month

(58:25):
over month over month.
So now, is that what you werethinking?
So when does that end?
Like, how does that, you know?
And so finally, by December ofthe following year, so a year
and a half ish into thebusiness, uh met for the first
time with a growth strategistbecause I had found a business
mentor at the time, and I don'tthink we've said a name in my

(58:47):
business up to this point.
It's called Sarah MichelleReviews.
Like it's it's my name, it's myface, it's me.
It's kind of a personal brand,right?
But I had met another businessmentor at that time who said
that I wouldn't be able to sell,where I would be really devalued
by having my name in my facebecause it would have Kiwan
syndrome.
And so I initially met with thegrocer TJ of like, okay, if I

(59:08):
want to sell eventually, do Ihave to remove myself to do
that?
And if so, let's go ahead andstart that process.
Okay.
And he was like, Well, um,selling a business is like
selling a house in the sensethat it's worth whatever
someone's willing to pay for it.
And so the only way to know whatsomeone's gonna value it with
your name and your face on it isto like go to market and do like

(59:32):
a teaser.

SPEAKER_00 (59:33):
And and what does that exactly mean when you go to
market with a teaser?

SPEAKER_02 (59:38):
So you you put together a little PowerPoint, a
little I did a little canvasslide deck about kind of it
gives information, but not in somuch away that it would be like
um you don't want to give liketrade secrets away, or you don't
want to give away proprietaryinformation because these are if
they're gonna buy you, they'reprobably also one of your
competitors.
So you gotta think about it inthat sense, you gotta be
delicate, um, but.

(01:00:00):
You put together a PowerPoint,it's vague enough about your
success and where you're goingand your vision.
And then you just start sendingthat out to companies that you
would like to purchase you orprivate equity firms that might
want to invest in you.
Um, but private equity was neverreally super my interest
because, like, we didn't needthe cash flow.
A lot of businesses need thecash flow, they need the

(01:00:22):
injection at some point.
We didn't need that.
So I really like I wanted tofind a strategic partner that
could really like take us to thenext level because I had tried
to build an app.
I had started the process oftrying to build our own
software, and I knew immediatelythat I was 1000% out of my
league.
I was like, I just don't knowenough and I can't learn fast

(01:00:45):
enough to figure out this techspace.
So, like the ideal vision for meis to be purchased by an ed tech
company that already has thisstuff figured out.

SPEAKER_00 (01:00:55):
Can you explain a little bit?
I know because we're talking tonurses on this podcast.
So we may have never heard ofthis world of private equity,
mergers, acquisitions,purchasing, you know, selling.
I neither.
So yeah, and teasing.
So a lot of us as nurses, wedon't know this world.
Could you just before you tellus about the whole selling
process and putting out thoseteasers and um sort of, you

(01:01:18):
know, hoping no one takes youridea or, you know, takes too
much information or proprietaryinformation?
What is that process of privateequity deciding between that and
and what is private equity?
What was it to you back then?
And how did you learn itquickly, I'm sure?
And how did you make thedecision to just go with
partners who are going to helpyou grow versus the private

(01:01:39):
equity equity route?
Because with private equity, youtake some funding, they own a
portion of your business, andthen you can probably eventually
sell it to them, I guess,afterwards.
But how did that work for you?

SPEAKER_02 (01:01:49):
So I didn't know enough then to really understand
the difference.
And so I kind of started toarticulate that difference
through the teaser process.
So we sent out the teasers toall these different people just
to get a kind of a vibe check.
And at that point, we actuallywe truly were not intending to
sell the business then becauseour intent was just see what
it's worth today, and then wecan figure out in the future

(01:02:12):
like what does that look like?
Do we want to sell?
And the way that I would uhdescribe private equity is um
I'm trying to figure out how tosay this nicely old men in suits
sitting somewhere in a suite inManhattan, and they're a little
bit condescending again.
What private equity wanted forme was for me to be the next

