Most people think senior care is boring.
I think it’s the most interesting industry nobody talks about.

I’ve spent fifteen years here. 
Worked the floor, did the sales, ran the consulting projects. Saw what works and what doesn’t. Mostly saw what we all pretend works but just burns everyone out.

Now I’m seeing, AI land in senior care whether we’re ready or not. Some operators are figuring it out. Most are drowning in vendor pitches and don’t know what’s real.

That’s where I come in.
Think of me as your AI wingman for eldercare. I help you separate signal from noise and figure out what’ll actually move your numbers. Not the conference presentation version. The Monday morning version that works in your building naturally.

I’m not just consulting on this. I’m building it.

I run Burst Medical Billing. We’re creating AI technology that helps SNFs recover Part B revenue they’re missing. 

Raised $1.5M and integrated with PointClickCare. 
We’re launching the first AI-powered revenue stack built specifically for skilled nursing facilities in 2026. So when I talk about what works and what doesn’t, I’m not guessing. I’m testing it in production.

What you’ll find here: 
Honest takes on the AI landscape in senior care. 
Strategies you can actually implement. Occasional rants about things nobody wants to say out loud. Sometimes a joke, because this work’s hard enough without being miserable.

I’m building toward something bigger. 
A future where senior care isn’t healthcare’s afterthought. 

Where operators have tools that don’t require heroics just to function. Where the people doing the hardest work get the support they deserve.

If you want to talk AI strategy for your operation, get paid for your Part B supplies, or book me to speak, let’s connect.

Senior Care’s #1 Super Fan | CEO & Managing Partner, Burst Medical Billing | The only person who finds both Medicare Part B and machine learning genuinely fascinating

ERIC HANSEN

The federal government wants to fix nursing homes by telling them how many people to hire. 

I need to say upfront that this is not a terrible 
idea. It is, in fact, the kind of idea that sounds 
so reasonable you feel like a bad person for questioning it. 

More staff. Better care. 

Who could argue? 
Try arguing it at a dinner party. 

Try saying “actually, the staffing mandate 
might hurt the people it’s designed to help” 
and watch the table look at you like you just 
advocated for kicking puppies. 

I’ve done it. (Not the puppy kicking part)
I was roasted.

But there’s just something outsiders don’t get. 

Try any GD policy you like.
Mandate ratios, minimums, 

Set floors so high the industry has to pole-vault to clear them. Fine. Do it. I’m not against it. 

What I’m against is writing the requirement on 
one piece of paper and the funding on another 
and then losing the second piece of paper, 
which is what the federal government has 
done with nursing home regs for 30 years. 

Sooner or later you stop calling it 
oversight and start calling it intentional.

A staffing mandate without money behind it 
doesn’t land as “hire more staff.” It lands 
as a sorting mechanism. 

The facilities that can afford the bodies 
(the ones with enough private-pay residents 
to subsidize the gap) they’ll clear the bar. 

The facilities that can’t, the ones running on 
Medicaid in towns where there aren’t enough 
aides within driving distance to fill the shifts 
even if the budget existed, 

those facilities don’t hire more staff. 
They close.

Think about who lives in 
the ones that close.

Not the private-pay residents in the suburbs. 
The Medicaid residents. The ones who already 
had the fewest options and the least leverage in every conversation about their own lives. 

The mandate will move them. Out of a building 
that was understaffed into a building that’s 
farther away, or more crowded, or both. 

Some of them won’t survive the transfer. 
That’s not rhetoric. There is research on what 
happens to elderly residents when their facility 
shuts down. 

They die at higher rates in the months after. 
Their bodies remember the room even when their 
minds don’t, and being moved to a new hallway 
with new sounds and new smells is not a neutral 
act. 

It is an injury that doesn’t have a deficiency code. 
Nobody gets cited for it. Nobody fills out a form. 

The resident just arrives in an unfamiliar bed and
something in them, something the care plan 
never captured and the regulation 
never weighed, breaks.

I want more staff in nursing homes. Desperately. 

The word “understaffed” has become a 
euphemism the way “food insecurity” is a 
euphemism for hunger. 

What I want even more is for someone, anyone, 
to stop mandating things without funding them 
and then acting surprised when the gap 
produces harm. 

The mandate is coming. The money isnt. 
The rule has mass. 

And the underpaid CNA on the night shift 
can already feel its gravity.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

-eh

Medicare Part B’s Best Kept Secret | Senior Care + AI | Speaker | Founder & CEO

I worked as a CNA for five years. 
I don’t say that the way people usually say it.
With a wince, or a brave face, or the word 
“rewarding” deployed like a shield. 

I say it because it’s what happened. 
I was twenty-two years old and I needed a job 
and someone told me you could get 
certified in six weeks, so I did. 

Six weeks of classroom, a skills test on a dummy, 
a written exam I passed by 12 points, and then 
they put me on a floor with 23 human beings who
needed things I had not been taught to give.

Nobody tells you what the job actually is. 
They tell you how to transfer a patient from 
a bed to a chair. How to check a blood pressure. 

How to change a brief without making 
someone feel like a child.

You learn to maintain dignity the way you learn 
everything else in a nursing home: 
by drinking out of a fire hose.

