It’s normal to feel bittersweet about moving beyond the bedside. Marla Weston, PhD, RN, FAAN, and general partner with Nurse Capital felt like this, too.

“I had a nurse mentor who said to me, ‘Maybe your space in nursing is in leadership. You keep getting invited to do this. You have expertise that fits here. Maybe this is where you need to make your contribution.’ And that set up my whole trajectory,” Weston says. 

Beth A. Brooks, PhD, RN, FACHE, also a general partner with Nurse Capital, adds that you don’t always need to know where you’ll end up before you start. 

“A lot of nurses have stopped me and have asked, ‘How did you get where you are?’ But I didn’t have a plan,  You can plan all you want, but things don't always happen to your plan.”

Q: How did your nursing career start?

Brooks: I started as a staff nurse at Rush University Medical Center on the hematology and bone marrow transplant units. I enjoyed the intricate care, but wanted a leadership trajectory. I took a nurse manager position at a community hospital, which was one of the hardest jobs of my life. 

I kept getting tapped on the shoulder, and asked, ‘Would I come and work here?’ Over the course of my career, I worked at a nurse staffing agency, pursued a Master’s in administrative nursing, and did nurse recruitment for a privately owned Eventually, I moved back to work in hospital nurse recruitment and retention. I applied to a PhD program and became a program director at a faith-based university and their nursing graduate program. I was asked to join a global ad agency to build their healthcare recruitment and marketing. 

Later, I was asked to become the president of a small university, and that was probably the biggest leap I took because I had never even been a dean. But, we grew tremendously. We increased revenue, we had happy students and faculty, and we turned things around. 

Weston: I had a nurse educator who needed to go out on an extended leave for some health issues, and I volunteered to serve in her role on an interim basis. Volunteering is a good first step. Even when you’re not confident, just take the leap. 

Since then, I've done a little bit of everything. I was a nurse executive, worked for the Department of Veteran’s Affairs, and was CEO of the American Nurses Association. I did that for about a decade, and when I left that position, I wasn't sure what I was going to do next. 

I had a lot of people calling me and asking me to consult with them, and so I kind of looked at my husband after about three weeks, and said, “I think I have a consulting business,” and that's what I've been doing for the last six years. And a lot of that work was in the space of helping startups, not startups in healthcare, but more specifically, startups in the space of nursing.

Q: How did you end up at Nurse Capital?

Weston: One of the things that brought me to nurse capital was watching these amazing business ideas that were starved for capital, and oftentimes I would have people call me up and they would say things like, ‘I've got $15 million of funding to transform the health care system and improve nurse staffing. We'd like for you to work with us, because we have a whole solution built, but we don't have any nurses on our team.’ I'd think: how did they get $15 million? Yet, over here, there's this amazing solution that's well thought out that fits the niche, and there they can't get $15,000? That was the gap that I really saw and wanted to fill.

Brooks: Like Marla, throughout my career, I've had a consulting practice. We started meeting all these young nurse entrepreneurs. And I had been mentoring at MATTER—which is the technology incubator here in Chicago—for probably four years, and had yet to meet a nurse entrepreneur. It was all these other people founding companies in healthcare, and they had no nurses on their teams. They thought they were going to fix healthcare. 

One day, a young nurse entrepreneur said to me, “Why don't we have a nursing syndicate for investing in nurses?” And then I said to her, “Well, I know just the person we should ask that.” That was Marla. 

Q: If a nurse has an idea, how can they get support?

Weston: It's not just about giving the financial capital. It's about giving the intellectual capital, and the connection capital, as well.

But first, start. Start somewhere.

• Talk to someone. 
• Go to meetings.
• Read journals. 
• Make connections with whoever you can, including nurse innovators. 
• Look into resources, like innovation groups, LinkedIn groups, or your state nurses association.

So many nurses out there have great ideas and they don't know where to start. They want to have it figured out before, but you can make exponential progress if you start right away. 

Brooks: I completely agree with Marla. But right after you start, protect your idea. Sometimes nurses are too kind and too altruistic. They don't realize that there are sharks in the water who will steal your good idea. They think everyone is out to do the best for patients, and they're really many times they're out to make money, and patients are second or third on the list.

If you have a good idea, you should protect it. Obtain a non-disclosure agreement and be careful about who you share your ideas with. When you ask for support, be thinking about the intellectual property (the IP) at hand and your ownership of the idea.

Q: How do you know when a nurse entrepreneur has a dynamite idea?

Weston: I will often call Beth after I have a conversation, and I'll say, “There's no ‘there,’ there.” Or, “There's a ‘there,’ there.” And what I mean by that is that it is not about the solution. It is about clarity around the problem. Do they understand the pain point they are looking to solve? Everybody wants to jump to AI and virtual and, blah, blah, blah, but unless you are clear about the problem that you are solving, and how your solution is better, then you don’t have a ‘there.’

The second thing is that the solution has to be of value, meaning it is affordable and scalable. Remember that hospitals do not have a million dollars to throw at your solution. If your product costs a million dollars, you are competing with every product that costs a million dollars. If your product is $50, you are only competing with other products that cost that. 

Ask yourself:

• What problem am I solving?
• How is my solution better than my competitors? And not just direct competitors, but also items that executives might spend their money on when they have to make a decision about your solution or a solution for another problem. 
• How does my solution fit into the marketplace? 

Q: What excites you about up-and-coming nurse entrepreneurs?

Brooks: I'm just excited to see this, this current milieu. Ten years ago, we wouldn't be having this conversation. 

I'm excited about this environment, economics, culture, and this generation of nurses. There is something in the air that I've never seen before in my career, because we have been trying.

My generation of nurses have been trying for years to solve these problems. But now there’s this economy around startups, which have become a hot, sexy thing. There’s something about this point in time that is really cool. 

Final Thoughts

Brooks says if you’re thinking about entrepreneurship, be brave. “Nurses should have the confidence to take the leap. It has never been like this before.” 

Looking for support in your entrepreneurial endeavors? Connect with Nurse Capital to see how you can bring your ideas to life. 

Because every nurse entrepreneur needs a hype team, we’re here for you—subscribe to The Nursing Beat!