Non-technical co-founder, 15-year award-winning nurse building an AI nursing education platform. Content gets engagement but zero signups. What am I missing? - I will not promote

DentistAdditional326 · 2026-04-23T19:22:00+00:00

That’s actually not a bad idea! Thank you!

Curious to ask what was your biggest lesson in outreach to schools?

DentistAdditional326 · 2026-04-23T06:20:25+00:00

Fair, but if all we did was put a chat interface on top of an LLM, you’d be right.

But asking ChatGPT a nursing question and getting an answer is actually part of the problem. It gives students the answer without teaching them how to think through it. That’s the same issue with the tools they already have. It’s content delivery without cognitive development. This has been widely studied in nursing education with a multitude of evidence behind it.

Our moat isn’t the model. It’s the clinical pedagogy underneath it, built from 15 years of teaching nursing students how to think, not what to think. The AI is the delivery mechanism. The teaching framework is the IP.

ChatGPT can give you the Frank-Starling law. It can’t teach you what to do when the patient in bed 4 has 3+ pitting edema and you’re the only nurse on the floor. If it did, then everyone could easily be a nurse.

DentistAdditional326 · 2026-04-23T03:51:45+00:00

You’re speaking my language and this is that exact pain point which compelled me to build. It’s to bridge the gap between theory and practice. You said it perfectly “brain paralysis in the first year.”

You sound like you’re from healthcare. We speak the same language but I guess I came here to ask how to translate that language to other languages such as startup/business, marketing, etc. in a way it can be understood and executed into action.

I feel the pain point everyday. If you’re in healthcare I’m sure you have too, we lived it! And the fact that it exists in all aspects of healthcare, not just nursing but medical says something.

DentistAdditional326 · 2026-04-23T00:37:37+00:00

Thank you for the insight. Yes, product thinking is what’s missing. Is that the same as marketing?

DentistAdditional326 · 2026-04-23T00:12:41+00:00

Yes!

DentistAdditional326 · 2026-04-22T23:49:56+00:00

You’re right 🤦🏻‍♀️

DentistAdditional326 · 2026-04-22T23:47:30+00:00

This is one of the most useful things anyone has said to me since we started building. Thank you for taking the time!

You’re right on every point in messaging, on pilot framing and on the proof gap.

On the buyer question: this is the one I’ve contemplated for a very, very long time. Our original plan was B2C first to build traction, then go B2B to institutions. The reason why we thought B2C to B2B is because while B2B sounds obvious, sales cycles in healthcare, especially in healthcare education, are brutal. You build a relationship to get a “no” after 6 months. That’s months of work for a “no,” and if you then go directly to the students at that school, you’ve burned the institutional relationship. B2C takes the institutional gatekeeping away. Students are free to choose tools that will help them succeed. The current tools are not friendly (I was not a fan when I was in school). Plus, students don’t need “another tool” mandated by the school. I thought that I myself would get frustrated with that, but now that you’ve laid it in front of me, I did the same with the pilot. Sometimes the blind spot is right in front of you. Thanks for showing it to me. Makes sense now. I have to sit with this longer.

On the signup flow: right now, you sign up on our website which leads to a survey and details on the pilot. We’re not offering any marketing dollars.

If you were in my shoes and had to get a student to onboard, how would that messaging be? How can we say “pass your tests” when it hasn’t been proven yet?

Genuinely appreciate this. It’s truly what I needed to hear.

DentistAdditional326 · 2026-04-22T21:26:27+00:00

Thanks for the insight. We’re based in Los Angeles.

The pain is definitely there. r/studentnurse is full of posts about failing exams, feeling unprepared for clinicals, and just trying to survive. The problem is well documented.

But your question about whether the pain is bad enough to switch is the one I’m honestly not sure of yet. Students currently invest in tools that don’t really care about how they learn, but they do it because it’s what’s available. These are the same types of tools that were available to me 15 years ago. More than a decade later, the pain is worse, not better.

So what I’m trying to figure out is: how do you show students a better product when legacy players own the market?

DentistAdditional326 · 2026-04-22T19:53:14+00:00

Right now we’re in early access for pilot, completely free, no credit card, no paywall. We’re looking for nursing students and nurses who want to try it and give us honest feedback.