I did that for five years. Then I sold medical 
services to nursing homes and walked into 
nearly a thousand of them across 25 states, 

and I saw the floor from the outside for 
the first time. Saw it multiplied, replicated, 

the same hallway 
and the same arithmetic 
and the same exhausted aides doing 
the same impossible math in buildings 
that smelled the same 
and ran the same 
and broke the same.

After that I started a company in the long-term 
care space and learned the business side, which 
meant learning that the people running these 
places were not the problem I’d assumed they 
were when I was twenty-two and naive (dumb).

They were doing math too. 
Different math, with bigger numbers 
and thinner margins 

but math that came out wrong in the 
same places mine did

At the bedside, where the gap between what’s 
required and what’s funded takes the shape of 
a person standing in a doorway choosing. 

Choosing to help Mrs. Smith or Mr. Roy.
Choosing to record the slip as a fall or not at all. 
Choosing..

That’s not a comfortable thing to say. I know. 
I spent a long time trying to find a way to say it 
that didn’t sound like I was blaming the people 
who wrote the rules. I’m not. 

They were solving a real problem. Are.
They saw genuine horrors and they built a 
system to stop them and in many ways it worked. 

But it also calcified. 
It stopped learning. 

It kept adding rules and never subtracted any, 
and it never reckoned with the fact that the 
money wasn’t following the mandates, 

and now we have a system that demands a 
standard of care it refuses to fund and then 
punishes the people at the bottom when the 
standard isn’t met. 

I didn’t set out to write about that. 
I set out to write about what I saw. 
It turns out they’re the same.

-

🔔 Follow for senior care content 
without the AI slop

#lethalbenevolence

No alternative text description for this image

Ernie has a stunning beach bod.
But it isn’t meant for the office.

Medicaid pays for 6/10 people in nursing homes. 
And it pays eighty-two cents on the dollar. 

Medicaid is Ernie.

$0.82. 
I want you to hold that number for a moment
because everything that follows depends on it. 

Eighty
two 
cents.

Not a slim margin. 
Negative 18%.

Some facilities get less than seventy cents for
every dollar it costs to keep a person alive, 
clean, fed, and turned every two hours so 
their skin doesn’t open into a wound 
that lets you see what people look 
like on the inside.

You cannot run a building on seventy cents. 
You can run a version of it. A thinner version. 
Fewer aides. Longer wait times. Call lights blinking like tarmac lights.

Congress used to require states to pay based 
on actual costs. Then they gave states flexibility. 

Then they repealed the last federal 
floor on payment adequacy. 

That was 1997. 

The floor was removed. 
Nothing replaced it.

The facilities on the thinnest margins serve 
the most Medicaid residents, operate on half 
a percent profit, and are concentrated in the 
poorest communities serving disproportionately black and brown residents. 

Your zip code and your insurance card 
decide which building you die in.

Drive twenty minutes in any direction from a 
facility running on fumes and you’ll find one 
with twice the staff, half the turnover, and a 
lobby that doesn’t smell like the 70’s. 

One building has enough Medicare residents 
to subsidize the gap. 

The other lives on $0.82 per $1.00

And now Congress is cutting nine hundred 
and eleven billion from Medicaid over the 
next decade. 

The residents can’t organize. 
They can’t march. 
Many can’t speak. 

That line is closer than any of us think. 

Six out of ten of us will cross that line. 

When it’s your turn, look down and
hope your tummy isn’t showing.

-

🔔 follow for irreverent content on #SeniorCare 

DM me to learn how much your Part B supplies are worth each month.

There is a 68 year old woman in Alabama
A retired school administrator, 
Spent forty years saving carefully.
And cannot afford to get old.

Not the way people mean it at cocktail parties. She’s not worried about gray hair or crows eyes. 

She has $180,000 in the bank and a house worth 
roughly the same, and a body that has started 
requiring more than her body can manage alone. 

She needs assisted living. 
The kind with a nurse aid nearby and 
someone to help with the things she 
can’t do anymore without falling.

The place her daughter likes 
costs $6,400 a month.

Her savings will last about two years. Maybe three if she’s doesn’t buy the AARP subscription or pay for the Lyft rides to her stylist anymore.

After that, Medicaid. 
Except , wait, Alabama doesn’t pay for 
assisted living. So after that, what?

A nursing home.
Or a different kind of facility. 

Definitely a longer drive for the daughter. 
A room that fits a twin bed, a tv, and a recliner.

That’s basically it.

This is the forgotten middle

The several million Americans who saved too 
much to qualify for assistance and not nearly
enough to buy their way into the places built 
for people who saved more. 

They are too wealthy for the safety net and 
too poor for the market, which has spent the 
last decade building memory care units with 
wine bars and concierge services for the people
a smidge above them while the people below 
them got Medicaid beds and the people in the 
middle got a bureaucratic line in the sand with 
no name and no product and no plan.

Now some operators have a plan. 
Strip out the wine bar. Pull the concierge. 
Cut the fine dining program and the lobby 
that looks like a Marriott.

Build something functional. 
Price it at $3,200 and cater it to the middle.

The industry calls this a no-frills model. 
Critics call it warehousing. 

Both sides are describing the same building. They just disagree about what it 
means that the building exists.

Here’s what I think, for whatever it’s worth. 

The argument about amenities is the wrong 
argument. It is a debate about the furniture 
inside a structure nobody is questioning. 