(01:02:36):
captain.
So, like, you got the nursingstuff figured out, cool.
Like, let's do NCLEX now, let'sdo medical stuff now, let's do
MCAT, let's do ACT, let's doSAT.
And I was like, I don't reallywant to be like full service
brand.
Like, I like my nurses, Iunderstand my nurses and my
nurse practitioners.
Like, yes, NCLEX makes a lot ofsense, but like ACT I really

(01:03:00):
don't care about.
And if I don't care about it, Idon't want to do it, right?
Yeah, at least not for me.
So that was kind of myexperience with private equity
and what they envisioned, andwhat they would have done is
they would have injected a lotof cash into my business for a
large portion of my business inreturn.
Most of the time, they'll takethe majority stake, and so you
kind of lose your power over thebusiness.

(01:03:20):
Yeah, your power, yes, yourownership.
Yes, you definitely do.
And that was reallyintimidating, really scary for
me.
And then you're kind of trappedthere in a way, and they have
really high expectations andreally high standards, and you
don't really get to make thechoices anymore.
So it's like, mm-hmm, that givesme anxiety.
So I don't think I don't thinkthat's for me.
Yeah.

(01:03:40):
The other route you can go isfinding a strategic partner that
you could fit in with.
So the company that ended uppurchasing mine, they had
everything but nursing.
They couldn't figure out thenursing world for whatever
reason.
And so they had MCAT and theyhad LSAT, and those were super
successful, and they already hada tech platform and they had
systems and infrastructure inplace.
Like this was a pretty decentsized company.

(01:04:03):
Um but what spoke to me the mostwhen I met with Blueprint
initially was number one, theyshowed up full force to the
mean.
Like they had the wholeexecutive team squad there, and
they had their, they actuallyhave their own private equity
partners.
So they had the permanent equitypartners there, etc.
But like half the people thatshowed up were women.

(01:04:23):
And everyone that worked in mybusiness, with the exception of
my husband, obviously was awoman.
And that that culture was reallyimportant to me to be valued in
the same way.
But I will tell you, you know,when I initially got my offer
from Blueprint, you know, weweren't intending to sell, and
it was not the offer I wanted.

(01:04:44):
And so I said, peace out, talkto you later.

SPEAKER_00 (01:04:47):
And at that time, did you already have other
offers to compare it with?
And you were saying, Oh, I thinkwe're worth more than this, or
what do you think?

SPEAKER_02 (01:04:55):
So, what me and my husband did, and if you ever
want to sell a business orreally sell anything, to be
honest, I think everyone shoulddo this exercise of what is your
number before you ever talk toanybody else.
So before you ever get an offer,before you ever like get
emotionally excited, like, oh,like half their exec team is
women and like all this stuff.

(01:05:15):
What is your number?
And so when the offer startedrolling in, it wasn't our
number.
It wasn't our number, it wasn'tour number.
And so it was easy to say no.
And we didn't get hung upotherwise because of that.

SPEAKER_00 (01:05:28):
How did you choose your number though?
Did you have did you do researchon other companies that were
similar and you were able tosort of see what was the
average, I guess, of those typeof companies?
Or how did you choose yournumber?

SPEAKER_02 (01:05:40):
Me and my husband, well, mostly my husband, did a
lot of really complicated mathof what it would, what number
would be worth it to us to sellthe upside?
Like what number sets us up forsuccess in a way that like we
can have generational wealth andwe can impact our families and
we can do philanthropy work.

(01:06:01):
Like it was all personal to us.
And so, like what my number ismight not be your number or like
even close to your number, butit like it fit our vision, but
it also fit of like, you know,if we just kept the business,
how much will we make in fiveyears?
How much will we make in 10years?
And should we just keep it forthat reason alone?

(01:06:22):
And so it was kind of this likeinternal debate, but it was
still like very subjective andpersonalized to us.

