The Foureva Podcast
The Foureva Podcast is where real stories, bold ideas, and honest conversations create real opportunities.
Hosted by entrepreneur, author, and international speaker Jamar Jones, each episode goes beyond the highlight reel to uncover the decisions, setbacks, lessons, and relationships that shape successful entrepreneurs, founders, and leaders.
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The Foureva Podcast
Disrupting Healthcare: Nadia Adams’ Fight for Change
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In this powerful episode, we sit down with Nadia Adams—healthcare innovator, entrepreneur, and founder of Blue Agilis—to explore what it really takes to challenge a broken system and build something better. Nadia shares her personal motivation rooted in her brother’s story, the alarming realities of preventable medical harm, and how AI-driven solutions can transform patient outcomes.
We also dive deep into the entrepreneurial journey—navigating emotional capital, scaling a team in chaos, pivoting when your “Ferrari” solution is too advanced for the market, and learning how to communicate ideas in a way that drives adoption.
If you’ve ever wondered how to disrupt an industry, balance passion with practicality, or use your voice to spark change in healthcare and beyond—this conversation is a must-listen.
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The Problem with Healthcare Today
SPEAKER_00For the most part, the people that are providing care, they really, really want to help. They're hardworking, dedicated people. And they're burnt out, you know, some of them because they they care so much. And I've talked to so many doctors that said, this isn't like how we're operating medicine today isn't what I thought it would be like when I went into medicine. And it's the bureaucracy around how the healthcare industry is ran.
SPEAKER_02Okay, we're live. They can all see us.
SPEAKER_00Thank you for having me on.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, Nadia. This is gonna be this is gonna be absolutely incredible. Um, I think what you're doing is just so impactful. And also, I want to learn a little bit more about your journey. Um, but first of all, first of all, where in the world are you right now?
SPEAKER_00I am in Indianapolis, Indiana.
SPEAKER_02Nice, dude. You're a Hoosier.
SPEAKER_00I'm a Hoosier.
SPEAKER_02Nice.
SPEAKER_00I just need to give a shout out to the IU football team right now.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00Have you tried do you follow college football?
SPEAKER_02I don't follow college football. I do follow a lot of other sports besides college football.
SPEAKER_00Well, IU is known for basketball, we're a big college basketball school. Where we have never really done that great in football, but this year we are undefeated and we are gonna go to a bowl game. And yeah, it's complete transformation in one year.
SPEAKER_02Wow, well, because what did they do last year? I don't know, but that's but they weren't good enough to get to the bowl, man.
SPEAKER_00So now all of us Hoosiers now are paying attention this year, yeah, that's awesome.
SPEAKER_02I I I vividly remember I've got a great uh friend named uh Jeremy McLaughlin, and he took me to my first ever March Madness game, and that was uh the Hoosiers uh basketball versus uh Kentucky, and it was like in and we watched it in Indiana, no, it was in um Dayton, Ohio, was when where they were running all the tournaments and stuff, yeah, and it was electric um in there, and I was like, this is awesome! So that made me kind of a Hoosier fan just on the on the college level, just just just from that experience.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so go hoosiers, go hoosiers, go hoosiers, go hoosiers.
SPEAKER_02So any any other hoosiers in the chat, let me let me know. Okay, so um Nadia, can you let everybody know who you are and what you do?
SPEAKER_00So I um started a healthcare, an AI, actually, AI health tech company about four years ago now. And basically why I started this company is I personally am very frustrated with the current healthcare system. I think that it doesn't deliver the value and the experience that all of us as consumers deserve, and the price tag of what we pay is outrageous for what we get. And so I do not think that it's because we don't have talented, you know, talented, experienced people. I think that we have some of the best doctors and clinical team members in the world. But the reason why we get the outcomes that we get is because of a very broken system. And so I spent my entire career focused on how do we actually improve this? And the reason why I launched the company four years ago is because we've figured out a way to scale the adoption of evidence-based interventions so that everybody can get better health outcomes. Because the uh currently it's very segmented, it's really hit or miss on whether you know what kind of treatment you get is really dependent on where you are and who you see. And it shouldn't be that way. And so that's what my technology does is it scales um the implementation of evidence-based intervention so that we can all reap the benefit while lowering the cost of care, which is, in my opinion, you know, a emergency for the United States right now.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, 100 100%. I know a lot of people will be able to relate to you on this. I I want you to tell the story about your about your brother. Um, I just think that it gives so much context to what you do.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I'm first generation. My parents immigrated from South Vietnam after the war. They came here and had me and then had my brother. Due to a series of preventable medical events, my brother um had severe brain damage and and luckily lived. They didn't think that he was going to survive. They actually asked my parents to go and look at burial sites because he was on a ventilator and he miraculously started breathing on his own. And so he requires 24-7 care, and he's really the motivation behind everything I do because I know what it's like to have a family member that has um experienced a preventable medical event in our healthcare system. And I want to make sure that others don't have to go through that same experience. But unfortunately, today, many people do. The statistics show that one in four one in four patients that access our healthcare system receive preventable medical harm, and that doesn't even include preventable medical death.
