This as-told-to essay relies on a dialog with Sarah Michelle Boes, the founding father of Sarah Michelle NP Evaluations (SMNP), which was acquired by Blueprint Check Prep in 2022. Boes presently serves because the chief nursing officer for Blueprint Check Prep and hosts the podcast Changing into A Stress-Free Nurse Practitioner. She earned her BSN from the College of Kentucky, her MSN in Nursing Schooling from Western Governors College and her post-MSN-FNP from Japanese Kentucky College. The piece has been edited and condensed for readability.
Picture Credit score: Courtesy of Sarah Michelle Boes
I grew up in rural Japanese Kentucky, and I at all times had this ardour for being a trainer. I had my coronary heart set on it. However my mother and father are lecturers, and so they’re like, “Completely not. You’ll be able to’t do this.” There are a variety of politics and forms inside educating. It is much more than simply being an educator. Then, after I was a teen, my grandmother was identified with stage 4 lung most cancers. With out nice entry to premium healthcare in our space, we needed to journey two hours to Lexington to get that prognosis and obtain a care plan that she might take again dwelling. That was over the summer time, so I went together with her, and that was my first introduction to nursing on the Markey Most cancers Middle.
These nurses have been unimaginable. I really feel like oncology nurses, normally, are form of angels. Not solely did they handle her, however additionally they took care of me. It was only a nice expertise. So, realizing that I wasn’t going to have the ability to be a trainer, I used to be like, Properly, nursing — I really feel like I might get one thing completed. And there can be a educating side as a result of there’s a variety of affected person training, however I might additionally get a human reference to folks, which I thrive off of. So it was a no brainer, and I attended the College of Kentucky, which assured me admission to their program — and that is a very large deal.
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I grappled with nervousness throughout nursing faculty. A category was infamous for removing folks, and everybody dreaded taking it. I had a ton of hysteria in that class specifically, a lot in order that my teacher was like, “I do not assume nursing is for you. You are too anxious to be a secure nurse.” I had to decide on to remain. The grading scale in nursing can be very completely different: In most packages, something lower than a 76 means you fail — and on the primary examination in that class, I received a 74. I actually failed the primary examination by one query. So I had to determine how one can take care of my nervousness, to consider the instruments I might use.
So, I began to determine how one can handle that class and my nervousness. Then, I started tutoring, in the end quitting my full-time job as a supervisor to assist college students full-time. I taught them the talents that had helped me deal with that difficult class otherwise, and my nervousness did not choose up once more till I used to be a nurse practitioner — as a result of it had been a very long time since I might taken a high-stakes examination. There was nobody to show to get perspective as a result of I used to be the primary nurse in my household, and I did not know many individuals who have been nurse practitioners.
What’s extra, I took my nurse practitioner examination within the prime of Covid, Could 2020. So it was chaos. Testing facilities have been down, and a few locations would allow you to take it on-line at dwelling, however others would not. By the point I took the examination in the course of Could, it had been canceled 5 occasions, three of which I might already arrived on the testing heart. So, there was a variety of nervousness concerned. I used to be like, Am I ever going to take this take a look at? My job is using on this.
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I used to be so careworn that I ended up breaking a tooth in my sleep as a result of I used to be grinding them so exhausting. I used to be going to need to get a dental implant to the tune of $7,000; my hair was additionally falling out. However I completed the 175-question examination in lower than an hour, and I handed. I used to be like, I can not consider I used to be stressing over this factor. This was a lot simpler than my nursing examination. All I wanted was confidence in myself as a result of I might spent years in colleges and lots of of hours in medical making ready. None of my critiques had given me that confidence.
That realization — and the truth that I nonetheless needed to pay for a $7,000 dental implant — motivated me to place collectively my first overview course. I began my enterprise as a result of I used to be like, I can not afford this $7,000 implant. I figured if I put collectively a bit overview course and even simply earned $500, that might assist pay for it. And I began to consider the way it could possibly be completed in another way — the way it could possibly be much less like somebody lecturing you and extra like learning with a buddy. So, I got here up with a Q&A method, which I might used as a tutor in nursing faculty and after I taught nursing college students on the collegiate stage.
