Pharmacy Staffing Innovations | Autumn-Kyoko Cushman & Leann Haddad, ShiftRx

This transcript was generated automatically. Its accuracy may vary.

[00:00:12] Mike Koelzer, Host: Autumn and Leanne, for those that haven't come across you online, introduce yourself and tell our listeners what we're talking about today.

[00:00:20] Leann and Autumn: I'm Leanne. Haddad I'm one of the co-founders of ShiftRx. 

 I'm Autumn Kiyoko Cushman. I'm one of the other co [00:00:27] founders of ShiftRx.

Today we're gonna talk about ShiftRx. We are a seamless placement platform.

We make it easy for independent facilities to find staff and easily integrate those people into their clinical workflows.

[00:00:41] Mike Koelzer, Host: Just [00:00:42] this morning, one of my technicians said to me I'm moving on to a different place because they're open weekends. It's going to be better for me and so on.

 I had . Just a pleasant demeanor with her. It was a part time gig [00:00:57] that we had for her and things like that.

[00:00:59] Leann and Autumn: Sure.

[00:00:59] Mike Koelzer, Host: But inside I was saying, Oh crap, if someone said to me like, Mike part of your store burned down or you had a robbery last night [00:01:12] or whatever, I'd say, Oh That's just another Monday, but I think I can speak on behalf of our listeners, all the staffing stuff is just a pain in the ass.

[00:01:24] Leann and Autumn: Sure. you Lose someone good too, it's a [00:01:27] headache. And to retrain people and find people it's time consuming.

[00:01:30] Mike Koelzer, Host: She's not that good. She wasn't that good. She came and she was decent.

She was decent, but She had to miss a few shifts because of someone she was caring [00:01:42] for needed more help and things like that So we didn't lose a lot But it's just a pain in the ass to start that thought process up again

 Leanne and Autumn, what is the worst part of your week? 

[00:01:56] Leann and Autumn: [00:01:57] Fundraising. We have a ton of demand honestly. So like our social media, we have hundreds of messages and so many emails coming in obviously from the platform's news. So there's a few issues here and there so we are constantly talking to Pharmacists and [00:02:12] technicians all day.

I've worked in pharmacy my whole life. I've worked customer service jobs. I'm used to that. It can get exhausting, obviously but that's part of our mission and we want to help pharmacy professionals other than that, though, fundraising has been just awful for me.

 Yes. So we're trying to [00:02:27] raise some capital right now so that can help us expand and grow our team and things like that. But it is very time consuming and it just pulls us away from running the actual business itself. 

[00:02:36] Mike Koelzer, Host: Are you doing that? Just as if people might find support staff [00:02:42] through your program. Are there similar things for fundraising? Are you going through an app? Or a company of some sort 

[00:02:51] Leann and Autumn: We're not going through a platform or an app. There are things that exist like that. However, they are very [00:02:57] predatory and natural. And you'll find that there's a lot of programs out there that want you to pay to pitch, or there's angel syndicates where they'll, they want you to pay a fee.

And what we've found is that the best VCs come with warm introductions and it is time consuming. [00:03:12] You really have to build up a network, especially if you're a first time founder like us. And we're fortunate that we have a lot of connections in this space through my fiance and his startup and through friends in the ecosystem.

However, it is very time consuming to fundraise. And [00:03:27] it's a lot when you're running a business that is. Filling such a need. And it's also difficult when you talk to investors that don't know the pharmacy space. We have talked to many of them that are not bullish on pharmacy.

They're bearish. They don't think the need is really there. And they, [00:03:42] in my mind, foolishly believe that all pharmacists and technicians are going to be replaced very soon with AI and robotics. But when you talk to chat G p T and you ask him to make a dad joke, he says, Burn the house down, kids. that's not ready to interact with patients.

[00:03:56] Mike Koelzer, Host: [00:03:57] Where do you guys come up with those names when you're looking for VCs and things like that?

Is there a database of some sort? Or are you in a geographical area of people that you know and things like that?

[00:04:11] Leann and Autumn: Yeah there [00:04:12] are databases of some sorts, however... Most of the VCs that we've talked to have been introductions from some of our angel investors and then introductions through people in our network. And we've been fortunate to meet some really great [00:04:27] investors and hopefully we're going to be closing our seed round here soon.

And so for me, I would not say fundraising is the worst part of the week, even though that's my primary job as CEO is doing our fundraising. For me, it's a lot [00:04:42] harder. to deal with some of the customer issues that come through. 

 When we onboard in a new state, we send something out saying, Hey, what you see here is our earliest users. There might be limited shifts available. And the remote [00:04:57] ones tend to go like that.

