This as told essay is based on an interview with Sarah Michelle Boes, founding father of Sarah Michelle NP Reviews (SMNP), which was acquired by Blueprint Test Prep in 2022. Boes currently serves as the Chief Nursing Officer at Blueprint Test Prep and hosts the podcast Become a stress-free nurse. She received her BSN from the University of Kentucky, her MSN in Nursing Education from Western Governors University, and her post-MSN-FNP from Eastern Kentucky University. This piece has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Photo credit: Courtesy of Sarah Michelle Boes
I grew up in rural eastern Kentucky and at all times had this passion for being a teacher. My heart was in it. But my parents are teachers and they say, “Absolutely not. You cannot do it”. There is a lot of politics and bureaucracy in teaching. It’s greater than just being a teacher. When I used to be a teenager, my grandmother was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. Due to the lack of fantastic access to quality health care in our area, we needed to drive two hours to Lexington to get a diagnosis and receive a care plan that she could take home with her. It was in the summer, so I went with her and that was my first introduction to nursing at Markey Cancer Center.
These nurses were amazing. I have the impression that oncology nurses are angels in general. They took care not only of her, but also of me. It was just a great experience. So, knowing that I would not find a way to develop into a teacher, I believed: Well, nursing — I feel like I could do something. There would even be a teaching aspect, because there is a lot of patient education, but I’d also gain human contact with people, which helps me develop. So it was no problem for me and I went to the University of Kentucky, which guaranteed me acceptance into their program – and that is a really big deal.
I struggled with anxiety in nursing school. The classes were notorious for removing people and everyone was afraid to attend them. In this class in particular, I felt a lot of anxiety, to the point where my instructor said, “I do not think nursing is for you. You are stressing too much to be a secure nurse.” I had to make your mind up to remain. The grading scale in nursing is also completely different: in most programs, a rating of lower than 76 means you failed the exam – and on my first exam in this class, I got a 74. I literally failed my first exam on one query. So I needed to determine the way to deal with anxiety and think of tools I could use.
So I began considering about the way to deal with classes and my anxiety. I then began tutoring, eventually leaving my full-time management job to assist students full-time. I taught them skills that helped me cope with these difficult jobs in a different way, and my anxiety didn’t increase again until I became a nurse – because it had been a very long time since I had taken a dangerous exam class. There was no one to show to for perspective because I used to be the first nurse in my family and I didn’t know many individuals who were nurses.
Moreover, I used to be taking my nursing exam in the prime of Covid, in May 2020. So it was chaos. Testing centers weren’t operational and in some places you might take the test online at home, in others you might not. By the time I took the exam in mid-May, it had already been canceled five times, of which I had already made it to the exam center three times. So there was a lot of anxiety about it. I used to be like, Will I ever take this test? That’s what my job is.
I used to be so stressed that I ended up breaking my tooth in my sleep because I used to be grinding it so hard. I might want to get a $7,000 dental implant; my hair was falling out too. But I accomplished the 175-question exam in lower than an hour and passed. I used to be like, I can not imagine I used to be stressed about it. It was a lot easier than my nursing exam. I just needed confidence because I had spent years in schools and a whole lot of hours in clinical preparation. None of my reviews gave me that confidence.
This realization – and the proven fact that I still needed to pay for a $7,000 dental implant – motivated me to prepare my first review course. I began the company because I believed I can not afford this $7,000 implant. I figured if I put together a little review course and made $500, that will help pay for it. I began considering about the way it might be done in a different way – the way it could look less like someone lecturing you and more like learning with a friend. So I got here up with the query and answer method, which I used as a tutor in nursing school and when I taught nursing students at the university level.
Within a week of passing the exam, I took my first three-hour course. I actually gave it away to all my classmates for free. There were 30 of us and I believed: “Hey, I’ll offer you this course for free if you invite another person to the group when I give it to you.” I ran a course for the first 100 individuals who joined the group. Then, just a few days later, someone who took the course passed it and it type of exploded into word of mouth. It got wild in a short time. The first person I attempted to sell it to for $25, she got mad that her friend got it for free, so she negotiated the price from me to $15. Still, I made $1,000 the first day I began selling, and I didn’t even make $1,000 a week as a nurse. I used to be like, What if I made $1,000 a day, every day? What would life be like?
At the turn of June and July, I exceeded what I earned annually as a nurse. I told my nurse I wasn’t coming. I desired to see how far I could take this business, but being smarter and having never run a business before, I kept my full-time teaching job just in case. But every free hour, every weekend, I dedicated to work. Because I used to be so concerned about it being a startup, fragile and recent, I waited to quit my teaching job until I made $1 million. We hit seven figures in seven months.
After about a 12 months and a half, I used to be still using third-party software to host my courses – nothing felt internal or consistent. It got to the point where my students were literally breaking the software; I needed my very own. We actually spent $100,000 attempting to build an app that ended up completely falling apart. It was really difficult, but we kept encountering technology and I spotted that I used to be the bottleneck in all of it. The company desired to expand, so I began considering other options.
We considered selling it and released some trailers hoping for constructive feedback. As it seems, Blueprint, the test prep company, had several internal meetings about the lead before I even sent out the teaser. They had medical equipment and LSAT equipment, but no nursing supplies at the time. I also wanted to alleviate myself a bit, because a week after sending the trailers I discovered that I used to be pregnant. I never want people to think I sold because I used to be pregnant; it just happened to coincide with the time.
We really liked the Blueprint team, but the deal wasn’t perfect at first. My husband and I dialed the number before even one call, and I like to recommend every entrepreneur do the same. Otherwise, it could be difficult to shut a deal when emotions are high. So the first contract wasn’t our number and we left. Then they got here back with our number and we ended up selling in about two years. This money modified lives.
At 36 weeks of pregnancy, we discovered that my daughter would have a congenital heart defect. We had no idea. So all the pieces turned the wrong way up in a short time. When I used to be giving birth, money gave us flexibility and the ability to be there for our daughter when she needed it most. She underwent six surgeries in the first five months of her life, two of which were open heart surgeries. So very crazy, chaotic times, and what a blessing that I can have not only maternity leave, but also sick leave and find a way to be fully present for it – and not only me, but also my husband. We might be there together and support each other.
My daughter is now 19 months old and for the last 12 months we have been working on making a donation to the local kid’s hospital where they literally saved her life. Hopefully next month, fingers crossed, all the pieces will probably be ready and they are going to actually donate my daughter to Norton Children’s Heart Institute. They’re attempting to build a first-class cardiology program there, and you have to have funding to find a way to do that. So money gives us a lot of freedom and flexibility – my husband is also starting his own company – but our work with the kid’s hospital has been our most vital and impactful achievement.
This article is a part of our ongoing series highlighting the stories, challenges and triumphs of being Young Entrepreneur®.