What Gets Into the Nurse Founded Company Database (And What Doesn't)

At RN Forward, we're tracking nurse-founded healthcare companies that scale. Our goal: show the economic value nurses create in healthcare through entrepreneurship and innovation. To do this, our database focuses on collecting data on companies built to scale and transform systems. Here are the qualifications we look for when determining if a company should be included in the Nurse Founded Company Database.

Rule #1: A Nurse Must Be a Founder

We need a nurse credited as founder or co-founder. Any founding role counts; doesn't have to be CEO.

What qualifies:

• There from day one, building from scratch

• Listed as founder or co-founder

• Created the company, not just an early employee

Still counts even if:

• They've exited or sold their shares

• They stepped back from operations

• The company was acquired or shut down

• They're no longer in the C-suite

If they took the founding risk and built it from nothing, they're in.

Rule #2: The Company Must ✨Scale✨

What scaling means: Growing impact and revenue without proportionally growing costs. It's about leverage a.k.a serving 10x more customers without 10x the effort.

What Scales?

• Tech and digital platforms: Telehealth apps, clinical software, education platforms. Once built, they serve 100 or 100,000 users without rebuilding each time.

• Franchises: A medspa, IV therapy, or urgent care model that others can replicate. The system scales, not the founder's personal hours.

• Products: Medical devices or healthcare supplies that get manufactured and distributed. You're not personally making each unit.

• Marketplaces: Platforms connecting nurses to jobs, patients to providers, or professionals to education. The platform facilitates thousands of connections automatically.

• Replicable services: Home health or staffing agencies that expand to multiple markets using documented systems and processes.

• Scalable education: Online courses or certification programs that serve thousands without live teaching each class.

📝 A Note on Staffing and Home Health Agencies

Nurse-founded staffing and home health agencies are common … like really common. While they can technically scale across multiple locations, most operate similarly without meaningful differentiation.

We include these agencies only if they meet at least one of these criteria:

1. Significant scale: Operating in 5+ states or territories

2. Institutional funding: Raised funding from VCs, private equity, or institutional investors

3. Proprietary technology: Built tech that differentiates their model (custom platforms, AI matching, unique software)

4. Unique niche or model: Serving a specialized market or operating with an innovative approach that sets them apart

This ensures we're capturing agencies with real impact and innovation, not every local staffing company.

What Doesn't Scale (But Is Still Valuable)

• Single-location services: One medspa, clinic, urgent care, or wellness center where growth is limited by physical space and available hours.

• Time-for-money models: Solo practices where revenue ties directly to billable hours. You can only serve as many clients as you have time.

• Local-only operations: Services in one area with no infrastructure to replicate elsewhere.

Well then whats the exception? That single medspa becomes scalable when it becomes a franchise. The local agency becomes scalable when it expands with replicable processes. It's about business model, not industry.

Rule #3: It Must Advance Healthcare Delivery or Enable Clinical Practice ⚕️

This is our True North. ⬆️

Patient-serving companies obviously count, but companies serving healthcare professionals (especially nurses) count too if they advance healthcare delivery or enable clinical practice.

Here's where things get we need to be specific. Just because nurses are the customers doesn't automatically make it a healthcare company. So we ask ourself the "3 Core Questions":

Question 1: Does this solve a healthcare delivery or clinical practice problem?

Think about the original problem being solved:

• ✅ YES: Healthcare delivery challenge, occupational issue affecting care quality, advancing clinical capabilities

• ❌ NO: Personal lifestyle, finance, general wellness, convenience unrelated to clinical work

Question 2: Does solving this problem meaningfully impact how healthcare is delivered or practiced?

Does the solution change healthcare itself:

• ✅ YES: Improves patient care/outcomes, addresses occupational barriers to care delivery, advances clinical skills

• ❌ NO: Personal benefit only, doesn't change how care is delivered

Question 3: Is healthcare delivery or clinical practice the primary market?

Who was this built for:

• ✅ YES: Built FOR healthcare delivery or clinical work

• ❌ NO: General consumer product marketed to nurses

ALL THREE must be YES to qualify.

✅ Examples That Qualify:

Products or Services That Advance Healthcare Delivery:

• Clinical tools and medical devices

• Healthcare technology (EHRs, telehealth, care coordination platforms)

• Occupational health products that remove barriers to care delivery

• Healthcare operations and workflow solutions

• Medical interpretation and translation services

Products or Services That Enable Clinical Practice:

• Continuing education platforms and certification prep (required for licensure)

• Clinical education and training programs

• Job platforms for healthcare roles (enables workforce)

• Practice tools used in clinical work

• Professional development for healthcare advancement

❌ Examples That Don't Qualify:

Personal Finance & Career Optimization:

• Salary comparison tools (these help nurses make personal financial decisions, not deliver better care)

• Financial planning services

• Wealth building courses

• Investment advice platforms

• Budgeting apps

Lifestyle & General Wellness:

• Fitness apps (even if founded by a nurse with health motivations)

• Meal delivery services

• General wellness programs

• Social or dating apps

Consumer Products with Nurse Marketing:

• Beauty products "for nurses" (like antibacterial nail polish)

• Fashionable scrubs without functional innovation

• General lifestyle products marketed to busy healthcare workers

Social Communities Without Professional Services:

• General networking or social groups

• Facebook communities for casual connection

• Social platforms for nurse friendship

❗️ However, Communities CAN qualify IF they provide tangible professional services:

• CE credits or certification programs

• Job boards or career placement services

• Clinical resources or practice tools

• Must have clear revenue model for these services

Why This Matters 🙌🏻

We're building this database to prove something important: nurses create significant economic value through entrepreneurship and innovation that transforms healthcare. For too long, people have understood that nurses provide excellent care, but they haven't recognized the economic impact nurses create by building companies that change how healthcare works at scale.

Every company we add demonstrates that nurses are:

• Founders building venture-backed startups

• Innovators creating technologies that improve care delivery

• Entrepreneurs solving healthcare's biggest operational challenges

• Economic drivers creating jobs and generating revenue in healthcare

Healthcare isn't slowing down, and neither are nurses. 🏃🏻‍♀️ Let's show the "suits", "tech bros", and political decision makers of healthcare what nurses can do!

TLDR; These are the Requirements

A nurse as credited founder (any founder role)

Built to scale (multiplying impact without proportionally multiplying resources)

Connection to healthcare delivery or clinical practice a.k.a. solving problems that exist because of healthcare work and advancing how care is delivered

If your business doesn't fit these criteria, you're still doing meaningful work! Local practices matter. Solo services matter. Small businesses employing people and serving communities matter deeply.

We're just focused on a specific subset: scalable companies that demonstrate nurses driving healthcare innovation and creating measurable economic impact in the healthcare industry.

Know a Nurse Founded Company that fits the bill? 👉 Let us know. Every entry helps prove that nurses are entrepreneurs and innovators building the future of healthcare.