The structure is this: we have a population that 
needs care, a market that cannot profitably 
serve them at a price they can afford, 
and a government that has 
declined to bridge the gap.

The no-frills operator didn’t create that structure. 
Neither did the luxury operator. 

They are both rational responses to a 
market that was handed to them busted.

The woman in Alabama doesn’t need a wine bar. 
She also doesn’t need a warehouse. 

She needs a place that can afford to staff, 
which requires a margin, which requires 
a price she cannot pay for more 
than thirty-six months.

The math doesn’t care about the amenities.
It never did.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

-eh

🔔 Follow if you’re looking for a 
different kind of LinkedIn post. 

One that doesn’t 
sound like AI slop.

PS. Dm me if you’ve ever wondered whether 
your part b supplies are reimbursable?

Everybody knows the 3-day rule.
Researchers just proved it doesn’t work.

But it’s still on the books.

Medicare’s three-day rule. Written in 1965. 
Requires three consecutive inpatient days 
before Medicare covers nursing home rehab.

When the rule was written, hospital stays 
averaged ~two weeks. Three days as a 
checkpoint made sense.

Today, hospitals move in hours. 
The rule hasn’t moved in 60 years.

Brown University just published the numbers. 
600,000 Medicare hospitalizations.

After the rule was reinstated post-COVID, 
hospitals started keeping patients longer 
to hit the three-day threshold. 

Was it because patients needed more time?
I doubt it. I’d wager that it’s because 
Medicare required it.

And it led to 2,000 extra hospital days. 

In 
one 
month

SNF use didn’t drop. 
Outcomes didn’t improve. 
Mortality didn’t change.

The rule added cost and days. 
It added nothing else.

The lead researcher expected the rule to reduce 
nursing home use. That was the whole point.

“That’s not what we’re seeing in the data” she 
said.

But this is only half the damage.

Hospitals face Medicare auditors who can 
retroactively deny inpatient claims. So hospitals 
increasingly classify patients as “observation 
status.”

Your mother is in a hospital bed for 72 hours. 
IVs. Tests. Monitoring. She gets discharged 
to a nursing home for rehab.

Medicare says no. She wasn’t an inpatient. 
She was being ‘observed’.

Those days don’t count.

Now she owes $350 to $600 a day. Out of 
pocket. For care everyone agreed she needed.

One rule. Two opposite harms.
It forces some hospitals to extend stays nobody 
needs. It gives other hospitals a reason to classify 
patients in ways that erase their coverage.

Both responses are rational. 

AND THATS THE PROBLEM!
It’s a built-in structural trap.

Every time Congress tries to kill this rule, 
the effort dies. Not because anyone 
defends it on its merits. 

Because the CBO scores ‘repeal’ as increasing 
Medicare spending. (It does).

But the spending the rule creates is scattered. 
Diffuse. Thousands of hospitals padding 
stays by one extra day. 

You can’t photograph that.

A CBO number you can.

So the cost of keeping the rule stays invisible. 
The cost of removing it gets a price tag. 
And the price tag wins. Every time.

(Read that part one more time 👆)

That asymmetry is how broken systems survive.

A rule from 1965. Applied to a system its authors 
wouldn’t recognize. Kept alive not because it 
works, but because the structure that created 
the problem also protects the problem from 
being solved.

Nobody designed this. 
But of course that’s what happens.

#lethalbenevolence

CMS changed your antipsychotic star rating.
Again. Without telling you.

Experts confirmed yesterday: 
CMS applied a new methodology 
to time periods it said it wouldn’t touch.

Most facilities lost QM points 
and don’t know it yet.

You can find your exposure 
in 15 minutes with AI.

First, The problem →

Your MDS coordinator checks a 7-day window. CMS now pulls claims across the entire quarter. 

The full nursing home stay. Every prescription filled. Not just what was active during the lookback.

Drugs like prochlorperazine (nausea med) and metoclopramide (gastroparesis) are classified as antipsychotics. 

A single fill three months ago that nobody thought twice about? CMS sees it now.

The fix →

(1) Export your full dispensing history 
from your pharmacy system. 

Not just active meds, everything filled this quarter. 

You’ll need just two columns: 
resident name, medication name.

(2) Anonymize it in Excel to remove the PHI. 
Sort by last name. 
Select the first resident’s rows, type “Resident A,” hit Ctrl+Enter. 

Next group, “Resident B.” Delete the name columns. 

Save the original on a differed sheet.

(3) Paste the anonymized list into AI with this prompt:

“I’m a nursing home administrator auditing antipsychotic quality measure exposure under the new CMS hybrid measure. Below is an anonymized dispensing history for the full quarter. No identifiers included. Flag every medication classified as an antipsychotic, including dual-classified drugs prescribed for non-psychiatric reasons. Tell me the drug name, classification, and what it’s commonly prescribed for. Summarize which anonymous residents have antipsychotics, sorted by count.”

(4) Take the flagged list to your MDS coordinator. 

For each flagged resident: 
Was N0415A1 coded on every assessment 
where the drug was active? 

If it was filled months ago but discontinued, 
CMS still saw the claim. 

Check whether an exclusion diagnosis is on file and confirm with the attending that it’s appearing on their Medicare billing.

That’s it.

15 minutes. No PHI in AI. 
No manual formulary review.

Your MDS coordinator can check 7 days. 
This checks the whole quarter.