Very quickly, obviously. 

[00:04:59] Mike Koelzer, Host: Remote being that they get to work from home, not remote in a different city or something. Just remote working from home.

[00:05:06] Leann and Autumn: So there are, like, let's say you're a pharmacist that lives in California and you're licensed in [00:05:12] California and Texas, you could log on to our platform and request to pick up one of the remote MTM shifts in Texas.

Those shifts go very quickly. We do not require people to pay the background check first to see the shifts.

They don't have to pay the [00:05:27] background check and they can see the shifts. You do have to pay that background check if you want to apply for a shift and so what we've had happen quite a bit over the last couple of weeks is someone will pay their background check and not get accepted for the shift that they're picking up because [00:05:42] there's a lot of people applying.

And then they angrily email us and say, if you don't refund my money, then we're going to go all over social media and make sure nobody uses you. People can get really nasty and it's heartbreaking and it's disheartening because we're really trying to [00:05:57] build a better option for pharmacists and technicians as well as independent owners. 

 We have pharmacists who have been incredibly supportive, and have been great educational resources.

We have an advisor that's a pharmacist currently Dr. Susie [00:06:12] Solomon, and she's the founder of the Pharmacist Moms group, but we also have and we are not on the team in an official capacity, like they're not getting paid and they don't have equity in the company we are not getting paid either, but they have been gone [00:06:27] above and beyond and have been incredible and just advising us and the state that we're working in and have given different perspectives and help answer questions in the pharmacy groups where they're We have tried to get in, but we get kicked out because we're not pharmacists.

 We're really thankful for the community support on that side [00:06:42] as well. Our demographic of people, we thought the majority would be semi retired and working moms because they needed a more flexible schedule. And while that is a big demographic for us, we've also found that there are a lot of clinical pharmacists who [00:06:57] genuinely, are connected to the field and feel bad about what's happening in retail.

And so they'll want to pick up shifts, even though they're a clinical pharmacist, in the independent retail setting and see what it's like over there. And they can do so with our [00:07:12] AI onboarding tools because they might not have felt comfortable picking up shifts in that environment previously. But we walk them through.

Everything that's expected of a temporary provider at each individual facility, so that's their prescription fulfillment software, their attire that's expected, where they put their personal belongings, where they [00:07:27] park, and so they feel really well equipped to go into these new environments, and we found that they really enjoy it because it breaks up a routine schedule for 

them. 

[00:07:35] Mike Koelzer, Host: Speaking of having. People go into different areas and so on. I did see on a press release you had[00:07:42] you're trying not to fill spots that were made vacant by any of these recent walkouts with some of the bigger chains

[00:07:49] Leann and Autumn: Yeah, so we are not currently working with strike locations. That's not to say that we won't work with those companies in the future, [00:07:57] but we will not be working with them in the capacity of filling those strike location openings. Leanne and I are both former clinicians. I was in the Navy for almost five years working in hematology, oncology, and then in executive medicine.

And Leanne was a pharmacy tech, a lead tech and [00:08:12] manager at CVS for almost six years. So for us we think that. The providers need to be put first and for so long that the alignment has been out for providers and corporate. And so when you begin to shift that alignment back to where [00:08:27] it needs to be and the providers are getting paid more, they have more flexible schedules and they have that transparency none of that happens without.

Someone like us coming in and making sure that transparency is there and that these companies are held accountable. So [00:08:42] we don't want to add to the problem where we're truly trying to shift the power back to the providers.

[00:08:47] Mike Koelzer, Host: All right ladies, so when you were thinking of this, what holes Did you think? Needed to be [00:08:57] filled and it seems that in business now is not just filling a need, but you want to have a little bit of an idea or flair to that in order to attract investors. It seems [00:09:12] like there are different employment staffing

things in that. What hole are you filling compared to that competition?

What was your competition not bringing that you thought, aha, we [00:09:27] can do this better.

[00:09:28] Leann and Autumn: First, traditional staffing agencies take a large cut of whatever the provider is making. They have recruiters, they have a lot of that overhead, and for us, we can cut that out. And we become cheaper to the facilities, and in turn, [00:09:42] our clinicians can be paid more.

And we also offer transparency from end to end. And so then when you look at the second portion of that, we felt like the integration piece was missing from these traditional staffing agencies and from current existing gig work platforms that have been done in [00:09:57] nursing. And that integration piece is giving the providers that onboarding and the tools to be successful when they're placed temporarily.

