#15 - Dr. Iman's Incredible Idea

**Iman Abuzeid** (0:01)
You know, a lot of stars have to align for a company to start. You need to have the right co-founder, the right idea. You gotta be willing to take the risk, and so we leave and we start working on an idea. We've been working on it for a few months, like a year, and it's just not working.
We made a big mistake here, what are we gonna do? This thing's not growing, and we're actually running low on cash too. Pivoting is hard, but the thing is it should be acceptable.
This was the highest stress point I've had in my entire entrepreneurial journey. The thing with introductions, it takes like five minutes of your time, but you can change someone else's life. What we realized, I come from a family of doctors, surgeons, and they were complaining about understaffing. And so we looked into it, started doing the market research, and realized what a big problem this is. And then that's when we're like, okay, there has to be a better way.
Two years ago, when it was just Rome and I, we were raising our seed round, just raising the initial $2 million. And at that time, honestly, it was just two co-founders and an idea. Probably had to go through 75 to 100 meetings. And where are we now? We just raised a $50 million Series A.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:09)
So I wanna start with the who are you. So give us your name, and give us the name of your company and what your company does.

**Iman Abuzeid** (1:15)
So my name is Iman Abuzeid.
I'm the CEO and co-founder of Incredible Health. Incredible Health is the fastest growing hiring platform for healthcare workers in the US today.
Hospitals and health systems use our platform to hire permanent nurses today in less than 30 days. It normally takes them 90 days or longer. And our platform has driven the efficiency of hiring by 25 times. The reason that matters is the healthcare industry employs the most number of workers in America today. It is the largest labor sector in the country, but it also suffers from the biggest shortages. Our demand for healthcare as a country keeps going up, but we don't have enough workers in the system. And so it's becoming harder and harder to hire.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:53)
I want to talk about the product because I'm intrigued at how you're doing this.

**Iman Abuzeid** (1:56)
Yeah.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:57)
But first I want to, there's a couple of things when I was looking you up that was interesting. One was that you're not a tech person who tried to just go solve this random problem that you didn't really understand. You came from the healthcare world. So you have your MD.

**Iman Abuzeid** (2:09)
That's right. I am a medical doctor by background.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:11)
And we were just talking, you know, right before this, that you went through med school, you finished, but you never practiced, right?

**Iman Abuzeid** (2:18)
Correct.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:18)
You went into management consulting.

**Iman Abuzeid** (2:20)
I went into management consulting.
And the reason I didn't practice is because my interests were more around making an impact on a more macro level, impacting an entire health system or impacting an entire industry. And so don't get me wrong, like one-on-one patient care is great, but it just wasn't necessarily for me or where my interests laid.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:38)
And so you realized that when that, hey, this is, I'm in medical school. I don't necessarily want to be a practicing doctor. When did you realize that?

**Iman Abuzeid** (2:45)
Probably two years before graduating. And I was thinking about dropping out, but I didn't because my dad wouldn't let me.
And maybe that resonates with the immigrants out there. And those of you with immigrant parents, I'm originally from Sudan. My parents are Sudanese and dropping out was just not an option.

**SPEAKER_2** (3:01)
And you come from a doctor family too.

**Iman Abuzeid** (3:03)
That's right. My dad's a surgeon. My two older brothers are surgeons.

**SPEAKER_2** (3:06)
So growing up, the question is like, what type of surgeon do you want to be? Not like, what do you want to do?

**Iman Abuzeid** (3:10)
Exactly, yeah.

**SPEAKER_2** (3:11)
Okay, you realized this and you realized it in one moment or was this like a slow burn where you were like, I don't know if I really want to do this. Was there a day where you were like, this is not for me?

**Iman Abuzeid** (3:21)
It was definitely a slow burn and then it was just a decision point where I was just like, I cannot do this for the next 40, 50 years.