“Spend your life savings if you want our help.”
That’s the rule. Not a misprint.

The Rule.

You want Medicaid to pay for your mother’s 
nursing home, she needs to be broke first. 

Savings gone. 
Investments gone. 
The car if it’s worth too much. 

The money she set aside for forty years 
because she didn’t want to be a burden…

Gone. 

Asset limit in most states: $2,000.
Two thousand dollars.

I want you to sit with that number for a 
second before we move on.

Got it? Next…

Care costs run $7,000 to $10,000 a month. 
Medicare covers about 100 days if she 
qualifies, if the paperwork holds, if the stars align. 

The thing people don’t realize,
the thing I didn’t fully understand 
until I started pulling the thread

is that the spend-down doesn’t just wipe her out. 
It wipes out what she was trying to hand you. 

The house she raised you in. 
The account she never touched. 
The inheritance that was supposed to help 
your kids start somewhere instead of nowhere. 

It doesn’t evaporate. It goes to the facility. 
Then it goes to zero. Then Medicaid arrives.

After she dies, the state may come for 
whatever’s left. Sometimes aggressively. 
Sometimes quietly.

Either way, the option exists, sitting there in the 
statutes like a guard dog on the other side of 
the door… waiting.

The numbers are just the numbers. 
16.4% of nursing home residents spend down 
their assets and enroll in Medicaid during their 
stay. 

After four years, 61.8% of people who entered 
as private-pay have made the transition. 

Median savings of an older American: $36,000. 
Annual nursing home costs: up to $288,000. 
Do that math once. It’s easy. Do it.

Somewhere (we actually know where) 

A decision got made, that public money should 
only reach people who truly can’t pay. 

Which sounds like good stewardship until you 
understand what “truly can’t pay” requires a 
family to go through first.

There’s got to be a word for a safety net with a 
hole that size. I keep coming back to trapdoor. 

Most families don’t know it’s there. 

They find out the same way everyone finds out 
about the things that were always waiting for 
them.

On the way down.

-eh

——

🔔 Follow if you’re looking for something different on LinkedIn. 

DM me to learn how we help nursing homes recover their Part B supply reimbursements 
the compliant way.

A nursing home gets cited for a fall.
Not a bad nursing home. 

A facility running short because the state 
reimburses $198 a day for a human being 
who needs round-the-clock care. 

(That’s less than a mid-tier hotel room).

So the surveyor writes it up. 
The facility writes a Plan of Correction. 

New fall prevention protocol. 
New documentation requirements. 
New staff training module. 
New audit schedule.

Nobody asks where the time come from.
(They come from the floor and admin team).

The CNA who was already covering 22 residents 
now spends thirty minutes charting what she used to spend on care. 

The nurse who caught the early signs of a behavior last month doesn’t catch it this month. 

She’s in a care plan meeting about fall risk 
documentation with the leadership who worked 
70 hours last week.

Three weeks later, someone gets a UTI that 
goes septic. 

New citation. 
New protocol. 
New documentation.

The cycle doesn’t announce itself. 
But it’s there. 

Pressuring everyone with more compliance.
More checklists.

Every rule makes sense on its own. 
Every corrective action looks responsible 
on paper. 

But each one pulls staff time away from the work 
the rules were written to protect. 

And when care suffers because the staff was 
busy proving they provide care, the system 
doesn’t pause to ask why. 

It adds another requirement.

I call this Compliance Gravity.

It’s the slow, cumulative, one-directional force 
that bends a facility’s entire operation toward 
compliance as its primary function. 

Not care. Compliance. 

The weight only accumulates. 
Regulations stack. They almost never subtract. 

And the pull gets stronger the fewer resources you have to resist it.

Well-funded facilities absorb it. 
Medicaid-heavy buildings get crushed by it.

Worst of all, the system’s own response to 
failure is the catalyst for the next failure.

Low on resources / staff / cash -> 
Mistake -> 
New POC / reg / fine -> 
More documentation -> 
Less time for care -> 
Even less resources / staff / cash -> 
Mistake -> 
Repeat ♻️

What Is Compliance Gravity?

Congress just reformed PBMs. 
(It only took 60 years)

Pharmacy benefit managers were created 
in the 1960s to do one thing. 

Negotiate lower drug prices for 
the people buying them.

Then somebody tied PBM compensation 
to the size of the rebate.

A middleman paid on the percentage of the 
discount has a structural incentive to 
keep the starting price high. 

Higher list price. 
Bigger rebate. 
Bigger PBM revenue.

The entity hired to lower your drug costs 
got paid more when they didn’t.

(Read that again 👆)

Every actor in the chain did exactly 
what the incentives told them to do.
(This was predictable).

Manufacturers set high list prices 
because PBMs demanded large 
rebates for formulary placement. 

PBMs preferred high-rebate drugs because 
their compensation was tied to rebate volume. 

Employers saw big rebate checks and 
assumed the system was working.

You, in the deductible phase, paid full list price. 
You had no idea a rebate existed.

Here’s what the new law does. 
It delinks PBM compensation from rebates. 

Flat fees only. 
Mandates transparency reporting. 
Requires 100% rebate pass-through 
to employer plans. 

Here’s what it doesn’t do.

It doesn’t touch the architecture.
The law fixes the compensation. 
Not the structure.