SPEAKER_00 (01:06:29):
Yeah.
Now, when you finally made thedecision, or you didn't like the
number at first and then theycame back and countered, or uh,
was that a long process whereyou just said no and then they
came back months later, or wasit all one like fail swoop where
they came back and forth withyou with the with a negotiation?

SPEAKER_02 (01:06:48):
The missing detail of this story is in December
when we first met with thegrowth strategist, on the
morning we were going to meetwith him for the first time.
I woke up and took a pregnancytest and found out that I was
pregnant.
And we got the official offer, Ibelieve it was in February.

(01:07:09):
And so, like, I'm just like I'mmoving along, I'm like cooking
this baby at this point.
And when I told them no, theysaid, Well, we'll come back in
July after we have like our nextboard meeting and the next
quarter, and we see how you'redoing.
Um, because they were like, ouroffer is low because like it's a
gamble for us, like you're sucha new business.
Like, are you really gonna do inthe next quarter what you say

(01:07:31):
you're gonna do?
And I was like, I know, like Iknow that I'm gonna do what I'm
gonna say I'm gonna do, but Iappreciate the sentiment.
And but if you think about July,I was supposed to have a baby in
August, so that was like reallylike I knew there was not gonna
be a sale in July, regardless,because it's such a complicated
process to sell a business.

(01:07:52):
And in February, I said bye.
And I went on and I was like,okay, if we're not selling,
because basically Blueprint waswho I wanted to buy me of the
people that we had met with.
And if it wasn't gonna work outwith them, I was just gonna stop
the process and continue on withmy business and growing my
business.
And so we had actually startedworking with a software

(01:08:12):
developer out of Singapore tobuild our own IncLEX software
because they're planning onlaunching IncLEX products and
building out a betterinfrastructure for us because
Kajabi is great, but we neededspecific to us.
Like we couldn't host a questionbank on Kajabi, like it was kind
of becoming a nightmare.
So the week that Blueprint cameback in late March, which was a

(01:08:36):
very quick turnaround.
Um, our question bank, which wewere hosting on WordPress at the
time, went kipputs.
I mean, it just absolutely died.
And we have thousands ofsubscribers to this question
bank.

SPEAKER_01 (01:08:48):
Oh wow.

SPEAKER_02 (01:08:50):
And we're trying to put everything on Kajabi
overnight, even though Kajabi isnot made to do a question bank.
We're just trying to give themsomething because people were
panicking.
And so when they called me thatweek, I was like, oh man, I
would love to sell.
I am so in over my head.
I mean, I didn't tell them this,yeah.
Of course, but they ended upironically coming back with our

(01:09:10):
number.

SPEAKER_00 (01:09:11):
And yeah, was it a big jump from where they started
to what your number was?
It was double.

SPEAKER_02 (01:09:17):
Oh, it was double.

unknown (01:09:19):
Okay.

SPEAKER_00 (01:09:20):
Now, did they see a difference in the did they see
that it was growing?
Did you have another teaser oranother deck that you sent them?

SPEAKER_02 (01:09:26):
They had such a successful quarter at that point
that they were like, we feelcomfortable taking the risk as
long as you're still doing whatyou said you were doing and we
weren't.
Um, and I was like, okay, Iguess we're gonna do the sell
thing.
Like it wasn't what Ianticipated, but so we spent all
of April, all of May, a lot ofJune negotiating back and forth,

(01:09:50):
but really like even the two anda half month sale process is
pretty fast.
However, we were such a simplebusiness at the end of the day.
Like we had only a handfulreally of employees, and we
didn't have like years and yearsof records to go through.
And like, so we really wereable, like, it was painful
talking to lawyers every day.

(01:10:12):
Um, but outside of that, like wewere able to get it done and we
all knew we had a deadlinebecause I was pregnant and I was
gonna be on leave and kind ofall the pieces too of just like
selling a business and thenimmediately leaving that
business and all the preparationthat has to go in to do that
because that's hard.
That's really just that's areally hard situation to be in.

