In this episode of Digital Wave Riders, Brandon has a virtual call with Ryan Lee, Co-Founder and CEO of HireMe Healthcare, an organization that aims to improve the hiring process by promoting a better connection between healthcare professionals and clinics.
Ryan the development of his business and how he chose to approach the process of building a brand new fully-optimized website to represent his company.
Be sure to check out Ryan, his team, and all they offer at https://www.hiremehealthcare.com/!
Full Transcript.
BC Babbles (00:01.145)
I'm not ignoring you, I promise. All right, find everything else real quick.
Ryan Lee (00:02.818)
Fair enough.
BC Babbles (00:09.905)
Coolio. So, welcome everyone to the first episode of the Digital Wave Virus podcast. Today I'm joined by Ryan Lee. He is the co-founder and CEO of Hire Me Healthcare. Welcome to the virtual studio, Ryan.
Ryan Lee (00:24.738)
Thank you, Brandon. It's an honor to be here.
BC Babbles (00:27.205)
Thank you so much for joining me today. Usually when it's like my first time trying to work a podcast episode, I endeavor to figure out a fun little icebreaker, but you and I had a pretty fun icebreaker a few minutes ago, not before I hopped into the studio, but when we were trying to figure it out today. So let's talk about that a little bit. So Ryan, so I don't know, probably on my fault, but apparently I let you believe that I was in Nashville, which is where you are.
Ryan Lee (00:58.186)
Yeah, well, at first I thought it was virtual. And then when we were talking about meeting at the studio, I was like, oh, it must be in Charlotte. I'm actually in Nashville. And then when you mentioned Riverside, which is the platform we're using now, there's a studio on Riverside Avenue right around the corner from me in Nashville. So I was like, oh, you are in Nashville. Okay.
BC Babbles (01:19.229)
I was like wait, no, that's not it. And of course my luck is I mentioned Riverside and there's a physical Riverside studio I'm like, oh crap. No, no, no. So thankfully we got it all turned around And we are good to go aside from some unfortunate technical issues I love enduring at the last minute, but you know, that's how it is. Anyway, we are here today Ryan
So you were highly recommended to kind of try to get into the first batch of episodes with digital white writers Being that one you are co-founder with our team me, Caitlin additionally you are From what I hear a pretty awesome idea to know But in regards to your role at HireMe Healthcare, you know talk about I know it mentions on the website that you were raised by two entrepreneurs So I'd love to hear
starting off kind of what your background is in, where that your invigorations come from, and how you found yourself in a position to spearhead an entity like Hyme Healthcare.
Ryan Lee (02:24.258)
Yeah, absolutely. I have a very nonlinear career path that led me to where I am today. It started out, my initial experience was actually as an attorney. I was practicing a very interesting mix of criminal and entrepreneurial law out in Colorado. And right around that time, I was approached by a childhood friend of mine. Our dads were actually best friends since middle school. So we've known each other beyond forever.
BC Babbles (02:40.208)
Oh nice.
BC Babbles (02:52.62)
Yeah.
Ryan Lee (02:53.378)
And he had a brilliant idea for a health tech startup based on his experience working for a major hospital system. At that time, I was just about to leave to go get a master's in human rights in Austria. I was shifting towards, you know, a bit of a humanitarian career path and taking my legal background as well as all the work I'd done with startups in a lot of various capacities. And...
You know, I've been surrounded by health care and friends and family, pretty much everyone but myself. You could say that I don't have the steady hands to set a needle or anything like that, so I figured I could bring business into the health care space. But, yeah, through all that, I landed at Hire Me Health Care and took over as CEO once we got through our ideation phase in 2021.
BC Babbles (03:28.089)
Yeah
BC Babbles (03:37.308)
Yeah.
BC Babbles (03:45.645)
Now, are there any particular elements within the established kind of healthcare industry or the systems in place within healthcare that you wanted to really endeavor to address through Hire Me Healthcare that kind of works at the cornerstone of what you guys do?