One company can set the formulary, 
own the pharmacy, fill the prescription, 
and adjudicate the claim.

And it doesn’t cover Medicaid. 
77 million Americans on the program that serves 
the poorest, sickest, oldest people in the country 
got a study instead of a fix. 

They’ll wait for the next round.

Maybe.

The structure created the incentive. 
The incentive shaped the behavior. 
The behavior produced six decades 
of predictable BS. 

Nobody designed it on purpose. 
But of course that’s what happens 
when you pay the gatekeeper a 
percentage at the gate.

#lethalbenevolence

Medicare Advantage costs the federal 
government roughly $2,500 more p/yr/per 
enrollee than traditional Medicare. 

The care isn’t better. 

They’ve just mastered the art of getting paid 
for sickness.

They upcode. 

They enroll healthier patients and bill as though they’re sicker. 

MedPAC, the nonpartisan agency Congress 
created to advise it on Medicare, estimates 
MA overpayments will hit $76 billion this 
year alone. 

Did that stick? 
$76 Biilion in OVERPAYMENTS.

14% more than it would cost to cover the same people in traditional Medicare.

Three insurers now control nearly sixty percent 
of the market. Up from a third in sixteen 
years. 

That’s an 84% relative share expansion through
organic enrollment growth, aggressive M&A, 
and sustained regulatory arbitrage.

They use lobbying and litigation to block every
reform that would slow the money down.

The star rating system that’s supposed to keep this honest? 

MedPAC says it doesn’t reliably indicate quality
and has led to unwarranted bonus payments. 

Fifteen billion in quality bonuses flowing to plans
that figured out how to score well on paper.

Meanwhile, every Medicare beneficiary

including the ones who chose traditional Medicare

pays higher Part B premiums because of MA overpayments. 

The people who opted out are subsidizing the system they rejected.

Over the next decade, MA overpayments are projected at $1.2 trillion. 

That’s not a typo. 

That’s the cost of a payment formula that 
rewards documentation over care, in a system 
where the entities with the most lobbying power
capture the most resources and the populations 
with the least power absorb whatever’s left.

The money isn’t missing from American healthcare. 

It’s in the wrong waiting room.

The agency nurse costs more than the 
administrator’s car payment. Per shift.

That number sits in the back of every 
operator’s brain like a bad tooth. 

You don’t forget it. 
You just learn to stop thinking about it.

Here’s what it means. 
It means the facility already lost. 

Not tonight, months ago, maybe years ago, 
when the staffing math stopped mathing and 
the only options left were leave the hall 
uncovered or call the agency. 

The agency nurse costs $69 an hour.

The permanent nurse she replaced cost $44.

That $45 difference doesn’t come from nowhere. 

It comes from the cash flow sheet, which means
it comes from the family down the hall who 
doesn’t know they’re subsidizing it, which means
it comes from whatever’s left of the margin after that, which means eventually it comes from somewhere it was supposed to go instead.

A repair. A well-deserved raise. 
The third aide on the overnight 
that never got hired.

Operators don’t choose agency because they 
like it. They choose it because the alternative

the empty shift, the uncovered hall

has consequences the agency bill doesn’t. 

You can absorb a bad month of agency costs. 
You cannot absorb the lawsuit, the citation, the 
immediate jeopardy tag that follows the night 
you left the building short.

So the math becomes: pay the premium now or 
risk a cost that makes the premium look cheap.

It’s really more of a hostage negotiation with your
own balance sheet than it is a staffing decision.

Oh, and it compounds!

The agency nurse costs more and knows less, 
which means more incidents, which means more
documentation, which means more nursing time
on paperwork and less on the floor, which means
the permanent nurses burn out faster, which 
means more vacancies, which means more 
agency.

(Oof… that was hard to write)

The industry has a name for this. 
They call it the agency trap.

And I think it stinks!
It’s just stinks!

-eh

I think some of you are fibbing to me.
I asked everyone how much their premiums
were going up in 2026.

Nearly half of you said not at all.

I have to scratch my head at this because the odds are next to zero that 44% of you would not see premium increases.

Even under normal circumstances where we weren’t in the middle of a political quagmire, premiums go up year over year to accommodate for inflation.

What am I missing here?

Mine went from $1,247/month to $1,453.
That’s a 16.5% increase.

Some friends saw their premiums jump from $500-$800. That’s a 60% increase.

Now, I know political tensions were ripe with fear because of the shutdown and people were digging their heels in but which of you out 
there really saw no premium increases?

Because if like your reps number. 

Thanks 🙏 

-eh

graphical user interface, text, application

You run a nursing home.
You don’t know where AI fits.

Try this:

1. Go to ChatGPT.
1. Click on “GPTs.”
1. Type “ChatGPT use cases for work.”
1. Click “Start.”

Then type this:

“I’m a Licensed Nursing Home Administrator.
I manage a [120-bed skilled nursing facility].
I oversee census, staffing, compliance, family relations, and vendor contracts.”

ChatGPT will brainstorm and suggest:

→ Use cases specific to your facility.
→ Prompts you can copy and paste today.
→ Task types (writing, analyzing, researching, designing).

Here’s what it gave me:

→ “Draft a family newsletter for February.”
→ “Compare these 3 food vendor proposals.”
→ “Write a POC response for F-Tag 880.”
→ “Summarize this 14-page state update.”
→ “Create interview questions for a DON candidate.”
→ “Build a 30-day activity calendar for varying mobility levels.”