SPEAKER_02So, what can we do? What can what can we do about this? This sounds this sounds like uh, and I know there's a lot of people out there, especially one in four, it's just a crazy statistic. I mean, it's just it's no, this should not be that. I mean, look, we're we're all human. We we I know humans will make mistakes, but when you say preventable, that just that just pisses me off a little bit. Um, just because like in the business world, um if if there's preventable things and it happens, I mean, depending on how large it is, like the stakes are, I mean, there's a lot of ramifications for that, right? And you can't just fly under the radar and just like keep it moving, you know, like usually people will get fired, there's lawsuits, there's you know, there's something going on um for people doing preventable things, um, and and still and still being able just to conduct business. So what can we do um to try to change that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so the first thing there's a there's a lot of things going through my mind right now. So I'll try to break it down in a few different buckets. The first bucket is if you think about healthcare, we are the only industry where the people that are receiving the service is actually
Nadia's Personal Story and Motivation
SPEAKER_00not the person that understands the pricing of that service and it's paying directly for that service. We all have insurance, and so we pay into this insurance, and then basically we're we're hopeful that that's gonna manage um any event that we may have. And so there's no price transparency, which means there's no value transparency. And I know that a lot of that, you know, we can't control as individuals. Um, concierge medicine is one approach where the person that's receiving the service is directly paying for the service. But when you have kind of this dichotomy, um, it basically uh it prevents the the consumer from understanding am I willing to spend my money on that? Right. So we still all pay, right? A co-pay, we pay into insurance premiums and stuff. But imagine a world where if you were like shopping for a shirt, I actually want to spend my money at this place versus this place. The it's so diluted right now that we don't understand what we are actually paying for. So that's like the first, the first problem as to why things are the way that it is. So to go back and answer like what can consumers do, I think the other thing is uh in the healthcare industry, sometimes patients don't feel empowered. They go there and they say, I'm sick and I just need help. And I can assure you that for the most part, the people that are providing care, they really, really want to help. They're hardworking, dedicated people, and they're burnt out, you know, some of them because they they care so much. And I've talked to so many doctors that said, this isn't like how we're operating medicine today isn't what I thought it would be like when I went into medicine. And it's the bureaucracy around how the healthcare industry is ran. And so from a consumer lens, I would encourage and empower everyone to basically go there and and engage in shared decision making, right? You have um you do have experts that want to help, but it is also your duty and right to actually be able to say, hey, what can I expect from this? Um, the the providers are always good at saying risk benefit type things, but really you should be empowered to ask more questions to make sure that you're getting the right diagnosis for the right treatments. And then and then the space that I plan and the work that I do is um after an experienced, talented provider diagnoses a patient, I need to make sure we all need to make sure that once that diagnosis is made, that the right thing is done for the right patient at the right time. And that's where processes have been broken. The healthcare industry has gone into this big movement in the past of lean, right? Let's just lean out the process, let's eliminate error and eliminate waste. But the thing is, if you have a very good lean process, but you don't start ensuring that we're we're giving those clinical team members um the right evidence-based practices, then you have a really good system at producing the wrong result for the patient. And so that's kind of where we come in is to really help make sure that evidence is injected in the right way. And in that clinical workflow, the right things are happening to the right patient. And so, um, from a consumer's lens, I think the other reason why it's hard for consumers to engage into how can I make sure a preventable medical event doesn't happen to me is because consumers aren't aware of what they should expect in the process, right? And so Blue Agilis understands how that process and workflow should be implemented. We're actually tinkering with an idea on creating transparency around that workflow and actually sharing um that level of understanding with everyday consumers so that when you go and see a provider or go somewhere to get XYZ done, you have more insights on what you should be expecting, what you should expect in this process. And when something doesn't happen, you can say, Hey, I thought that you're supposed to do a medication reconciliation right now, right? So some preventable things is just because you're on a certain list of medications that your primary care is managing, you have some event, you have to be admitted into the hospital, they put you on a bunch of other medicines, and then no one's actually reconciling these medications. Yeah, I mean you're supposed to, but so many different entry points into the healthcare system that it becomes lost.