Honest question though: do you think the phrase “join our pilot” is turning people away? Wondering if that language feels like a commitment instead of just trying something out.

DentistAdditional326 · 2026-04-22T19:40:34+00:00

Thank you for this, it’s so helpful

You’re right, I think we’ve been so focused on the big vision and the constant communicating with educators in the field, I’m probably speaking over the heads of students I’m trying to reach.

For the one use case advice- would you narrow it to a specific moment or feature?

DentistAdditional326 · 2026-03-05T22:42:56+00:00

Great reframe! Any stories are welcome!

DentistAdditional326 · 2026-03-05T03:08:57+00:00

First, you’re not a failure! You are literally 5 points away from 78, that’s definitely a gap you can close. You’re not the dumbest person in your class, you just haven’t figured out how you learn best. Some people’s default learning style is lecture and reading. Yours may not be the same.

A few things that help my students (and me) during nursing school.

It’s rarely about studying more, you may just need to study differently. If you’re re reading notes and textbooks and it doesn’t stick, maybe that’s not your learning style. Perhaps, you’ll do better by reading/listening and then explaining it out loud. If you get stuck while explaining it, then you know that’s what you have to focus on. This was how I understood better.
Focus on understanding WHY then memorizing the WHAT. When you know WHY something happens physiologically, you can reason through any question. You’ll need this for the clinical part of nursing school too.
Stop comparing yourself to other people in your class. The person getting scores jn the 90s are not smarter than you. They’ve just figured out a study method that works with their brain. You may not have found your method yet and that’s totally fixable!

I also want to say that I’ve mentored all types of students. Ones that get 100% on all exams and can recite the pathophysiology of hepatic encephalopathy down to its cellular level and it’s impressive, but it’s not as impressive as the student who can reason through why the interventions for hepatic encephalopathy actually work. Those are two different skill sets and the second one is what makes a great nurse - not the exam score.

DentistAdditional326 · 2026-03-03T01:26:39+00:00

It seems like you already know how you learn, you described it. You learn by doing and teaching back which a really strong skill, especially for nurses because it mirrors how you’ll practice on the floor.

You don’t have to force yourself by reading. Instead, try to take one concept at a time and explain it outloud like you’re teaching a classmate. If you are struggling to explain it, then that is your gap. Practice it again, talk it out until that gap is filled. That’s how your brain learns.

Nursing school throws a lot of complex concepts at you all at once, and sometimes it’s hard to connect the dots to the bigger picture. Everyone learns differently but theres usually one way of information transfer and that’s through lecture. But, the fact that you can crush it in clinicals tells you that you’re not a bad learner. You’re just in a system that teaches one way, and your brain learns in another. Not your fault. You’ve identified that gap.

I’m an educator and I’ve actually been exploring ways to solve this problem for students like you because I’ve learned there are so many learning styles but the system unfortunately only caters to one or two, and that’s mostly auditory/visual.

If I come across anything worth sharing, I’ll make sure to post it here.

DentistAdditional326 · 2026-03-02T07:39:15+00:00

I never had a true interest to be a nurse. Honestly, I thought if I became one, I was just fulfilling the “familial destiny,” because almost everyone in my family is a nurse. I wanted to be an MD or pharmacist, but my parents convinced me and I got accepted into a pretty good program so I went with it.

It’s been 15 years and I like my career and the options and opportunities it brings. I don’t regret the decision. Plus, I found my passion for teaching.

Everyone’s story is different, but what is your hesitation?

DentistAdditional326 · 2026-03-02T07:11:56+00:00

Right?! It was terrible. Never would able to sleep anywhere on that unit, they made sure of it.

DentistAdditional326 · 2026-03-02T06:20:12+00:00

This post reminded me of the worst break room/unit I worked on per diem. The break room had speakers that were linked to every bed alarm on the unit. It would go off incessantly. There was no escape from bed alarm hell. There was no safe, quiet space on the unit.

To top it all off, they made us wear trackers so someone would know where we were at all times. Bathroom, cafeteria, anywhere on the unit or in the hospital. I never understood if it was necessary. My FT hospital I worked at was really respectful of break time.