And so let's say at Mike's Pharmacy, you use Pioneer Rx, and these are the insurances you accept. A [00:10:12] traditional staffing agency will just throw a provider in there, and now that initial burden is increased on whoever you have at your pharmacy to train them up to speed. But what we can do is when we onboard a facility, We say, what is everything you would expect of your temporary provider?

We collect all that information. We create [00:10:27] this short onboarding module ranging anywhere from five to 15 minutes, just depending on what specialty you're in. And that previews everything, including the software that you're using at your facility with that provider before they've ever stepped foot into there.

So you can require that the [00:10:42] facility's software you can basically say like. When you bring in a provider, they have to know PioneerRx. But if you're open to that cross training opportunity for pharmacists and technicians, which we think is extremely valuable, you can say, we're willing to take a chance on this onboarding module, our [00:10:57] provider goes through it, they learn PioneerRx or Liberty and now when they go into your pharmacy, they're ready to go, and we've had some success with Walgreens pharmacists picking up shifts at independent retails and getting the hang of PioneerRx like that.

[00:11:10] Mike Koelzer, Host: You think other competitors of [00:11:12] yours weren't doing that? Or do you think that task was so onerous and you found better ways to smooth that out?

[00:11:22] Leann and Autumn: Sure. AI is really helpful here. Cause when we collect that [00:11:27] facility familiarization form from the independent pharmacy we can basically create a tailored onboarding module in less than an hour. So it's not as tedious as it would have been before. 

[00:11:39] Mike Koelzer, Host: If I'm going into a business, [00:11:42] I'm always going to look at. The current models of things, the current competitors. And it seems that in today's day and age, when I look at somebody, I'm going to say,[00:11:57] they just seem stale, they don't have social media and they maybe don't have good apps.

They're maybe working on a model that was. True, 10-15 years ago.

been impressed with your [00:12:12] social media presence. that go along with the whole kit of saying that this is the new generation of staffing?

[00:12:21] Leann and Autumn: I do think so. I think our social media presence has brought us awareness and credibility that wouldn't have been [00:12:27] lended to us. previously. I think providers in general are skeptical of adopting new trends especially in pharmacy. And I think that our social media presence has brought us awareness and people see us on Instagram [00:12:42] or Tik Tok or Facebook and collaborating with some of these leaders in this space, meeting with people like yourself like Shane or Bled.

And then to them that adds us. Because when we first started this, we had a lot of people who were like seeing our rates and thinking it was a scam [00:12:57] and they couldn't comprehend how we were able to have some of those rates. And in our mind, we hadn't even thought about that. We were like, oh we cut out the middleman.

And so we charge the facility less. Our providers get paid more. And people all over Facebook were like, this has to be a scam. And we were like, it's [00:13:12] not. And it's same day pay. And they were like no. So we really started hammering in our social media presence to tell people our story and say, Hey, we are providers.

We're doing something that we think is more efficient. And get the word out there for us because we couldn't hire a fancy marketing team. We [00:13:27] couldn't buy billboard ads. And I think people were skeptical rightfully so to give us a chance. Yeah, even attending conferences and things, like these large companies know about us, like presidents of these, pharmacists association boards, they know about us, so it's definitely [00:13:42] helped the social media presence.

[00:13:43] Mike Koelzer, Host: I have a lot of those people that know me too, but it's in a negative sense. Don't let him near any of this. But where is the efficiency then? Your prices are lower. I imagine you're not trying to make a race to the bottom and pay [00:13:57] less and all that kind of stuff.

I imagine you're trying to pick that up with efficiency. What are those efficiencies?

[00:14:03] Leann and Autumn: Yeah, so for us, like we said, we don't have any recruiters. At the beginning we are recruiting a little bit just to make sure those shifts are getting filled. But [00:14:12] what we hope to have here in the future is that the shift commission will adjust dynamically based on the priority of the shift.

If you need coverage for your pharmacy 8 weeks out and you're posting that, then you'll be at that lowest tier of commission, which is 10%. And if you need someone's day off, [00:14:27] that goes all the way up to 45%. But at the end of the day, traditional staffing agencies take anywhere from 60 to 120 percent of what the provider is actually making.