SPEAKER_02That's uh that's crazy. It it definitely makes it makes sense, uh, to the fact that like people should be able just to ask questions. And for the healthcare system, the more we can ask questions, it actually helps be able to have a better diagnosis, to have a better uh process. If people kind of are more educated and kind of understand what's going on so they can ask the right questions, it's very similar. I I kind of compare this also to um to uh fitness and and health as well as as well. When people, if they don't know what kind of foods go well with their because it's very easy to be like, hey, you want to lose weight, do this, but then they don't check like anything else that's going on with the person, and then like, no, you know, uh, that's probably not a very healthy diet for this person of what they have going on, so that could actually have negative ramifications of you going through that, but it's just asking the right questions and being educated enough. Um, and I and it's unfortunate though that a lot of consumers are not uh educated, yeah, and it's not they kind of just trust that things are gonna get done right and people know what they're talking about, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And and and the thing
Understanding Medical Errors and Harm
SPEAKER_00is, and it's not the consumer's job, right? So if the healthcare system was worked the way that it's supposed to, then the consumer shouldn't have to ask those questions. But the thing is, when we work on those clinical operational processes that should be put in place, right? In that journey of, okay, if you do have a patient admitted now and you're about to discharge this patient, a medication recon reconciliation should be done. I'm just going back on a very simple example.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Sometimes that happens, sometimes that doesn't. Then that patient should follow up with their primary care doctor. That doesn't happen all the time, right? But the patient doesn't know that these are certain steps in the process that has nothing to do with their diagnosis. Okay. It has everything to do with all the other pieces that have to work in the healthcare system so that you can be healthy and live the life that you want to live in the setting that you want to live it in. And so, um, and so for me, uh, I think consumers don't even realize that the experience that they're getting should actually be a better experience because they're just used to it, you know. And that's where I'm saying, guys, like the healthcare system is not good, it's really bad. We have certain areas that we're, you know, like I said, we have talented doctors and we have state-of-the-art technology and we're curing diseases like we haven't been before, but we need to be able to improve the value that we give to all Americans across the country.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And and why, why don't the just in your opinion, why don't the systems talk to each other? Oh my gosh, that's a that's a whole nother that's the one thing that like it just it irritates me so much. It's like I I got um oh man, uh wait, wait, wait, hold on. It's it's coming to me. Okay, so like for instance, like you could go on some, you know, some business's website, like you know, um Amazon, let's just say, and their their website's polished. You got you know, you could do all these things in their website, and it's easy to navigate, easy to move around. You could buy stuff, return easy fast returns, and all this stuff, but the moment that I go in for my healthcare, it's like people freeze up. Oh, I don't have that. We got to wait to get this information back. No systems are talking to each other, the websites oftentimes suck. Um, like and the insurance site sucks, like it's it's a mess, it's an absolute mess. And and I'm like, why is it like this? Why is it not just one like unified system, or at least systems at least that communicate with each other, just to be able to check, like, especially if you're moving, like you know, I just recently uh moved from from Milwaukee to to Virginia. It's like they're not even talking to each other, like they'll I gotta ask for my records and get them all my records, and then I gotta go over here. It's like it's a whole game. Like, why is it like that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so there's there's that's a loaded question. There's a lot of reasons why it's like that, and I won't go into all of them, okay. But I'll go back to kind of that first thing that I said is unfortunately the way our current the way our current healthcare system is set up, it actually there's no consequence for a hospital or a health system or a practice, any site of care to do something different because they're not gonna get paid any differently. So today, the way our healthcare system works, it's a fee-for-service model. That's the majority of payments that are still being made today, is the more people that you see, the more you're gonna get paid, right? And so it's not like like with me running a business. If I lose a client, I gotta make some changes, right? I gotta change immediately. They're losing people and they don't even know that they're losing people, and and and and they're still making the money that they're making. There's no consequence for delivering subpar care. Yeah, but there is a uh a wave of work that's trying to get done called value-based care, which is really incentivizing people for the quality of care that they're provided. But that's just a sliver of the percentage of payments that are actually being made to these providers.
SPEAKER_02Oh my god. Because they're because hospitals are a non-they're a nonprofit, right?
SPEAKER_00Well, some of them, some of them are, some of them aren't.
SPEAKER_02Some of them are for-profit. Yeah, okay. Yeah, because I know some of them were nonprofit, so they also get donations and other things like that, too, where it's like, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, feedback, think about it. The biggest thing on how do you like if you think about human, if you think about human and how we're set up, we're set up to take in data and feedback and respond to it, right? The data and feedback loop for a health system or a hospital or whatever that is, is so long, it's almost non-existent, right? And so if you don't have a good data and feedback system, how do you know when to change? And it has to be worth it. Like the the sad side of healthcare is it's still a business, and business decisions financially are still made because that's how it's currently been driven, right? Right. And which is set up by okay, well, the easy equation is I just need to see more people and I'll make more money. Yeah, but that's not explainable.
SPEAKER_02It's it's a business, but at the same time, it's not a business because it's not being treated or have the same ramifications like a business normal would like to back to your example of like you lose a client, you got to change something, something's gotta happen. Like there, there's no there's no like it's not business minded, it's it's just it's just it's just treated like a transactional company that's just getting that's just getting transactions, but you just don't care about you know, and not to say that like once again, it's not to say that the workers don't care. We're talking about the system. We're talking about the system and the structures behind the scenes of how it's how it's being ran and what's and what's being done and how those transactions are happening. That that's what we're that's what we're talking about, everybody. So yeah, don't roast us too much.
SPEAKER_00I always say that I should one day uh do something about like the the unknown truth, yeah, healthcare or something, because there's just so many different things that go into it that that most people aren't aware.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it sounds like a book. Whenever I have time to write it, sounds like a book. Um, so I want to talk a little bit about so uh how long have you been doing the business for and um and how has that been just growing it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so actually around this time is my four-year anniversary where I decided to uh make the decision to leave my golden handcuffs, if if if you will, which is like a full-time employed job, yeah, salary every two weeks. So I'm gonna try this thing, and I have no idea if I if it's gonna even work and and when I'm even gonna get a paycheck, right? Uh so four years ago at this point, I made that decision for all the reasons that I mentioned previously. And so I've been on this journey now, like launched the company end of January, so almost four years officially, uh, as Blue Azules has been like in the market for.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. And and what's what's been the um what's been some of your biggest challenges that you've had to overcome so far?
SPEAKER_00Well, I think that I I know that you mentioned that there's a lot of um entrepreneurs and stuff that listen in on this podcast. I think one of the things that entrepreneurs experience is an emotional roller coaster. Um, and you have to be able to know how to manage that. My co-founder and I, and and he used to be my former boss, he's a physician. So I have two physician co-founders. He always talks about how there's four types of capital, okay? Financial capital, social capital, political capital, and emotional capital. And which one of those capitals do you think is the most important for an entrepreneur?