None of this touches PHI.

All of it saves hours.

-

♻️ Repost to help another administrator find this.
📌 Follow for more AI in senior care.

-

📅 Book a free call to see how much you can make on your Part B supplies → https://lnkd.in/g-RUWEfe

graphical user interface, text, application, chat or text message

Pay attention sales people.
Blair is giving you pro tips for free
(straight from the pianists mouth) 

Say that five times fast
Guaranteed laugh.

What stinks Blair, is you’re asking the bare minimum here. When Shawn Barron and I teach this sales stuff, your suggestions are the freshman level curriculum.

This is what every sales person should do
And yet… 90% do not.

They feel the pressure to sell.
To hit quota and they believe (incorrectly)
That they should press hard.
Get straight to the pitch.
Push to get the sale.

What they don’t realize is this is one of those
“Slow down to speed up” scenarios.
Meaning, you close more deals faster by avoiding the high pressure sale.

Funny thing. It’s never been harder to be in sales
(Because prospects are awash with AI-BS and the pitch fatigue is real).

But it’s also never been easier
(Because you just need to be authentic and human).

Who would have think that with all of this advancement the best way to sell is not New school.

It’s Old.

Vice President of Operations | Senior Living/Senior Care

View Blair Quasnitschka, LNHA, FACHCA’s profile

Sales…the approach works as a vendor and operator. 

So when a sales representative comes to me assuming they can solve my “problem” - you’ve already lost. 
1. Assumption - how do you know I am struggling in the service line you are selling?
2. Bandwidth - in the vast litany of focuses and initiatives an operator is dealing with, I likely have prioritized already and you possibly do not fit at this time. 
3. Connection - if you have done nothing to research me or my organization, you have no chance. Honestly, treat it like your resume needs to stand out in the stack of thousands. 

The solution:  do some homework and CONNECT first. Ask where our pain points are. Ask if we are considering what you solve for in the next 6-12 months. 

I think about it when our Lifestyle Advisors who consult with seniors every day - they don’t dive straight in assuming we have the solution to their life’s next chapter in an attempt to beat them into submission to our doorstep. We connect first and determine does our individual Community’s experience align with their individual journey, at that time, down the road, or never. 

Treating sales like a sprint instead of a marathon likely leaves you losing whatever damn race you’re running.

In 1966, an economist named William Baumol 
noticed something about string quartets. It took
four musicians forty minutes to play a Beethoven
piece in 1826. 

Still took four in 1966. 

The labor hadn’t gotten more efficient. 
It couldn’t. Labor was the product.

He called it cost disease. 

In most industries, technology makes workers
more productive. 

One farmer feeds thousands now. 
Wages rise because output rises. 

But some work resists mechanization. 

You cannot automate a classroom. 
You cannot batch-process a violin concerto.

And you cannot build a machine that turns a 
ninety-year-old woman every two hours with 
the kind of attention a real person delivers.

Nursing home care is Baumol’s disease in its purest form. 

It takes the same number of human hours to 
bathe, feed, and reposition a resident today 
as it did in 1980. 

But the wages that aide needs to survive have 
risen, because rent and groceries and the 
entire economy around her have gotten 
more productive and more expensive while 
her job stayed exactly the same.

The thing that gets me… scares me a little.

Most states set Medicaid rates using general 
inflation measures. But general inflation tracks 
an economy where productivity gains push 
prices down. 

Nursing homes exist in the part of the economy 
where that never happens. 

Even if you closed the gap today (set rates at 
full cost this afternoon) by next year they’d 
already be falling behind. 

The index they’re tied to measures an economy nursing homes don’t belong to.

That’s why this argument never ends. 

Advocates push for higher rates. 
Legislators occasionally deliver. 

The rates cover costs for a year, maybe two. Then the disease does what it always does. 

The cost of labor rises. 
The index doesn’t keep pace. 
The wound reopens.

We’ve been having this same fight for thirty 
years. We’ll have it again next year. 

And the year after. 

Because the fix is indexed to the wrong economy, and nobody wants to say that **** out loud.

The quartet still takes four musicians and forty minutes. 

The bath still takes one aide and fifteen minutes. 

The economy moves on. 
The work stays the same.

-eh 🐼

Wife & Mother of 7 | Venture Capital | Scientist | TOP 30 Patent Drafters | United States Patent Examiner | Violinist | Polyglot | STEM Children's Author | #1 LinkedIn Global Influencer in Innovation/IP Law

Kathryn Vatt is a scientist, former USPTO Examiner, and devoted wife and mother of seven, with over 25 years shaping the future of innovation. Recognized as one of the Top 30 Patent Drafters and Prosecutors and the #1 LinkedIn Global Influencer in Innovation/IP Law, Kathryn has built a career at the intersection of science, law, and business—helping inventors, startups, and global companies turn creativity into competitive advantage.

A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania (B.S. Biology) and Johns Hopkins University (M.S. Biotechnology), Kathryn is currently pursuing her Juris Doctor in Patent Law at the Franklin Pierce School of Law, one of the world’s leading IP programs. Her rare cross-disciplinary background gives her both the scientific insight and the legal strategy to protect ideas at the highest level.