And. So we're cheaper to the facilities and then our providers in turn get paid, five, ten dollars more [00:14:42] an hour and then they get that instant cash out after their shift is 

[00:14:45] Mike Koelzer, Host: That's kind of a new trend with the same day pay. We haven't done that ourselves, but I know some people are doing that. My only concern with some of that same day stuff, if you have an employee [00:14:57] is they almost get to decide. I haven't thought this through, but they almost get to decide yeah, I'm employed today and I need that. So I'm going to work and I'm going to get the money, but tomorrow I don't really need the money too much. So I'm going to not be there. That's probably not true. That's just a thought I have.[00:15:12] 

[00:15:12] Leann and Autumn: Sure, so for us that I would say that's like our goal is that we have a variety of different independent facilities that might need ad hoc coverage. So maybe you have someone that's out sick or you have the holidays that need to be 

[00:15:24] Mike Koelzer, Host: That's exactly what you guys need.

It's almost [00:15:27] like the exact opposite, Autumn. What's good for you guys, that's a selling point of people saying they can do it when they want to. For us, it's like the opposite, 

 So Autumn and Leanne, what was the biggest surprise that you thought of course this is [00:15:42] this way in the industry. 

But it wasn't. 

[00:15:45] Leann and Autumn: We had some preconceived notion when we first started this that this is such a great deal and the options out there are terrible. And so we thought we would get independent [00:15:57] facilities just and I would say that we had all these providers when we first launched our waitlist, it was the end of July.

And by the time we went to launch live the second week of August, we had over 9, 000 pharmacists and technicians in all [00:16:12] 50 states. And that was just from organic social media traction which we were super excited about. And we launched with just a few facilities in Texas. We launched with nine facilities and 204 clinicians on the waitlist.

We had over 93 percent conversion rate for clinicians. [00:16:27] And within a couple of weeks, we had over a thousand pharmacists and technicians on the platform and still only a few facilities. So we had to run off to the races to go get more independent facilities. 

[00:16:37] Mike Koelzer, Host: Facilities that would possibly want to hire these people.

[00:16:40] Leann and Autumn: Yes independent [00:16:42] pharmacies, remote MTM consulting, like boutique consulting and we thought this is just such a great offering.

It will be easy to get these people but it's very hard to get in touch with them. And so like you can call a facility, but if they have a [00:16:57] technician or a pharmacist working, it's never going to make it back to the owner. We went to different conferences where we found that some of them were like we want to see you guys being used by more people.

And then if we hear about it in a pipeline, we'll give you a chance. And the most successful way to get facilities for us was [00:17:12] faxes. We've sent out a ton of faxes but we thought, calling the facilities, going to these conferences, that is what's going to get us more independent pharmacies, but it has been mostly word of mouth referrals and faxes.

[00:17:25] Mike Overdub: It seems to me that [00:17:27] you want to make your onboarding and trust less of a pain in the ass than the pain in the ass of doing it the old way. 

[00:17:36] Leann and Autumn: sure. There's a couple of things we're doing actually to give that ease of use and [00:17:42] comfortability back to the independent facility owners. So when someone applies to your OpenShift, you actually get to see that person. You see their name, you see their education. Their credentials, their years of experience, what softwares they speak, what languages they [00:17:57] speak, and then you can click to expand on their profile, you can see their photo we get rid of all the pain points healthcare providers are notoriously terrible resume writers, we've gotten pharmacists that have submitted resumes on a a Microsoft paint file.

And so we cut out a lot of [00:18:12] that. And we also are doing two way ratings. So just if you are hired you call for an Uber and the Uber driver that pulls up hits your mailbox and they have a two star rating. You're probably not going to get into Uber. And so it's the same thing for the pharmacy [00:18:27] providers and for the pharmacy facilities.

If, Your pharmacist that's working at your facility has a really bad experience and they felt like management wasn't helping them out and they were understaffed while they were there or it was just a hostile working environment, then they're going to leave a lower review rating [00:18:42] and other people can see that.

And the same goes for the pharmacists and technicians. So when you have someone come work for you and they didn't do a great job. We offer two things. One, you can leave them a poor review, but two, if it was just an astronomically bad experience, you [00:18:57] can end the shift immediately. We will refund you and then we will suspend that person from the platform as we do an investigation, because we're not trying to have...

Some of the experiences with our platform that we've heard from other independent owners with some of our legacy competitors where [00:19:12] they say, I don't know who's coming. They just send someone in. I paid an astronomical amount to get someone in here last second because I needed someone and they were terrible the whole time.

But what was I to do?

[00:19:23] Mike Koelzer, Host: I think that's a huge thing . You're saying that some of [00:19:27] these other firms, you don't know who's coming in. It might've been the guy three miles away that got fired for

whatever, another 

pharmacy. 

[00:19:36] Leann and Autumn: and there's no two way ratings for them. It doesn't incentivize them because they're trying to make money. [00:19:42] The staffing companies want to make money off the owner. They want to make money off their people. 