(01:10:35):
Um but we sold in June of 2022,and I'm like always a little
disappointed, and that's a weirdthing to say because we didn't
really get time to celebrate it.
Like we didn't, we never gotlike a real pause because it was
three weeks later that we foundout my daughter was gonna be

(01:10:57):
sick, and so we thought that wehad like this normal, healthy
baby and this normal, healthypregnancy, and like I'm
envisioning my maternity leave,like holding a baby over here
and my laptop over here, andlike yeah, I'm still like in the
business.
And to go from that vision tolike finding out that our
daughter has four heart defectsand she's gonna have heart
surgery in her first week oflife, and like everything just

(01:11:18):
completely upended.
And so if I could go back inthat time, I would have spent
that two weeks, I don't know,like raging, partying, I guess.
Like I would have like, we wouldhave taken a trip or we would
have done something fun, orlike, but instead we were
starting to like nestle in andcozy in with the thought of
having a baby, and it just kindof really pivoted.
But yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (01:11:39):
And I would love to, I know we're running out of
time, and I would love to sharethat story.
Maybe in another podcastepisode, we can go into the work
that you're doing now with beinga heart mom and working with
many different organizations.
Um yeah, with dealing with heartdefects and things like that.
So I would love to share thatstory and maybe have you come

(01:12:01):
back on another episode andshare.
Yeah, yeah.
And I feel like it's like I whenwe started this, I said, Oh,
we're gonna get through fourtopics.
And we barely, you know, gotthrough the third topic.
And I and I welcome to mymemoirs.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And you're writing a book too,as well.
And um, there's only so much youcan do in like an hour's time.

(01:12:23):
But I want to ask one thing, andI don't know how much you can
share about um the whole selland the process.
You are already making, fromwhat I understand, millions of
dollars in the business.
So when someone is makingmillions of dollars in their
business, because there arenurses out there who are doing
it now, um, should they expectmultiple millions in an offer?

(01:12:48):
Because I'm not sure, you know,what that sell was, but you said
it doubled what your first offerwas at first.
So, what do you think a nurseshould expect?
And I know it's different forevery business about what your
number is and how you want toset up yourself for wealth in
the future.
Um, what would you say to that?

SPEAKER_02 (01:13:05):
Uh, they call that a multiple.
And so there are whatever yourstyle of business is, there's
traditionally a multipleassigned to that.
And so, like, if you are an edtech business, so if you're an
education business that hastheir own technology, for
example, like that's a biggermultiple than just an education
business.

(01:13:25):
Like I had, um, you shouldabsolutely expect a multiple.
Like, you're not you're notgonna sell your business making
millions of dollars just to getlike a couple of millions of
dollars back.
Like you would have, like youwould have made that if you had
just kept it.

SPEAKER_00 (01:13:40):
Yeah, right.
Because you can make that overthe next couple of years.
So it doesn't make sense to sellit for what you're doing.

SPEAKER_02 (01:13:44):
So you gotta find what makes sense for you in the
multiple ranges a little bit,but that's kind of the beauty of
working with a broker, workingwith a grocery strategist,
working with someone who's donethe process before, that they
can kind of help you navigatewhat that should look like.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (01:14:02):
Okay, so get a broker, get a growth strategy,
get a great broker.

SPEAKER_02 (01:14:07):
Mine was not great.
Um, but yes, get a great broker.
Yeah.
Uh the other detail, which isjust fun for me to say, so I'll
throw it in at the end was whenwe initially turned down the
deal from Blueprint, the firstone, my broker kind of lost his
mind.
Oh.
Um, and he was like, What do youmean you would turn this down?
Like, this is life-changingmoney, all this stuff.
And I'm like, Yeah, but it's notour number, and that's okay.

(01:14:29):
Um, was he working on acommission?
Yes, brokers are incentivizedbecause they get their cut,
right?
And so we actually ended thingswith the broker all together and
because, like, we're movingforward the business, and now
we've had this reallyuncomfortable experience with
you because we don't want to belike pushed into a sale.
Yeah.
Um, so we ended up negotiatingthe entire deal by ourselves.
Wow, which was also a crazyintense wild experience.