SPEAKER_02Uh emotional. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And so um, I've, you know, you go through this emotional roller coaster where some days you have highs and other days you have lows, and you know, the business is built on you. So you have to be able to mentally and emotionally push yourself through all the stuff that happens. And I think in the end, it's about agility and being able to not fall in love
Building a Startup Team and Culture
SPEAKER_00with a process, but fall in love with the outcome. And I think that people easily fall in love with the process because we're humans and we like control, right? So when you're doing something that's unknown, when you're doing something that it's a scary situation and you don't know what the outcome is, we go to we have to come up with the best plan. We gotta figure out all the details of the plan. Well, the reality is the real world isn't a plan, it's not even a snapshot in time, it's a video. And so you have to have a minimal viable plan, like always stay core to what you want to do, but don't fall in love with the process of what you think it should be. You gotta be able to be agile and change it and say, you know what? This plan that I had, gotta gotta kill it. You have to kill it. Being able to kill something quickly is I think one of the biggest skills that you have to learn. But as you can see, killing something ties into emotional capital.
SPEAKER_02Um, especially when you've birthed it, you you had this idea, you're like, Oh, this is gonna be good, it's gonna work, and then you're like, oh no, yeah, it doesn't work, and it doesn't mean that your idea is a bad idea, it's how do you get that value created, right?
SPEAKER_00So it's the path to the idea, and the number of times that I've had to pivot the path to the idea, like if you talk to anybody that works for Blue Agiles, even though they've worked for other startups before, they will say, We change more here than I've ever experienced. But once you aren't like to me, if you're not able to adapt, you die, right? Yeah, be agile and adapt or die because you have no other choice as a startup. You have to be able to make money and survive, and you make money by delivering value to the market.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, 100%. That's great, great advice. You gotta be able to move and groove with the waves.
SPEAKER_00I mean, you you have to, you gotta be able to yeah, and I will tell you one of the other things I've learned is the team that you hire, yeah, it is it is hard to find people that can work in an environment like that. Yeah, because we all, if you think about the way that all of us have been trained and raised from like very little in school, is you have to learn this, and this is what it is, and then you have to get the perfect score on the test. You don't have another chance. This is your chance. You have to be able to flip that complete mindset that has been instilled in you since you were pretty much in kindergarten to say, I actually don't know the answer, but I'm gonna try, and it's okay that I fail. And so to bring on a team of people that can flip that mindset is actually difficult because most people are used to this is what we said we're doing. We can't change this, and then when you create change, it's too much chaos for them, right? But in the startup, the chaos is what you need because you have to get feedback to be able to pivot to survive.
SPEAKER_02It's oh my god, it's spoken like a real entrepreneur, right there. I'm telling you. Um, somebody did say uh a little bit ago, uh, so Tyrell he said no more golden handcuffs. Um yeah, it's it's tough. It's tough. I mean, it's um the team aspect is like probably, and I know you said you have uh your team, your team is about 20 people, correct? Okay, so it it's one of the it's one of the hardest things in the very beginning, especially for startups or you know, early businesses, to as they're gaining momentum and getting a foundation built, it is the hardest thing to structure the team about what do you exactly need right now um to grow the business and what's maybe could be down the road, but also finding the unique skill sets to be able to take your business to that next level, and then also being able to work in the environments of chaos because like this ain't comfy. This ain't this ain't working at Apple where you just you you you know I or Google where you you go into these offices and it's like it's beautiful. You got your break lunch, you got you this lunch, you got your you go, I'm gonna get my bag of chips, and it's like, yeah, let me go on my day in life at Google, and they're putting in like two and a half hours of actual work. Um, but it I don't know, the video I saw it seemed like that they were they were just like coasting, like it's just it was like this retreat resort thing that they were at. Yeah, but that was the office, but but people you're not gonna just kind of go in and do that, you are essentially a part of the lifeblood of of the business, and you're part of creating something, like you're actually creating it in real time, and so you're gonna wear some different hats, you're gonna have different responsibilities. You may be doing one thing one quarter and you're gonna be doing another thing the next quarter. It's just the way on how the business works, but it is the toughest amongst a lot of other things for entrepreneurs, but is the toughest thing to build to that. So, how are you able to build to 20 people the right way? And maybe you're still learning, but what but what how are you able to even get to 20? Because even like when you're around five to 10, I feel like that's also really tough as well, because there could be a couple of them that didn't really work out, and you have to shift and you have to rehire or figure out oh, I didn't really need that role, so I gotta go into this. So, how are you able to get to to 20 people to for your company so far?