[00:19:46] Mike Koelzer, Host: Let's say that... You were just in the mood not to be so cautious, but this rating system does that for you, right? The people can not accept them.

[00:19:56] Leann and Autumn: Yeah, so it [00:19:57] keeps both parties accountable, and one of the things that we're working on building out is a preferred provider list. So let's say, Mike, you have shifts at your facility at your pharmacy because you had someone call out, and so you had to have a ShiftRx provider come in. [00:20:12] they did an amazing job and you feel comfortable letting them come into your pharmacy and being able to step out for an hour or two so you'd be able to add them to your preferred provider list invite that person to come back for that shift early before you open it up to the rest of the network and then get a further discount on [00:20:27] commission because it incentivizes And it also incentivizes you.

And so what we do with that discount on commission is we give a little bit more from our cut back to the provider as well and say, Hey, you did such a rockstar job here. They have a preferred provider shift [00:20:42] open. They want you to be that preferred provider. You'll get paid 4 more an hour to take it. And then you have that comfortability back.

And we think all of this can be done very easily with technology. The technological stack makes this easier, whereas you have these traditional staffing agencies and they [00:20:57] have a roster of people they have to call, they have to employ all these recruiters. But we allow the providers to self source.

Nobody knows better what you want to work for than you. 

[00:21:04] Mike Koelzer, Host: All right, so ladies, it seems to me that When you're [00:21:12] trying to raise some funds, you're not the old school. And so you're not the typical in with the good old boys, that kind of stuff. So they may not be really interested [00:21:27] in a startup. You've got some people that are more interested in a startup because they don't like the good old boy kind of thing.

[00:21:36] Leann and Autumn: Yeah. I would say that 90 percent of VC funding is for startups. when you guys [00:21:42] look for investors. What feedback do you get and have you had to pivot that search for investors over time

 feedback from investors. What we have learned along this journey is that you should not. [00:21:57] Listen to whatever feedback they give you. It's probably not real. There's a big saying in the startup community that believes the no, not the why. And so any reason that they give you is 

probably BS 

[00:22:09] Mike Koelzer, Host: they're trying to bring you down.

[00:22:11] Leann and Autumn: They don't understand the [00:22:12] space. There's a lot of FOMO, if they see another investor saying, I'm going to invest in this, then you'll have a bunch of investors at 

once. But 

someone has to take that first 

bite.

[00:22:20] Mike Koelzer, Host: They want to jump in, but not until someone else jumps in.

[00:22:23] Leann and Autumn: And so for us, like we raised a small friends and family round from [00:22:27] literally friends and family and a couple strategic angels, small checks, And 10 K. and then. we're raising our seed right now, but people are very, they want to see if other investors are really in on this.

And some of the really good investors out there have been [00:22:42] conflicted out and investing in us because they're invested in another gig work platform. There's six or seven large gig work platforms that have been done that are newly minted unicorns. So they're worth over a billion dollars. They're less than five years old, but they're on the nursing side.

And when [00:22:57] you look at nurses, there's 4. 5 million nurses. And so to them, that's a bigger market. But what we found that was very interesting is that only about 30 percent of nurses will work PRN full time or in addition to their regular job. Whereas pharmacy professionals, there's about 1.

3 million of them. [00:23:12] We found over 90 percent will work PRN in addition to their full time job or whether they're semi-retired or they're in school. Pharmacists love 

I am working for PRN. 

[00:23:22] Mike Koelzer, Host: some of these investors. They might listen to you, but [00:23:27] because they don't know the business, they're saying, all right, you're throwing out numbers and I trust you, but are we looking at the right numbers and things like that?

I can see where they're just waiting for someone to jump in

 let VC, [00:23:42] Susie do the work.

But if Susie puts in X, whatever,

then we'll put an X because they say we know Susie, she's not stupid. She did the legwork. 

[00:23:53] Leann and Autumn: That's exactly how it works. Yeah, and so we have a big data room where it [00:23:57] has all of our research, our our traction which you know, actually when you look at our traction, it has been incredible. We launched Seven, sorry, eight weeks ago as of yesterday. So we've only been living together for two months. We have over 3000 providers.

So pharmacists technicians [00:24:12] on the platform, we have over 60 facilities. We have over a 2 million reach on Tik TOK. We have built this all organically with our small team. Since we started this in May and we didn't add Maggie or Chad until June and August. So [00:24:27] really Leanne and I started this in May and we've had really great organic growth. it sounds like to me that's good progress, those sound like good numbers. Is there a bottleneck somewhere? If you could wave a magic wand, would it be [00:24:42] more investors? Would it be more facilities that need help? Would there be more providers?