At the USPTO, Kathryn examined thousands of patent applications, conducted exhaustive prior art searches, and made determinations that shaped industries and influenced global innovation. After leaving the Patent Office, she founded Vatt IP Management, where she develops bulletproof IP strategies, drafts airtight applications, and supports litigation teams in defending patents. She also mentors engineering and life science students through Arizona State University’s Edson Entrepreneurship + Innovation Institute and judges international startup competitions, nurturing the next generation of innovators.

Her entrepreneurial vision extends to her ventures:

My Startup Shield™, a founder-focused program that helps startups secure their innovations before they pitch. It protects ideas at the earliest, most vulnerable stage and positions founders to raise capital with confidence

My AI Examiner™, the world’s first proprietary patent search platform that combines examiner-trained AI Patent Examiners with Kathryn’s own human review. Unlike conventional tools, it doesn’t just search faster—it “thinks like an examiner,” offering inventors and startups clarity, precision, and strategy.

MyKidVentors™, a STEM-inspired children’s book series born from her seven children’s real “What if?” questions. Through these imaginative stories, she nurtures curiosity in the next generation, showing that every big invention begins with a single question.

For Kathryn, the same motherly instinct that guides her family fuels her professional mission: to protect, guide, and nurture startups with care, strategy, foresight, and integrity. She believes innovation doesn’t just start in labs or boardrooms—it starts in the curious minds of those brave enough to ask, “What if?”

Kathryn V.

OREOS FOR MOTHER’S DAY

At a small neighborhood shop, a man quietly changes lives.

He gives free food to kids who show him their grades...a reward not just for doing well in school, but for trying, for caring, for showing up.

In this video, one young boy steps up to the counter, offered the chance to choose anything he wants.

Today, he picks milk, bread, eggs...and cookies for Mother’s Day.
And the shop owner...touched by that choice...adds a bouquet of flowers for him to bring home.

Neither of them realizes that what just happened will be remembered for years.
Because kindness like that doesn’t end at the counter...it multiplies.

Every act of generosity plants a seed:
A child whose confidence blooms.
A parent who feels seen and loved.
A community reminded that humanity still shines bright.

So here’s to the everyday heroes: the ones who lift others quietly, who give without expecting anything in return.

You may never see the full impact of your kindness...but someone’s world is brighter because of you. 


------
If you enjoy my posts please follow me:
Kathryn V.
VATT IP Management
My AI Examiner™
My Startup Shield™
https://lnkd.in/gAERstmz
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Your Company ≠ Their Company

Startup culture is loud.

Announcements.
Rounds.
Launches.
Leaps.

And even the most confident founders feel it.
That quiet comparison.
“Should I be further by now?”
“Why does their growth look easier?”
“Am I missing something?”

But when you compare, you slowly lose sight of what’s yours to build.
And what’s yours was never meant to look like anyone else’s.

Different wiring.
Different gifts.
Different responsibilities.
Different seasons.

Some are drawn to bold, public momentum.
Others move with careful protection.
Some are compelled to disrupt.
Others feel called to preserve and strengthen.

None of it is accidental.
And none of it is a hierarchy.

But when you try to imitate someone else’s arc,
you drift from your own.

You trade alignment for applause.

At Founder Chapel, we care deeply about stewardship.

Stewarding your vision.
Stewarding your ownership.
Stewarding your influence.
Stewarding the people who trust you.

Because leadership isn’t about matching someone else’s leap.
It’s about faithfully tending what’s been placed in your hands.

That’s why we created Founder Chapel Learning Pods.
Small, steady circles where founders can step out of comparison and return to clarity...about their gifts, their values, and the kind of company they are called to build.

I’m deeply honored to be leading the pod focused on intellectual property and building your moat; helping founders protect what they’ve been entrusted with and think carefully about how they bring it into the market with integrity.

My incredible Founder Chapel family: David Y., Jay Jin, and Katrena Drake are leading pods of their own, each walking alongside founders through different pressures and seasons.

You don’t need someone else’s platform.
You need to steward your own.
And you don’t have to do that alone.

Come as you are.
We welcome you to apply here → https://lnkd.in/gM9xz6qk

FIRST TOGETHER


At Founder Chapel, we believe real leaders don’t climb alone.
They rise by lifting others.

In a world obsessed with rankings, valuations, and visibility, it’s easy to believe leadership means standing above everyone else. 

But the founders who build legacies understand something deeper:
Nothing meaningful is built alone.

Behind every breakthrough are unseen sacrifices, honest conversations, shared burdens, and people who stood steady when things felt uncertain.

True leadership isn’t about guarding the top spot.
It’s about making space on it.

Because titles fade.
Headlines move on.
Momentum comes and goes.

But character remains.
Stewardship remains.
The way you build...and who you build with...remains.

That’s why Founder Chapel exists.

Through our Learning Pods, founders gather not just to scale companies, but to sharpen judgment, strengthen conviction, and build with integrity alongside others who believe leadership is a responsibility, not a spotlight.

If you’re building something that matters and you want to build it with depth, wisdom, and community...we invite you to apply here → https://lnkd.in/gM9xz6qk

Founder Chapel: Build well. Lead faithfully. Rise together.
David Y. Jay Jin Katrena Drake

“You cannot have a symphony made entirely of soloists.” – David Y.

I’ve been thinking about that line ever since I read it in David's latest piece in Unicorn Parents (https://lnkd.in/gzUt3QHV ).