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, first Mark, I actually love this topic, and the second and the second part of that is I'm still learning. Okay, so yeah, if I take you guys on a journey of reflection with me, reflecting back when I first started the company. I'm like, okay, it's all about I remember Malads and I, he's one of my co-founders. Like, what roles do we need? And who's the best people to get in those roles? So it's almost like, what you know, who what seats do you need on the bus, and who's the best candidate to get on that bus, right? Yes, and what I learned with the startup is you shouldn't think about it that way at all because we're not a mature company, we're not even close to a mature company. So, what you need to think about is what do you need the most with the budget you can afford at that time? And at that time, in that moment, that role, that individual or individuals is going to fill that, but you're gonna evolve, right? Yeah, and the way that the startup evolved the way that you evolve, you will see that it evolves also with budget, right? So if you think about talent and budget and need, okay, but then there comes to a point where even if you have a bigger budget that you can afford more talented, higher price tag people, those people might not culturalize. Fit into the startup environment. So initially it's kind of looking at, I actually need this, and it would be great if I could hire somebody with this price tag, but I can't right now. So what's the minimal viable that you know core tasks or duties that you would need for someone to just be an extender of the founder? Okay. So initially, I think what's really important is to, I'm I'm, you know, I'm a founder and so I'm biased, but I I think founder-led businesses is very different because at least like for me, my whole heart and soul is into this, right? Yeah, I know like I'm doing this for my brother. My brother will never be able to work, okay? And I want to do this for him, to do this for everyone, to do this so that we can all get better health care. And so the amount of time and passion that I put into this is constant, right? And and and you need that strong foundation in any company identity initially. And so when you're hiring the first few people, there's it's an extension of the founder. Think about it less as a role, but an extension of the founder. So, what task can these people do with the budgets I can afford that can offload some of the burden that I have so that I don't have to do everything, right? And then as you grow, certain people will be able to evolve, but others won't. And so it's almost like you almost have to think about it as what you need. I used to think about it as I need this position, and this position is constant, right? But it's more about what do you need in this period of growth? Okay. And that need shifts and change, and you just need to find people that can fill that need. And some people are really good at like evolving with the company, but others are like, This is my skill set and this is my expertise. And you always want to make sure that you know you can retain talented people, but as the company evolves, your needs are different.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, 100%. Very well said. Very well said. We I got one more additional question to ask you because we we got a question here that I think is really good. So uh Terrell said, Well, you know, when do you decide to grow a team that you also can keep comfortable cash flow and effectively manage change and chaos? So it's a very um, so it's it's kind of like I knew you touched a little bit on it, but when did you know that it was time to grow the team while you're managing comfortable cash flow?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's a great, great question. I hired my first employee after I got my first uh like reasonably sized contract. Okay, and I hired this person because I knew that I needed someone that was very detail-oriented to deliver the contract, and I knew that my time should still be in, you know, growing the developing the products, growing sales, and so I I knew that I couldn't, I can't lose like once I get this client, I can't lose this client, and I cannot
Emotional Capital for Entrepreneurs
SPEAKER_00possibly deliver on this contract myself and do all the things that I need to grow the business, and that was the decision that I made. So I hired a project coordinator um to help do a lot of different things, but that was one of the things that she did.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's uh it's called opportunity cost. If if I lose this opportunity, what is that gonna cost me? Yeah, and what is it gonna cost me to keep the opportunity? And so it's it's a great way of structuring that because and you had the the foresight to to know, like, hey, I shouldn't be all in the weeds doing this stuff because it's gonna take me away from getting the next contract or doing the next thing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, uh and I think Jamar, the other thing is as a founder, you should think deeply and do a some introspection as much as possible and get feedback from people that you know professionally, not personally, yeah. Yeah, what are your strengths? Because to me, like I know my strength, my strengths is not being detail-oriented, like the number of times I've shown up somewhere, like not the right place, like like I don't even want to say, but but I'm not I'm not a that's not my strength, but I have to do that when I didn't have any cash flow, I had to force myself to do that, and so I knew what my strengths were, and I had to make that first hire uh, you know, be a part of what we were delivering, but but uh um uh basically complement my weaknesses, yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_02The weak I I have the same uh strength as you and the same like my weakness is definitely uh in the hyper details. Um yeah, just if I put all my brain power into it, I can be very detailed actually. Well, I can I can be very detailed, but it's not something that uh I know is my gift in this world, is for me to do it. I am a creator, I am a visionary, um uh personality, I like to connect with people, I like to create things. Um, and I can pull it off, I can execute. Yeah, but yeah, it's the details. Um, you know, if you do an event and somebody's asking me about napkins and plates and how many forks, I don't care. I really don't care.
SPEAKER_00Just just figure it out, get the napkins. I know, and and to answer the other part of that question, I think that um he brought up is so important is uh hiring people and then managing the chaos that comes like being it. So if you have not read five dysfunctions of a team, I highly encourage that you it's an old book, it's not a new book, but even if you don't read it, the premise of it is every team in its current state is dysfunctional. So you have to just think that anytime you bring on a new person, no matter it's one or two or three or 15 or 20, you automatically are dysfunctional. We every day have to work to be functional. I think people have it backwards where you think that your team, the current state, like the starting point is functional.
SPEAKER_02Oh, that's a good point.