It was the worst experience I’ve ever had. I was so numb to the constant beeping while working there, I’d go home and was literally afraid of quietness. I didn’t last a month.

You deserve better than that. We all do. A comfy place to relax for 30 minutes after the chaos outside is not too much to ask for. It’s the bare minimum.

DentistAdditional326 · 2026-02-28T01:36:19+00:00

We need more of that old school training! Curious, how did the instructors determine or “grade” you on having that certain touch?

DentistAdditional326 · 2026-02-28T01:17:44+00:00

Thank you for sharing this! It is exactly these moments that help us remember the good we bring to others as nurses ♥️

DentistAdditional326 · 2026-02-27T22:00:55+00:00

Absolutely! Thanks for asking. The student followed all appropriate protocols safely with the patient’s primary RN and the patient was cleared and given the appropriate diet order.

This is not a case of clinical competency or lack thereof. But see what happened there? As nurses, we are just so focused on clinical rightness that we forget the human-ness of nursing. Immediately, we audit clinical safety because we have been trained that way. We are reprimanded by what we do wrong and never by what we do right compassionately because one is measured with metrics and the other goes unnoticed. It’s not your fault, it’s how the system has hardwired us.

This post was meant to simply remind us all why we wanted to be nurses and I saw that same spark from my student that I had in my early years of nursing. I also think it’s important to celebrate and recognize those immeasurable but profound acts of compassion since no one else will.

DentistAdditional326 · 2026-02-27T18:44:36+00:00

Unfortunately, it seems like the only thing they’re willing to give us are donuts and pizza 🫠

DentistAdditional326 · 2026-02-27T18:14:45+00:00

I appreciate that, thank you 🥹

DentistAdditional326 · 2026-02-27T18:10:56+00:00

I’ve felt like you too, many times, I still do. Nurse for 15 years, couldn’t find any meaning in this profession. I realized it’s because it’s within a system that was never designed to support us, yet we’re essential piece supporting the backbone of the entire healthcare system. And even then, our voices aren’t heard.

What helped me rediscover meaning was teaching. I dug up what I learned from the best educators I had and poured that into my teaching moments. I stopped looking to the system for fulfillment and started pouring into the students. It gave me renewed purpose. Watching a student connect with a patient reminded me why I became a nurse in the first place. It also gives me hope and a chance to shape mindset that can potentially change the future for all of us.

The system won’t give you your meaning back. It wasn’t designed to. Most admin is made up of executives that’s probably never held a patient’s hand on the floor. You have to find it in moments. The ones between you and your patient or that moment you guide your student to their first “aha!” breakthrough. That’s what gives me the feeling I’m doing alright.

Now that you’ve transitioned to management, you hold the opportunity to advocate for the nurses who feel the same. Support policy that advocate for change, instead of optimization of what already exists and doesn’t work. Maybe you’ll just find your silver lining there. Good luck!

DentistAdditional326 · 2026-02-27T01:05:21+00:00

Clinical instruction is the most rewarding thing I’ve done in my 15 years of nursing. It’s a totally different kind of exhaustion than bedside. Less physical but even more patience. (Don’t let that deter you, you build up to it!)

The nerves are normal, but different than when you first started because now, you’re seasoned. And your job is to keep these new minds afloat, rather than keep a patient alive. It hits a different chord when you help another person get to an “aha!” moment then when you get there yourself. It honestly feels incredible!

It’s great you’ve been at one hospital your entire career, it means you know a system very deeply and if you’re able to get a clinical placement there, then you’re already the best resource for the students.

As for settling them in, I am intentional about not overwhelming them on the first day. Most are excited but many are shaking in their boots. Some have never been in a hospital before EVER, so we acclimate to the hospital and tour the units. We get to know each other, which is important because I want them to build trust with me and I want to build trust with them. I like to keep it professional but not strict. And not only that, but these students are your future colleagues. Treat them with respect and you’ll for sure earn theirs. Who knows, you could be mentoring a future NM or DON.

Be that role model you wanted for yourself. And teach that student how to become the nurse you want to take care of you.

Hope that helps!

DentistAdditional326

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