OM DENNE EPISODE
Curtis Anderson never planned to build a healthcare marketplace.
He started by buying a traditional nurse staffing agency and quickly realized the business itself was the problem. Too many middlemen. Too much friction. Too many shifts going unfilled. Instead of optimizing the old system, Curtis decided to replace it.
That decision became Nursa, a technology platform that directly connects healthcare facilities with qualified nurses and caregivers.
Today, Nursa serves more than 5,500 healthcare facilities nationwide through a network of more than 400,000 clinicians, helping solve one of healthcare's biggest workforce challenges.
In this Start School conversation, Nursa Founder and CEO Curtis Anderson joins Silicon Slopes CEO Clint Betts to discuss building marketplace businesses, leading through uncertainty, and why AI is creating one of the biggest entrepreneurial opportunities in history.
They discuss:
• Why Curtis bought a staffing agency before building Nursa
• How marketplace businesses solve problems traditional software cannot
• What founders can learn from Airbnb's early strategy
• How Nursa scaled during the COVID-19 pandemic
• The three competitive advantages every AI company needs
• Why product always beats marketing
• How founders should think about regulation in highly regulated industries
• The challenges of building and scaling two-sided marketplaces
• Why execution has never mattered more in the age of AI
• Leadership lessons from George Washington and Jesus Christ
00:00 Introduction
02:05 Why Curtis Anderson bought a nurse staffing agency
06:40 Building a marketplace instead of an agency
11:15 Launching Nursa during COVID-19
16:45 How AI is transforming marketplace businesses
22:00 Navigating regulation as a startup
27:10 Solving cash flow and scaling a healthcare marketplace
32:20 Using AI to expand into nursing education
36:30 The cold start problem and building network effects
39:20 Expanding beyond nurses and the future of Nursa
40:45 Leadership, execution, and serving your team
42:10 Closing remarks
Whether you're building a marketplace, launching your first startup, or trying to understand how AI is reshaping entrepreneurship, Curtis shares practical lessons on execution, leadership, product design, and building companies that solve meaningful problems.
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