SPEAKER_00And then and then something happens and you're dysfunctional, right? No, the starting point is never functional, the starting point is always dysfunctional, but you have to know that to put in the energy and effort to make it functional, and it is exhausting, very exhausting. But if you want a high performing team, you got to every single day make it functional. The only feedback that I have from a tool tactic on how to do it, over-communicate, over-communicate, over-communicate, be like a commercial. You know, people don't work watch commercials today anymore or try not to, but as we all of us when we're kids, we remember certain jingles because the same commercial was paid, played, replayed every three, whatever, four or five minutes, right? That's how you and because people can become functional when they're aligned on a shared mission, yeah. Create that alignment by overcommunicating.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's uh that's key. And you gotta sound like a broken record, but it's uh it's helpful, and also the processes and systems to help people and guide people because um, as a creator, I've learned that you need to have the system almost in place as much as it can be before you bring the person on. Because if you're creating it as they're on and they have to like learn it and but also learn the job, and then it it just creates where it's gonna take a lot longer for them to get in that flow, um, and that flow state that I call it, uh, for them to be able to like operate at a great capacity. Um, because oftentimes, like in the beginning, I was, you know, I'd be like, Hey, we need this, and then the person would come on, like, okay, where's this? Where's that? Where's this? And like there's just no process, there was no like procedure, there was no structure. It was just kind of like, Yeah, just grab it from there, go search it, go find it in Google Drive somewhere, and they're like, and then just every step they take, they kind of like hit a hit a roadblock, hit a roadblock, hit a roadblock. So I've definitely learned to get get as much of the system and and and get it your SOPs, get things documented as much as possible, just so they have reference points so they can go back to stuff and they don't have to be hitting you up.
SPEAKER_00So, Jamar, I've actually done the opposite. Okay, and and and let's hear this. So, like I do agree that there needs to be some minimal viable system and process, but I don't want to spend because you have to think about your time and where you spend your energy and effort, right? And yeah, to what point at what point of the business do you do, like, in my opinion, what you're saying? To me, even with 20 people, I don't think we're there yet. I think we're still learning. I think we can create some SOPs, but I don't think we can create all the SOPs. And so the other component that goes into like overcommunication uh to create a functional team is creating a psychologically safe environment, which I'm sure people that are listening in is saying, Oh my gosh, that's just a word. She's saying that word. Um, you know, what does that even mean? You know, she's saying this word, no, a real psychologically safe environment where you, as the leader, are telling your team, you can give me feedback, you can let me know when things don't work. Push back on my idea. And when they do that, in order to create real psychological safety, you better be able to handle your emotion and how you manage in reaction to that feedback. Because if you're one of my employees and I'm telling you, hey, we have an open culture, you know, give me all feedback. I want your feedback, that's how it's gonna get better, and then you get feedback and then you're really pissed off, they're never gonna trust you again, right? So, a functional to me, creating a functional team requires that data back and forth feedback, but it's so there's so much onus on the leader to be able to manage how you react to that feedback. You have to make them feel safe, you have to create that safe culture, or it's not gonna happen. And it and once they stop sharing feedback, it doesn't matter what SOP or process you have in place, things are gonna fall through the wayside because they're gonna create workarounds.
SPEAKER_02That's true, but you gotta have some uh I wouldn't say tough skin, but you at least gotta have uh actually tough skin is the right word.
SPEAKER_00You walk a lot of tough skin, okay. I heard something recently like being an entrepreneur is like someone calling your baby ugly, like every single day.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, pretty feeling that just happened this morning. I'm like, man, like what are you talking about? What are you talking about? It's beautiful. Oh my god. I mean, yeah, that's that's basically the life of an entrepreneur. Uh a lot of people are they're feeling they're feeling this. Okay, so I got I got a question um for you. So since your since your service and your product really um is just really disrupting a market, it's disrupting an industry. Um how how do we do that? How do we disrupt a market? So how how how have you been able to get your first contracts, get your first um clients to be able to start to penetrate this market that is probably so iron tight, um or they're just not aware um that this solution could be really good for them, and you're really going at at this industry um and causing disruption. I mean, that's that's
How to Disrupt an Industry Successfully
SPEAKER_02that's what you're doing. So yeah, how are you how are you able to do that and how and also and also do it in a way so we want to know what you're doing, but also from a broad view as well. Like, how do we disrupt our our industry and our markets?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I'll tell you what I did wrong.
SPEAKER_02Okay, okay, this is good.
SPEAKER_00Um, at least in healthcare for my industry, very few people want disruption. So I went in initially, like, oh, we're gonna we're gonna make things better, we're gonna innovate, we're gonna transform everything you do. There is a, you know, we all know the adoption curve, right? The early adopters, fine, that message speaks to them, but the early adopters cannot scale your business, okay? Like, because there's only a small percentage of them. And and honestly, the rest, the the chunk of people that you need to actually make a business scalable, they don't want to hear about innovation and disruption because they're afraid of it, they don't know it's the unknown, and I think sometimes as entrepreneurs, we thrive in the unknown. We love innovation, we love thinking differently, we love disrupting. We got to remember we're weird, that's why we did what we did.
SPEAKER_02Okay, we are not you're weird, people, you're weird, okay.
SPEAKER_00And so don't sell that persona to your clients, and so what I ended up having to learn is like, oh my god, people don't want to disrupt it the same way I do. That doesn't mean they don't want to improve it, right? And so I had to tag on what I was doing to a very specific use case, and what I did is, and this is an allergy like use. I'm sure many of you out there today have created the Ferrari of your solution, which is like you understand the problem deeply, and you're like, this is what we need to do, and how you get here. At least in my industry, people aren't ready for the Ferrari. So I try to sell them the Ferrari at first. They don't want the Ferrari, they're not even ready for the Ferrari, they actually need like not even a fully developed car. Okay. They need like an engine, they need like a steering wheel, a frame, maybe a door, I don't know, right? And that's what they need today. So I had to kind of like peel my solution back to the core essence and meet people where they are, uh, to be able to engage them and build that trust and deliver an outcome to then take them on that next step to the journey where one day the Ferrari is the disruption, right?