 More facilities. 

[00:24:50] Mike Koelzer, Host: You can invest in whatever you want to, but if you're really going to make it, then you've got to have the [00:24:57] dollars changing hand

between providers and facilities. 

[00:25:00] Leann and Autumn: More facilities makes it easier for us to get more investment. It looks better for our numbers. And there is a break-even point here where if we get enough facilities and we have enough providers and enough ships, then we don't need investment [00:25:12] dollars. We can pay ourselves.

the common misconception, just fundraising too, is just if they don't understand healthcare, or specifically the pharmacy space, like Autumn mentioned they think we're just servicing independent pharmacies and the market's not big enough, but we can do hospitals, we can [00:25:27] do grocery chains, clinics and we're talking to those types of clients, but enterprise sales have a longer sales cycle, like they'll take anywhere from 6 months to 12 months, even 24 months, depending on how large of an enterprise you're talking, whereas these [00:25:42] independent facilities are the easiest barrier to entry.

There's usually 1, decision makers, for anywhere between, 1 location to 35 locations, and then they can just sign on. Yeah. 

[00:25:52] Mike Koelzer, Host: The challenge is these smaller guys, let's say independent [00:25:57] pharmacies, they might be easier to meet and get them going, but by the nature of them being smaller, they don't bring in enough revenue for you.

But if you find somebody that's a big enough crowd to [00:26:12] bring in revenue, then they have all those layers of leadership that you have

to go through to have them take a bite at first.

[00:26:19] Leann and Autumn: Exactly right. So if we have a pharmacy, for example in Texas or California, they're an independent pharmacy and they need... two technicians a [00:26:27] week, that's eight shifts a month, which you could objectively look at and be like, that's great. But because we don't have recruiters and because we have such low commission fees, we're maybe making like 15, 12 sometimes off that one technician shift.

Whereas [00:26:42] hopefully when we close one of these big enterprise sales, that will keep us alive. And being their primary per diem platform. and we're also looking into getting into long term placements But it just does take some time. And so a lot of people will race for their startup pre product, pre revenue, so that it gives [00:26:57] them what we call a runway. So a length of time in which they're getting paid. And they don't really have to worry about how they're going to eat or pay rent. For us, we did get an investment offer at the very beginning, from a famous accelerator. And the deal was just very bad. [00:27:12] Like we were looking at raising at that time. And so we would have sold, I think, altogether like 30%, 35 percent of the company. Which some people would argue, you do what you need to do in the early stages, but it leaves. To sell for later rounds. And [00:27:27] also, you know, you're not as well incentivized if we're the founders of the company and we only own 4 percent of the company at the end of the day, like you're going to work way harder 

if you own, you know, 20 or 30 percent of your company. 

[00:27:36] Mike Koelzer, Host: 

Ladies at your best times when things are cooking, [00:27:42] I know the feelings that go along with that, the enthusiasm and the dream and things like that.

What emotion comes in at your worst times?

 Is it fear? Is it anger? Is it frustration? What feelings do you get at [00:27:57] the lowest times in a business like this?

[00:28:00] Leann and Autumn: It's just been an emotional rollercoaster. Highs and lows throughout every day. It's not just one day super high. It's just constant throughout the day. And you know, When we get emails or phone calls from pharmacists who are really excited [00:28:12] about using our platform, that really helps too.

 I grew up very much. My family was wiped out in 2008. We were homeless the entire time I was in high school and my parents were going back to school and we were staying with family and friends.[00:28:27] 

And to me, I know what it's like for someone to just need to get a little extra money and to be able to leverage their skills. To make extra money or to learn a new specialty that helps them get a higher paying job. I was like, [00:28:42] we have to do this. 

We were like, this can change people's lives. We should go for it. 

[00:28:45] Mike Koelzer, Host: How old are both of

[00:28:48] Leann and Autumn: 27. I'm 27. Yeah, we're 27. She's older than 

1. Like way older.

[00:28:53] Mike Koelzer, Host: you know Gary Vaynerchuk? 

[00:28:55] Leann and Autumn: Oh, yeah, actually I do 

know the [00:28:57] wine guy. right? 