Ryan Lee (04:00.002)
Definitely the aspect of hiring and you know, it's not unique to health care that hiring is an archaic method built on Resumes put into stacks run through algorithms that block them you know I'd had I'd lost out on job opportunities for not saying the right words and a resume when I was perfectly qualified and
BC Babbles (04:20.369)
Yeah.
Ryan Lee (04:21.058)
you know, Trey brought this idea of addressing it in the healthcare system, which is, you know, of paramount importance for this to be figured out. So that was one of the cornerstone components of what we built out with Hire Me Healthcare.
BC Babbles (04:32.729)
Absolutely. Quick pause, because I got to try to put a computer.
BC Babbles (04:41.805)
I would love to take this opportunity to let you know that typically I am far more put together than this. I have been podcasting for about four years. So why everything I touch wants to fall apart today I have no answer for.
Ryan Lee (04:52.866)
Well, I'm just proud to be on. I heard you say this is round one, the inaugural, if you will. That's a tall honor, I must say.
BC Babbles (05:03.101)
It's definitely a splash of an experience so far. That's what I can definitely tell you at this point. All right. Plugged in. There we go. All right. So going to, you know, having healthcare, developing a business, what did engagement for you guys look like? What was your going, kind of breaking ground with the company?
What was your starting kind of strategy and kind of garnering attention and kind of getting momentum going? What did you start off doing strategy wise?
Ryan Lee (05:36.514)
So we've experimented with quite a bit. We've been bootstrapped this whole time. So not only have we experimented, but we've experimented with meager financial resources. So we've tried. We were able to get our hands on a nurse list of every licensed nurse in North Carolina. It's about 170,000 long. And so we started directly marketing to that group. We started building out a social media presence, trying just all the things that.
BC Babbles (05:56.293)
Yeah.
Ryan Lee (06:06.11)
you see influencers do to get picked up and get that following. Of course, we built a website and, you know, it was rudimentary prior to us joining with NextWave, but we built what we had to. And yeah, we've really dabbled in most aspects of going to market, but just doing so on a budget.
BC Babbles (06:29.841)
So at what point did you decide that there needed to be an uptick in the engagement into the digital sphere? Was there a particular point where you were like, okay, we've done this so far, but we need to implement some kind of new strategy, some new technique into really kind of elevating what we've done so far?
Ryan Lee (06:51.906)
It was a reality check moment of just, you know, the digital spheres where everything is happening now. All of our grassroots approaches, even just, I mean, you know, email marketing is still digital in nature, but it's relatively archaic compared to a lot of the stuff you can do now with, you know, whether it's social media promotion, building out media and content on a web page that's more engaging. But we were seeing graphic to our website and just not...
BC Babbles (07:16.251)
Yeah.
Ryan Lee (07:18.93)
seeing conversions. So we had to say there's a hole here. There's something missing that is people are walking to the bridge and they're not crossing it. So what is it about that bridge?
BC Babbles (07:27.301)
Gotcha. Now, even though you guys are a newer entity, were there any reservations about upping that engagement either just the avenues you're going to try or in respect to the strategies behind using certain avenues?
Ryan Lee (07:45.346)
Well, every reservation we have is somewhat rooted in the financial aspect. You know, it's deciding how to resources and there's so many different things we can do from geo targeting down to these sophisticated ad campaigns through, you know, tick tock and I guess now there's threads out there. There's options and we have to pick a handful of them. So we really did have to do a narrowing exercise and say what needs to be done right now.
BC Babbles (07:50.435)
Sure, yeah.
BC Babbles (08:06.597)
Yeah, yeah, yeah!
Ryan Lee (08:15.286)
and what needs to be done after we raise our next round.
BC Babbles (08:15.58)
Yeah.
There's also this one that an associate of mine showed me and I've only put like five posts on it in like the last three months, but it's called Lemonate. It's very Instagram-esque, but I think the community, they're still kind of newish. So it hasn't gotten like a little, it's not gotten too saturated yet, but and I think that brings to my point is just like.