SPEAKER_02That's really good. How how how many of us are selling Ferraris and Lamborghinis um when our audience and our target ideal customers are not ready for it? Um, that's that's super powerful. Um, especially as we're we're creators, we're innovators, we we want to do the big stuff, but sometimes our audience is not even ready for that solution. Um, you know, how do you how are you giving your audience some training wheels before you before you ride the the uh crotch rocket? Motorcycle, you know, but I mean it's it's kind of intimidating to be honest, if you think about it that way. It's like, do I hop right in the Ferrari that costs a bunch of money and does all this stuff, or do I get a little bit of I just need this problem fixed today?
SPEAKER_00Fix it for me. I see that it works. What you're doing works, I trust you. Now I'm gonna let you do more, and then I can engage you in more of like shifting this. It's it's a it's a mindset shift at the end of the day, it has to happen.
SPEAKER_02That mindset, you can't convince people of that mindset shift mindset shift overnight to just yeah, yeah, you can't, you can't, and so so did you take the Ferrari and just take a piece of what your big offer was, and then you just distilled it down to like a small fraction and said, Hey, did you call it a pilot? Did you call it like let's get let's just get you know, like get started?
SPEAKER_00So I would I I would I I hate the word pilot okay for any entrepreneur you hate the word pilot. I will try to take the word pilot out of your vocabulary if possible, because the thing, and and again, your industry may be different, but in my industry, when you say a pilot, there's not as much commitment to it.
SPEAKER_01So it's like, yeah, we'll test it out whatever.
SPEAKER_00Let's just test this out. You need skin in the game, and I don't mean financial skin from them, commitment from them to make it successful, too, right? And so, say, let's just exactly phase one, phase one, okay. And so, phase one for me ended up just being two features on a plat on my platform. I created all of these features, they only needed the first two features first. That's it.
SPEAKER_02Man, that's this is good. This is good because this is um, so oftentimes I I I work with a lot of a lot of entrepreneurs, so I get to hear all different industries and stuff, but oftentimes, especially the beginning ones or the ones that are kind of definitely like five years and less are the ones that they really struggle with this offer because it's the difference between you making you know a couple hundred thousand and then getting it to over a million and beyond because the offer, like, yeah, you may get a couple people to get that Ferrari or even maybe even the Audi, you know, get some early adopters, yeah. Early adopters to to what you're doing, and you may even have great results from it, but they're still they still struggle with like we we have X amount of calls that happen, and we're only getting a very low percentage of conversion, and oftentimes we have to look at the offer. Okay, let's look it back at the it's it's kind of like one of those things that people ask. It's like if you're struggling to get clients um or get customers, there's either one or two things that that's that's happening. Either you're not marketing to enough people, or your product sucks, or you're you know, you're just not speaking to the right people. Um, you know, so it's a few of those different things where you have to look at is it is it my service or product? Am I speaking to the right audience or am I speaking to enough people? Those are typically like the number one things, but this offer, it's it's so critical for it's once again another reminder for everybody listening and watching to look back at your offers and how are you packaging this? Um, so when you made that shift, talk to us a little bit about what happened. What happened once you made that shift when you started to um to give people kind of the the the two feature bundle?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um I got I in my pipeline today, yeah. I only had one uh and I have over a hundred leads in my pipeline currently good, solid, qualified leads. And um, and I've only had one lead that says no, no, absolutely not. And it was because they said, We actually agree with you, but we're gonna build this on our own. And large health system and and and you know, you're a competitor and build things on their own, but that's fine. Um, but what happened was I started getting more traction, engagement. People are like, yes, and it's not scary, right? And and when and and for those of you that are listening, what I what uh what I will say when you look at your offering is push yourself on what the minimal viable is for you. Sometimes it's hard to do that because you know to get to disruption, you need the Ferrari, yeah. We want the we want to yeah, but like what they need is just one thing, and to you, that one or two things might be nothing, it might be nothing, right? But to them, it's everything right now, and so don't let your framework, which is what happened to me. I'm like, well, they can't like if they only do this, then they're not gonna get all this. They don't, they're not ready for all of that right now, okay? And let them, it's okay, meet them where they are, but you have to kind of push yourself to think, what are those one to two things? And it might not be a lot, it doesn't seem like it's a lot, but to them it's a lot. Yeah, you are you as the founder, sometimes is not the best best judge on what what the bundle should be. Yeah, it's only way that you're gonna get that feedback is like you said, go and test it and have people feel comfortable in giving you the feedback.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, go and do it. Yeah, just do it, just do it. Um, okay, I got one more one more question for you, Nadia. And um, and this this
Making Your Voice Heard in Healthcare
SPEAKER_02question is um just because I was gonna ask you a bunch of other questions, but this this podcast right now is being so good on the business and then the uh the the healthcare side, and people are just loving it. So, okay, so do business plans work?
SPEAKER_00Oh, okay. So when I started my business, I never wrote a business plan.
SPEAKER_02Oh, you didn't have a business plan because you're very I get the sense you're a very calculated individual. Am I right about that?