[00:28:58] Mike Koelzer, Host: The wine guy. He's wine and then he had such a good YouTube show that he went and did more of an entrepreneurial 

show 

[00:29:09] Leann and Autumn: I did I learned about him when I was doing my other business the [00:29:12] social media business I had a small social media 

business when I was in the navy that I just did on the side

[00:29:16] Mike Koelzer, Host: He's very interesting. I don't agree with everything he says but he's very interesting. But one of the things he says is the time till you're 30, now is the time to do exactly what you [00:29:27] guys are doing, now's the time to do it. It's not that dream when you're 40 to do it when you have People depending on you and kids and things like that Elderly parents and that kind of now, is the exact time to do this. It's time to [00:29:42] figuratively, you know, four or five guys living together in an apartment, you know, and using that money , to do this kind of thing. If you don't do it now, when are you going to do it? And you talk about savings and things like that but there's a [00:29:57] hell of a lot you get to do from the time you're 30 until you die at 80, you have 50 more years to do stuff.

 There's other listeners that have dreams like this, what [00:30:12] lessons are you learning? 

[00:30:13] Leann and Autumn: I would say doing this has taught me to be more consistent and disciplined Just overall on a day to day basis. Even just like public speaking, things like that, like you just get a lot better at it and more comfortable and just confident. 

I will [00:30:27] say so Yes, when you're young is the time to do it.

I think There are different circumstances and the stars really aligned for us because both Leanne and I, when we first graduated high school we're both helping support our [00:30:42] families financially in different ways. And so not everyone has that luxury, but if you have an opportunity in your life where you are unencumbered and you're not financially supporting someone else, then that is the opportunity to take it.

And I don't think... [00:30:57] Even if ShiftRx shuts down and we have no savings and no job, I will never look back on this and be like, I wish I hadn't done it. But I think there are many times in your life in which you'll look back and be like, I really wish I would have done that.

And [00:31:12] you, I think everyone knows someone that's oh, I had the idea for Uber, or I had the idea for LinkedIn first, or I actually came up with this. Execute. You have to execute. And that is every single day on this job. There's a really famous saying where it's like you never want to be the smartest [00:31:27] person in the room.

I, for a fact, know that I am never the smartest person in the room. I'm okay with that. But every single person that you meet in this business, not just this business, but any business, there is something to learn from them. Even if you think that person has an ego [00:31:42] or they're arrogant or something, There is a lesson to be learned from every step in life and from every person and I think You can walk away with a negative outlook on that person or on that business or that point of your life but that won't do [00:31:57] anything to help you.

If you look at the positives and you extract the positives from each experience, every conversation, it will help you build more skills as you move forward. We've had hard lives. We've worked multiple jobs, taking care of our families. Like doing this, like [00:32:12] really set us up for success.

 My mom she's going to write to Mike and be like, she had the best life. Cause we, we had, I had a, I had a very privileged, uh, early childhood. My parents were both Marines and then realtors and we [00:32:27] got wiped out by the 2008 crash. So we had to restart.

And my parents actually have been a huge inspiration for this because. My dad, who is now in the Air Force Reserves and he's a cop, both went back to school. My mom became an occupational therapist. My dad became a cop. They both did this [00:32:42] while I was in high school. So, When I first started college, we were all in college together and my mom was like, I'm not too old.

And what's funny about it is that her original dream was to become an occupational therapist. And my dad's original dream was to become a cop, but they had so much money in real estate. They kept [00:32:57] building on that. And even though obviously I'm sure neither of them would want to go through it again.

I think there are little blessings in disguise because now they're both doing careers that they find to be 

very fulfilling. 

[00:33:06] Mike Koelzer, Host: My kids are gonna keep therapists in business for a long time.[00:33:12] 

[00:33:12] Leann and Autumn: That's A symptom of the Gen 

1. How old are your kids?

[00:33:16] Mike Koelzer, Host: I got ten of them, so they're from like,

[00:33:18] Leann and Autumn: You have 10 kids? You have 10 

[00:33:20] Mike Koelzer, Host: yeah, 

I have five boys and five girls, so

[00:33:22] Leann and Autumn: Wow. Oh my gosh. 

[00:33:23] Mike Koelzer, Host: thirty down to thirteen. 

[00:33:26] Leann and Autumn: What an even [00:33:27] balance, 

Ethir. 

Yeah, how'd you plan that? 

[00:33:30] Mike Koelzer, Host: I don't know, they're all single births. I say I've got 10 kids and my wife says she has 11 kids. I'm not sure how that math works out. Oh, they're going to keep therapists forever in [00:33:42] business. I just hope when the therapist rats me out that they're gonna say, Look, parents they're just a couple of schmucks that met each other and got married and had kids. I hope it leads to understanding, not to blame. And if they do, 

so [00:33:57] what? I can't control that.

[00:33:58] Leann and Autumn: When you are so busy, you don't have time to be depressed. Even during this, we have these lows, but there's no time to sit around and be sad. 