Even when delving into new avenues, you never know, even if you hop onto a new avenue, how well that actual platform may or may not take off. So what kind of investment is that really going to be in the long run?
Ryan Lee (08:50.302)
Yeah, and is it going to be a make or break investment? You know, is it going to? Are we going to sink stuff into this that we can never get back?
BC Babbles (08:56.433)
Right, exactly. Now, so you eventually did hop on with Nextdoor services. Now, part of what, of course, what they do is they will...
redesign or completely from scratch design a whole website to provide you kind of that base home base of a digital presence for a company. And that obviously is a process. It takes time. So when you guys were discussing with NextWave and you guys were discussing that process, what was most important to you while you were waiting for that process to kind of fully propagate while you were waiting for that final product to be presented to you? What was your what were your questions? What were
the things that kind of were constantly at the forefront for you as an investment.
Ryan Lee (09:43.97)
Oh man, there was, what is this migration going to look like? You know, is it going to be smooth? We're in the middle of running these intensive campaigns towards niche target markets, and we were like, is this going to unfold right at the worst possible time? You know, is there going to be any kind of issue moving it over? While we were waiting though, we just started seeing these prototypes of our new website, and then we got into this headspace of, I don't want to send anyone to our current webpage, because it's just...
BC Babbles (09:51.888)
Mmm.
Ryan Lee (10:13.226)
Now I'm looking at these relative platforms and ours is just busted compared to what's coming next. So there was kind of that, let's see what we can hold off on while still keeping our foot on the gas.
BC Babbles (10:25.369)
Yeah. So then, obviously, eventually you've got your website. So the guy spoke to NextWave, you guys initiated the process, the new platform for you was built, it was gone throughout these processes to make sure it was of good quality, and then you launched it. So since the launch, what kind of changes have you seen in regards to how you're able to engage with your target audience, how people are able to find you? What kind of shifts has that provided for you guys?
Ryan Lee (10:55.598)
So it's been fresh enough not to have a deep base of KPIs to measure entirely yet. But what we are seeing is our calls to action are so much more prominent. And as we continue driving traffic, we're seeing some conversions, at least on the nursing side of our marketplace so far. And we've added some press release components, which I think is really cool. And I think we've been able to do that.
BC Babbles (11:24.61)
Nice, yeah!
Ryan Lee (11:25.85)
People have been pointing out that they've seen those. So it's been pretty cool just now knowing that if people land on our webpage, they will know what to do and that we can have this chance of conversions. And, you know, over these, we really just got live. I think it was maybe last week, if not the end of the week right before that. It was very, very recent. So we're excited to see what comes next.
BC Babbles (11:47.027)
Oh wow, nice.
BC Babbles (11:53.745)
So it's really, I guess, sounds like one of your main points in even deciding to get a new website was, we need people who hop onto the website to have a more inherent, obvious ability for navigation. They need to know where to go. So I'm really excited for you guys to see what that more, as you said, obvious, more explicit calls to action will help people maneuver to and find what they're looking for.
Ryan Lee (12:23.542)
Yeah, absolutely. They have no excuse to not convert anymore if we put it right in front of them.
BC Babbles (12:24.785)
No.
BC Babbles (12:28.469)
Nice, perfect. Now from here, you know, obviously you're still bringing news too with the new platform, so you gotta, you definitely to a degree want to wait for numbers to roll in, get some kind of analytics reports to kind of see how things have been shifting, but endeavoring for a more, you know, progressive future for Miami health care and engagement, what other plans would you be considering? So outside of a website, you know, what other tools?
have you already started using or do you think you will consider using to further engage people who need to know about HireMe Healthcare?
Ryan Lee (13:04.398)
We're looking into some pathways and some methods that were previously unknown to me, prior to diving into this world. When you enter the digital space, the digital space reminds you very quickly just how vast it is. I mentioned the social media campaigns, a social media platform like TikTok that I never thought I would be involved in. We're moving in that direction. We have a thread. That's one of the main reasons I actually know what that is in its early days. We are considering,
BC Babbles (13:16.722)
Mm-hmm.