Inside per week of passing the examination, I made my first three-hour course. I truly gave it out to all of my classmates at no cost. There have been 30 of us, and I used to be like, “Hey guys, I will offer you this course at no cost when you invite another person into the group after I give it to you.” I gave the course to the primary 100 individuals who got here into the group. Then, not even a few days later, somebody who had taken the course went on to move, and it form of exploded by phrase of mouth. It received wild actually rapidly. The primary particular person I attempted to promote it to for $25 received mad as a result of her buddy had gotten it at no cost, so she haggled me all the way down to $15. Nonetheless, I made $1,000 on the primary day I began promoting, and I did not even make $1,000 in per week as a nurse. I used to be like, What if I made $1,000 a day, daily? What would life appear to be?
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By the top of June and July, I might surpassed what I used to make yearly as a nurse. I advised my nurse practitioner job I would not be coming. I needed to see how far I might take the enterprise, however being affordable and by no means having run a enterprise earlier than, I saved my full-time educating job, simply in case. However each spare hour I had, each weekend, was all concerning the enterprise. As a result of I used to be so anxious about it being a startup, fragile and new, I waited to give up my educating job till I made $1 million. We hit seven figures in seven months.
A few yr and a half in, I used to be nonetheless utilizing third-party software program to host my programs — nothing was in-house or actually in unison. It received to the purpose the place my college students have been actually breaking the software program; I wanted my very own. We truly spent $100,000 attempting to construct an app that ended up fully falling aside. That was actually exhausting, however we simply saved operating up towards know-how, and I noticed I used to be the bottleneck to this factor. The enterprise needed to develop, so I began wanting into different choices.
We thought of a sale and put out some teasers, hoping to get constructive suggestions. Because it turned out, the take a look at prep supplier Blueprint had some inside conferences concerning the prospect earlier than I even despatched out the teaser. They’d medical stuff, and so they had LSAT stuff, however they did not have any nursing materials on the time. And I needed to take some strain off myself as a result of per week into sending out the teasers, I came upon I used to be pregnant. I by no means need folks to assume I offered as a result of I used to be pregnant; it simply coincided with the timing.
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We beloved the Blueprint workforce, however the deal simply wasn’t proper at first. My husband and I had selected a quantity earlier than we had a single dialog, and I might advocate any entrepreneur do the identical. In any other case, it may be exhausting to navigate a deal when feelings are operating excessive. So the primary deal wasn’t our quantity, and we walked away. Then they got here again with our quantity, and we ended up promoting across the two-year mark. That cash has been life-changing.
At 36 weeks pregnant, we came upon that my daughter was going to have a congenital coronary heart defect. We had no concept. So every part form of flipped on its head actually rapidly. Once I gave start, the cash gave us the flexibleness and skill to be with our daughter when she wanted it the very most. She had six surgical procedures in her first 5 months of life, two of which have been open-heart surgical procedures. So, very loopy, chaotic occasions, and what a blessing to have the ability to haven’t solely a maternity go away, but additionally a medical go away, and to have the ability to be absolutely current for that — and never solely me but additionally my husband. We could possibly be there collectively and help each other.
Now, my daughter is nineteen months outdated, and for the previous yr, we have been working to do a legacy present to our native kids’s hospital, the place they actually saved her life. Hopefully, subsequent month, fingers crossed, every part’s going to be completed, and so they’re truly going to dedicate the Norton Kids’s Coronary heart Institute to my daughter. They’re attempting to construct out a premier coronary heart program there, and you need to have the funds to have the ability to do this. So the cash provides us a variety of freedom and suppleness — my husband’s additionally beginning up his personal enterprise — however our work with the youngsters’s hospital is essentially the most significant and impactful accomplishment.