[00:34:07] Mike Koelzer, Host: I've had a lot of immigrants on the show and they may not [00:34:12] have been financially destitute, but Nearly every one of them had that drive Coming to America . 

[00:34:21] Leann and Autumn: Yeah. I was just gonna say, my parents are immigrants, and they don't even believe in depression, none of that. Like, If you were, like, upset They were [00:34:27] like, what are you. talking about? They would get mad at you. We'll give you a reason to be upset. Yeah, yeah, and but see, for your kids, because you have 10 kids, I feel like also the other people we ran into that are very successful, or are very motivated, are people that come from larger family groups because [00:34:42] there's almost like a scarcity thing there, and so you're constantly, you have to learn how to share, you have to learn how to co inhabit, you have to learn how to, be responsible because you have all these other 

siblings, 

[00:34:50] Mike Koelzer, Host: likely the only reason I do this show is because I was the youngest boy in our family. [00:34:57] I came from 12 kids. And so

when you've got. whatever, seven older siblings, something like that. You have Juvenile humor and you do things to get a laugh out of people and that's just the [00:35:12] way you do it in your family structure.

And so I think some of that comes over to the show here. maybe It's an attention seeking thing.

And I don't make apologies for that because if I didn't have that, I maybe wouldn't be doing this kind of thing. So there's always [00:35:27] reasons why you're doing something. And I guess it's the old, you turn the negative into a strength kind of thing.

[00:35:33] Leann and Autumn: Sure. That's interesting because both you and Leanne are the babies of the family. We thrive. 

We got to prove ourselves. I'm the oldest. for [00:35:42] me, I need to do this because to me, this is the quickest way to build generational wealth to keep myself from being in that position. And then I can take care of my family and I can do all these things.

[00:35:52] Mike Koelzer, Host: I used to read a lot before I became like 40. I'd read every night in [00:35:57] bed of business books and things like that. But as soon as you turn 40, you're like, This crap's all the same, you're reinforcing these things, all this stuff's the same. Now I'm just going to speak and everybody else has to [00:36:12] listen. But I will tell you about the articles that I would always read, like an ink magazine. I read a lot of ink and entrepreneur magazines and every single person in there.[00:36:27] Had a lot of setbacks. Not me. I didn't put myself in a position that would make for a good Inc article because they would say, Mike started here and then he [00:36:42] got really nervous and then he did this.

It all went fine, but then he got really nervous again and it all went fine. And then he got really nervous again. The point is. My struggles may have been through anxiety, but every [00:36:57] person in those articles, if they haven't had three pretty big life challenges, the article is probably not about them. They probably are not even going to appear in the magazine just because who wants to read about just [00:37:12] a continual climb. It's not that exciting and there's nothing to learn from it. So you ladies whatever great things happen with shift Rx or negative things happen. you're on the right path. You're winners and you have a lot to teach us all [00:37:27] and you're gonna have a fascinating career, whatever it should be.

Way to go.

[00:37:33] Leann and Autumn: Thank you so much. Yeah, we will handle anything that gets thrown at us. So I would say don't knock against yourself though. Anxiety is very real. And I think [00:37:42] that is a setback because You are your own critic and your own worst enemy all the time. And we all have that little voice in our head.

That's like, don't do this. You're going to fail. Do you think you are? The imposter syndrome does not go away when you're doing a [00:37:57] startup. In fact, I think it just amplifies. And kudos to you as well for starting this podcast. We're big fans 

of it. The team, we listen to it. We 

put it in our team huddle. 

[00:38:05] Mike Koelzer, Host: thank you. You guys accidentally sent an email that went my way. It was just between your teams, but it said, we're going to have to talk [00:38:12] to all crazy Mike this afternoon.

[00:38:13] Leann and Autumn: add you to 

our Slack. 

[00:38:17] Mike Koelzer, Host: Leanne and Autumn, boy, great having you on thanks for your story. Because in the end, whatever happens.[00:38:27] It's going to be a lot of success. And so thanks for bringing us on your journey of success and we wish you all the best.

[00:38:34] Leann and Autumn: Yeah, thank you for having us. We love talking about it. Yeah, thanks for having us, Mike. Yeah, we're trying to make a difference here, especially for pharmacists and technicians [00:38:42] that's going on. And we're going to continue to strive for 

and keep our mission first. 

[00:38:47] Mike Koelzer, Host: Very good. All right. ladies, we'll talk again 

[00:38:49] Leann and Autumn: Okay, 

Thanks, Mike. Thanks. 

[00:38:50] Mike Koelzer, Host: Thank you.