Ryan Lee (13:34.622)
Some more sophisticated forms of advertising. One of the ones I'm most excited about is retargeting, where, and geofencing as well. Geofencing is actually the one I'm most excited about. Retargeting is something that we can work into, the channels we already have flowing, but the geofencing idea is, if there's a bulk of people sitting around the...
BC Babbles (13:41.379)
Oh yeah!
Ryan Lee (13:59.438)
geolocation of a hospital at four in the morning, you know, unless there's some big camp out in the parking lot, that's a bunch of nurses and that's our target audience there and being able to advertise kind of just to that area, just at that time is, you know, it's a little creepy that this exists, but man, if you use it for good, it's a beautiful tool.
BC Babbles (14:00.549)
location of a hospital at four in the morning, you know, unless there's somebody camp out in the parking lot, a bunch of nurses. And that's our target audience there, and being able to advertise kind of just to that area.
BC Babbles (14:20.922)
No, I definitely get that. I was a communications manager for a nonprofit in North Carolina like four years ago and that was part of what I had to do was kind of geofence. I used a platform called Meltwater for it and it was kind of weird that I could like localize a whole campaign to like the smallest town over in like Nebraska.
I'm like, you know, this is great. But at the same time, low key weird, just like a little low key weird. Low key weird.
Ryan Lee (14:50.518)
where it's still less creepy than finding out when you go talk about how you're interested in a new mattress and all of a sudden all of your advertisements are for mattresses. That part creeps me out more than anything. We're not doing that yet.
BC Babbles (15:00.621)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It kind of reminds me of those moments. I don't know if you have like a, oh my God, what's your name? Alexa at your house, but like, it's kind of reminds me of those moments where like, you're talking amongst your family, you're not addressing the Alexa, but there's like a little ding that comes from it. Like, she was listening. What the hell? She knows.
Ryan Lee (15:18.036)
Yeah.
Ryan Lee (15:21.902)
She just wants you to know she heard.
BC Babbles (15:25.013)
And that's when you find all those perfectly marketed retargeting ads popping up on your Facebook the next day. Because they're listening in. Granted, we're promoting. We're here to promote those services, but it is how it is to a certain degree. So just how it is at this point.
Ryan Lee (15:30.668)
Yep.
Ryan Lee (15:39.358)
Yeah, don't turn an argument with your sister into a targeted ad. That's just the world we live in now.
BC Babbles (15:47.189)
So from here, with everything that you guys have done to elevate at this point, and kind of seeing the prospects of what it can provide for you guys in the future, if a fellow business owner were to come up to you and be considering a similar path or avenue, what advice would you give them in regards to...
kind of what to look for in a designer, kind of what to look for in a team that's offering to help. What kind of elements do you think other businesses should keep in mind that should be kind of at the forefront of what's being offered for a new website, for campaign management, whatever it is.
Ryan Lee (16:31.926)
Yeah, well first of all, one of the things I would strongly encourage is to make sure you keep shopping because some of those prices start to seem really consistent and really high and then you find something that is actually significantly more affordable that just works because people like, I mean that's where NextWave came in, the price point and the quality just didn't check out compared to everything else we were looking at and it turned out, you know, that these...
such a steal almost does exist. So, you know, a lot of the time if you're doing a comp, you see three places that are all, you know, with ballpark, the more or less the same price. You're like, oh, this just must be the standard cost of what I'm trying to do here. But that's not always the case. I encourage people to shop and really find someone who, you know, it's an important relationship. It's not something where you're handing.
BC Babbles (17:16.931)
Yeah.
Ryan Lee (17:25.878)
You know, you're handing an idea and a color scheme over to a graphic designer who's going to go and just make something and then you move on. I mean, it's an ongoing relationship for what you have. Or with aspects of SEO that, you know, there's always going to be changes additions growth components of a website that you know you're going to want to work in class partner for that. Someone that's gonna.