SPEAKER_00I think a lot, I have a lot, a lot of thoughts, you know. I think anybody that knows me or you know, you know, is on my team that I have the pleasure of working with, or like I actually had one of my employees said, You have ideas every day, all seconds of the day, right? And so and so um I didn't create a formal traditional business plan, but what I really had to do was understand um what I don't want to say what I'm solving for, but like I understood the problem that I'm solving for really deeply because I was a healthcare operator. I this was my space. I I lived it. Yeah, so I understood the ins and outs of it. What I instead of the business plan, I had to take the solution that I'm offering and try to put it in a commercial language. I guess what I would say is it's like if you need a business plan to get your initial funding, yeah, create the business plan. Um, but for me, it was more valuable to spend my time on figuring out what this was that I was offering and how to communicate it in a commercial way, which was at least for me very hard to do because I'm I'm a SME in this area, and SMEs communicate with SMEs, okay? And I had to figure out how to communicate it to a general audience in a commercial way.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, basically, like how you're your messaging, how you're communicating this out, how you're advertising this. It needs to um, I just had this call yesterday uh with a guy, and I and he he's he's he's um I don't know if he's like you as far as like uh I mean he has the ideas too, but he he is very good at what he does, right? And we were talking about how to get um his podcast sponsored because I was like, dude, you already have all the qualifications that you could get your podcast sponsored. You have a huge track record with all this other stuff, and I said, I said, What what you need now is that we gotta put the sauce on it. We we need to we gotta actually market this, and sometimes you need a little bit of marketing speak to be able to sell you know the shiny object because right now you're just giving me all the like it was like he was just giving me the hard stats, like just you know, and I was like, that's all cool, but we need to give like we need to do this in a marketing type way. So that I just kind of adjusted each thing that he was doing, and like, so yeah, I have this exact amount of downloads. No, you have about you know, it's it's a it we're close to 10,000 downloads. Like I basically just we gotta give it more into like we gotta paint the vision, yeah, and not give them like until they ask for it. But I mean, to sell something, you gotta like you said, you gotta sell, you gotta give it in more of a commercial type, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And and that's why for me, I decided to spend more time on on investing and figuring that out because still, like I every day that's a learning process. I always say every day it's peeling back another layer of the onion to communicate it in a more commercial way, it's not gonna happen overnight. But I, from a time allocation perspective, I decide to invest more time in that than creating a business plan, right? Yeah, if you can communicate what you're doing in a commercial way that makes sense, that fills a need, you will get funding. Yeah, but if you if you have a plan and you can't communicate it, it doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_02You gotta be able to communicate it. Communication is key, it's how we it's how we do anything, really.
SPEAKER_00In a commercial way, yeah, not a SME way.
SPEAKER_02Yep. No, this is this is really good. Uh so Nadia, how how can we become an advocate of of what you're doing? How could how could we get on board? Um, if people have heard something on this that they it really resonates with them, maybe they've been uh unfortunately slighted uh by the healthcare system, maybe they have their own experiences with healthcare, maybe they've gotten some gigantic bills that they were completely unaware of. Um something touched them, you know, from this episode. How do they become an advocate?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um, how can they become an advocate or how can they connect with me?
SPEAKER_02I just want to make sure how I think first we'll do the connection later. I think how do they become an advocate?
SPEAKER_00How do they support what you're doing? Oh, support what I'm doing. Yeah, um, I think that they need to make sure that they know they have a voice and their voice matters, and sometimes um sharing that voice and making that voice heard in our very complex healthcare system where you have physicians that you know we all look up to because they have had so much training and stuff is hard and it's scary. Um, and sometimes it can feel tiring, like it's going nowhere. But I think continue to make your voice heard so that people can hopefully start to notice and hear all of us more as a collective, I think that's the best way right now. We we we can't be happy with the status quo, and until we as consumers push that, it's gonna be hard to change it.
SPEAKER_02Well, we all got a voice, we just got to use it. So I think to your point, like, you know, first knowing that you do have a voice and then using it. So I'm encouraging everybody to also use their voice. Um, and tag Nadia, tag the company, um, and just share your story as well. Like, share your story, let people know uh that this this needs to be challenged. You need to be educated in this. Um, and you've got to share the message to also unlock their voice as well. So this has been absolutely fantastic. Uh, where can people get connected directly to you? Um, and if they want to learn more um or even have you on their podcast?
SPEAKER_00Um, so I do have a professional LinkedIn handle handle that I just started uh a little while ago. And so that's probably the best way to connect with me and just send me a message. Um, or uh yeah, that's probably the best way to connect with me.
SPEAKER_02Okay, okay, cool. And we'll have all everything in the in the show notes and um and all the places, but uh guys, this has been absolutely incredible. Um, people just keep coming in and out of the live that this is normal for for Instagram. Um, but this has been an awesome, awesome episode. Um, I learned I learned a little bit on this episode. I I do every single time I I have these, um, and it's been incredible. I think you're extremely um smart and like very business savvy, you know the direction where you're heading, and just so many little nuggets that I grabbed from this episode, which was absolutely uh incredible. Um, and don't forget everybody to like, comment, and subscribe to the podcast, to the forever podcast. Please leave a review, let us know how we're doing. Um, and also don't forget if you can change your circle, you can change your life. So thank you so much, Nadia, for being on the uh on the podcast. And um, we will catch everybody on the next episode. Thank you. Don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe. And don't forget to hit that notification bell for more amazing content that we're going to be putting out. And don't forget, you can change your circle to change your life.