(01:14:53):
Um, but my husband's incredible,and I like to think I'm
incredible.
So yeah, we figured it out.

SPEAKER_00 (01:15:01):
Well, I I think you've figured it out greatly,
and I want to thank you forsharing all the story.
And again, we have to bring youback to hear the the part two um
of your story.
Yeah.
What's a memorable nursing storythat you may have that comes to
mind that still comes to mind,still tugs at your heart, still
makes you go back to nursing.

SPEAKER_02 (01:15:23):
I think about this incredible woman.
Um, when I was working in bonemarrow transplants, where I
spent most of my time, who shecame in to get a bone marrow
transplant.
There's so much anticipationinvolved with that as well, and
there's so much prep involved.
And they place your central linea few days before you come in to
actually do a transplant.

(01:15:44):
And in the few days she had beenhome, she ended up getting an
infection in that central line.
So it had to be pooled, they hadto put a new one in, they had to
delay her bone marrowtransplant.
Like it was, it felt like theworst of the worst of the worst.
Like it was, it was not great.
Um, and so when she finds out,and I'm staying in the room with
her, that she has a central lineinfection, and like we're about

(01:16:05):
to pivot the whole process ofwhat we thought we were gonna be
doing.
She ends up, I don't know howshe ended up standing on her
bed, but she ended up standingon her bed, like welling, having
a panic attack, just having justlike a full body, full mental
breakdown.
And so I ended up because youknow, I've had a lot of panic

(01:16:26):
attacks in my life.
I literally I just went and satdown on her bed, even though
she's like standing and toweringover top of me.
And I was like, I'm just gonnasit here with you through this.
So it's like, however, you wantto feel is how you feel.
Um, and when you are in aposition where you feel ready to
talk and we can kind of figurethings out together, like that's

(01:16:47):
cool.
But until then, like I'm justgonna sit here through this with
you, and I know this reallysucks.
Um, and her daughter was sotouched by that, and she was so
touched by that.
Like, even years later, like um,she came back and she thanked me
for like having that moment withher and like seeing her in that

(01:17:07):
moment and just validating,like, hey, you can be anxious,
and hey, this really sucks, andI'm just gonna like be your
person through it.

SPEAKER_00 (01:17:15):
That was Sarah Bowes, founder of Sarah Michelle
in P Reviews.
And one quick story that wedidn't get to include in the
podcast episode.

SPEAKER_02 (01:17:25):
Um, I have a very fun side project right now,
which fills so the realm ofnursing and everything else I've
done.
But I do have an astrologypodcast.
Um, and I do astrology readingson the side.
And I actually I think sometimeslike and I'm I feel like I get
more rapport because I'm like, Ihave two college degrees, I'm a
successful entrepreneur.

(01:17:46):
Like, I think this astrologything is actually a thing.
But I remember how cool it wasfor me.
I met this incredibly successfulmergers and acquisitions lawyer.
She like led a firm, all thisstuff, and she told me she's
like, I'm kind of like intoastrology.
And I was like, Are you?
And this was way before I evergot into it.
But it like really opened thedoor for me for like someone who

(01:18:07):
was successful to be like, thisisn't like a croc.
Um, so that's so much fun forme.

SPEAKER_00 (01:18:13):
Thanks so much for listening to the show this week.
Please make sure to rate andreview this episode in your
favorite podcast app.
And don't forget to click thefollow button so you won't miss
an episode.
This episode was produced andedited by yours truly with
administrative and researchsupport from Liz Alexandri and
Renan Silva.

(01:18:35):
I'm Marcia Batti, and you'vebeen listening to the Bossy
Nurses podcast.

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Episode Transcript

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3. How Sarah Michelle Boes Built a $1 Million Nurse Business in 7 Months

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