BC Babbles (17:35.002)
Hmm
BC Babbles (17:47.574)
Right.
Ryan Lee (17:49.218)
you know, get in the trenches with you that you enjoy working with. And I think that's really important for those relationships to be a part of it. It's not just a one-off agreement.
BC Babbles (17:58.085)
Yeah, and it makes me really happy that that's gotten to be your experience so far. I've worked for companies in the past where the sale happens for the sake of a sale happening and that opportunity for that report that you mentioned kind of too often will fall through the cracks. And then suddenly you have a client who's been on for a number of months, but the...
the delivery on what was sold is lackluster and it's even worse if you're coming in and they're transferred to you, you've got no idea what the lack of rapport has been like and then it's like, God, how do I help this person who didn't get that reciprocation from the get-go? So I'm happy that for you guys, you guys have been provided that opportunity and that reciprocation from the get-go so that you have this inherent trust. And so what you're being provided is something that results from
your guys's communication. So I'm really happy for you guys about that.
Ryan Lee (18:55.01)
Absolutely, and we're grateful for y'all for that. I guess one other thing that I would include is just when you're looking at comps for these kinds of things as well, a lot of the time you'll find websites are just cookie cutters that charge out the wazoo and you go look and if all their templates look more or less the same with a different color scheme, it's worth considering that they're not going to be.
working with you collaboratively to execute your vision in an artistic manner as much as they're just going to say, hey, this website is, this is the popular template right now. This is what we're going to build it into, and I hope you like it. So, yeah, finding versatility in a...
in case studies or whatever examples they offer and however that's done is nice to see the, okay, so you all are just good at designing web and you do, you execute founders' visions rather than, you know, their own vision of what they think every website should be.
BC Babbles (19:51.965)
Exactly. Now for Hyrami Health Care, is there anything that people who might be learning about Hyrami Health Care through this episode of the podcast should know about? Is there anything coming up for you guys, anything in particular that you guys are trying to spearhead right now that you want to kind of get into people's faces as much as possible?
Ryan Lee (20:10.454)
We're running campaigns right now and our upcoming campaign is for telehealth. We've received a lot of feedback on, particularly on the nursing side about enthusiasm about remote jobs. You know, the healthcare workforce is saying, everyone else gets to work remote, why can't I? And especially with the burnout that is being experienced across the field in healthcare, people are really looking forward to these jobs and we're making a push to connect those candidates to those job opportunities. We have...
We have that coming up. We have a fresh new website up there for those to check out. I highly recommend that. And yeah, we were just recently accepted into Startup Health, a nationally renowned accelerator program for health technology. So we're getting started with them. And there's going to be some stuff posted about that here in the near future. So we're really excited about a handful of things we have going on.
BC Babbles (20:42.25)
site up there for those to check out.
BC Babbles (20:48.657)
recently accepted into StartUp Health, a nationally renowned accelerator program. Awesome.
BC Babbles (21:04.541)
That's awesome. Congratulations. If you could though, can you go a little bit into telehealth? Now to me that kind of sounds like someone who is associated with a particular company, but they can kind of work from anywhere. What does that look like for an entity like Hire Me Healthcare?
Ryan Lee (21:19.114)
Yeah, it's remote jobs for a lot of basics that can be done in, you know, healthcare appointments, like there's certain aspects of acute care, you know, you can't get an IV remotely. And I say, yeah, because they are working on a VR driven at home role technology and some crazy stuff. So right now you still have to be there for, for certain methods of, or certain aspects of acute care. But.
BC Babbles (21:31.286)
Right, yeah.
BC Babbles (21:39.034)
Yeah.
Ryan Lee (21:47.606)
Yeah, just a lot of remote or a lot of nursing jobs can be done remotely. A lot of things, you know, checking in on certain aspects of patient care, follow-ups for a lot of, you know, if you have, you know, pick your disease, a lot of the time you don't need to continue having blood work done to be properly assessed for it. And a lot of this work can just be done remotely and nurses are walking to that opportunity.
BC Babbles (22:02.512)
a lot of
BC Babbles (22:06.174)
for it.
BC Babbles (22:10.513)
Yeah.
I'm happy that you mentioned getting an IV or moldy because I wondered about when it comes to physical assets that nurses probably need to have access to execute their responsibilities. If they are removed to a certain degree, what impact can that have on access to those assets?
Ryan Lee (22:31.646)
Right. I mean, just one example, you can just put it in the perspective of a patient. You know, think about how many times if you've ever had to go in for something like say, you know, you had an elevated, elevated levels of something in a blood test, for example. And, you know, if.
BC Babbles (22:45.725)
Sure.
Ryan Lee (22:50.486)
Usually when you go back in they're looking to see they want to follow up with you about symptoms for stuff like that You know if you have elevated liver enzymes, you know, they're gonna want to test your enzymes again but for a lot of things that come up in routine checkups or Issues that arise that you go, you know, you go see urgent care for example Most of the time those follow-up questions, you know, you're not You're not to take you're not getting in a gown. You're not
BC Babbles (23:00.765)
Right.
Ryan Lee (23:17.186)
You're not getting strapped up to anything. You have a brief conversation with your practitioner and then you leave. And all that stuff can be done remotely, which just simplifies the process a lot. And it just, it most importantly, it frees up the in-person space for, you know, as, as COVID taught us, there's only, there's a finite amount of time that clinicians can see patients in person and, you know, freeing up for the things that have to be done in person is, is great.
BC Babbles (23:18.229)
strapped up to anything you have a brief conversation.
BC Babbles (23:31.437)
up the in-person space for...
BC Babbles (23:36.541)
Thanks for watching!
BC Babbles (23:41.106)
patients can see patients. Right.
Ryan Lee (23:46.878)
just for stress to the overall system as well.
BC Babbles (23:50.813)
Exactly, exactly. And again, congratulations on getting involved in that Accelerator. That's gonna be great for you guys. I'm really happy for you guys on that front. Before I let you go though, is there anything, or how can people go about getting in contact with you? What ways can they find you?
Ryan Lee (24:06.294)
Well, we have a great new website and we have all of our contact information there. I'm personally very active on LinkedIn and we have, you know, I always invite people to connect, especially just drop a message, mention that you heard us on next waves podcast and we'll get a conversation going. And.
BC Babbles (24:24.565)
Yeah, I was gonna say plug those socials too. So LinkedIn, is there any of the socials right now that Hire Me Healthcare is being active on?
Ryan Lee (24:31.626)
Yeah, Hire Me Healthcare is active on Instagram. We're at Hire Me Healthcare for our handle. We are not so active on Twitter, but we have Hire Me Health and C is our handle there. And we're at Hire Me Healthcare on TikTok. And we're so new to threads, I have to double check, but I assume our handle is at Hire Me Healthcare. I have our director of nurse relations, Denise, is in charge of that. But hopefully I'm not upsetting her by getting that one wrong. But yeah, we're available on
BC Babbles (24:49.461)
hahahaha
Ryan Lee (25:00.858)
Facebook as well. You know, if there's a platform out there, we dabble in it. And we're building our presence up. So following us for all the exciting new things. It just happens in a blitzkrieg here of more and more things coming on. So we're the best way to stay abreast of all that. Follow us on any of our social medias, or better yet, follow us on all of them.
BC Babbles (25:26.069)
All of them. Perfect. Thank you so much for joining me today in the studio. I cannot wait to have this up, and I will let you know when everyone can get to know you through the podcast and engage in Miami Health Care.
Ryan Lee (25:38.018)
Thank you very much, Brandon. It's been great being on here, and I'm excited to see where episode number two goes.
BC Babbles (25:44.225)
Awesome, thank you. Okay, we're gonna stop recording.
Ryan Lee (25:45.898)
Thank you.
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