How easy it is, as parents, to confuse shaping with loving.

When you hold a newborn for the first time, you don’t see a résumé.
You don’t see a title.
You don’t see a future LinkedIn headline.

You see a soul.

And yet somewhere along the way, the noise creeps in.

Be confident.
Be exceptional.
Stand out.
Lead.
Win.

But what if the truest work of parenting isn’t pushing our children toward a spotlight…
but learning the light they already carry?

I have seven children.

Seven hearts.
Seven temperaments.
Seven entirely different ways of moving through the world.

One feels deeply and needs time before speaking.
One runs headfirst into new rooms.
One studies quietly before acting.
One wants clear direction.
Another wants room to explore.

If I tried to mold them into one “ideal” personality, I would crush something sacred in each of them.

Not every child is meant to be loud.
Not every child is meant to be first.
Not every child is meant to lead in the way our culture applauds.

Some are anchors.
Some are builders.
Some are bridges.
Some are protectors.
Some are steady flames that warm a room without ever demanding attention.

And all of it matters.

I think the real discipline of motherhood is restraint.

Resisting the urge to project our unfinished dreams.
Resisting comparison.
Resisting panic when they don’t fit the mold.

And instead, choosing to watch closely.
To listen carefully.
To guide gently.

Children unfold. They don’t perform.

Their identity is not something we engineer. It’s something we steward.

And when they feel safe enough to become who they truly are...not who we wish they were...something beautiful happens.

They grow in confidence that is quiet but rooted.
They make choices that feel aligned, not forced.
They step into responsibility when they’re ready...not when we’re anxious.

The world does not need copies.

It needs fully formed humans.

Our role isn’t to script their story.

It’s to love them so well that they have the courage to write their own. 💛

BUILD THE BOOTH ANYWAY

I saw the cutest video today.
A man is driving through his neighborhood and spots a golden retriever standing behind a little booth.

Handmade sign.
“Kisses: $100”

The man gets out of his car in disbelief.
“What? No one is going to pay $100 for a kiss.”

The camera pans.
There’s a long line of women waiting their turn.
Almost fighting each other to pay.

And I thought…
That’s entrepreneurship.
There will always be someone who rolls down the window and says:
“No one will buy that.”
“That’s too much.”
“Who do you think you are?”

And meanwhile…
There’s a line forming you can’t see yet.

Not because the golden retriever was the loudest.
Not because he begged.
Not because he discounted his kisses to $5 to prove a point.
But because he believed in the booth enough to build it.

Founders...
don’t listen to the person in the car.

Build the booth.
Put up the sign.
Set your price.
If it’s real, if it’s authentic, if it’s aligned...
your people will feel it.

And when you build something with heart?
It becomes contagious.
Investors don’t line up for desperation.
They line up for conviction.

Happy Valentine’s Day to the ones brave enough to put their idea out there.
Build it with love.
The right line will form. ❤️

THE FOUNDER CHAPEL SOLO CUP CHALLENGE

As I watched this video, I kept thinking about the founders I walk alongside every day.

Building a company can feel exactly like that hallway.

Contracts.
Hiring decisions.
Fundraising.
Intellectual property.
Go-to-market strategy.
Partnerships.
Ownership rights.

So many cups.
So little margin for error.

Some founders charge ahead.
Some try to leap everything at once.
Some quietly step out of the hallway altogether.

But sometimes the wisest move isn’t speed.
It’s slowing down long enough to understand the structure of the room.

At Founder Chapel, we don’t believe every founder should move the same way.

Different temperaments.
Different wiring.
Different seasons.

Some need bold momentum.
Some need careful navigation.
All need companionship.

That’s why we created Founder Chapel Learning Pods.
Small groups of founders walking through their own hallways...together.

I’m deeply honored to be leading the Learning Pod focused on intellectual property and building your moat: helping founders move carefully through decisions that affect ownership, protection, and ethical market entry.

My incredible Founder Chapel family...David Y., Jay Jin, and Katrena Drake... are leading pods of their own, each supporting founders in different ways.

No bulldozing required.
No leaping necessary.
No walking away alone.

Just steady steps.
Thoughtful guidance.
And a community that understands the weight of the hallway.

This year, you don’t have to navigate the cups alone.
Come as you are. Feel the presence. 💛             

We invite you to apply --> https://lnkd.in/gM9xz6qk

I’m excited to share that Arizona Tech Week (April 6–12) will be hosting my Patent Pending Party™ this year.

To celebrate, I’m opening my calendar every Saturday this month for short 15-minute pitch sessions. To make scheduling easy, the pitch sessions will be booked through Hubble.

Let’s make the application process a little more human...and a little more fun.

No forms.
No essays.
No long applications.

No paying an application fee only to receive the classic email weeks later:
“We had an incredible pool of qualified candidates…”
…and still not knowing why you didn’t get selected.

Instead, just a live pitch and a real conversation.

If you’re building something amazing...a new product, a new system, a new way of solving a real problem...you can grab a slot and pitch it directly to me.

You get 15 minutes.

You explain what you’re building.

I ask questions the way an investor with an IP strategist lens would.

From those sessions, I’ll select three founders to be invited to my Patent Pending Party during Arizona Tech Week. 

Don’t worry...you don’t have to live in Arizona to apply. If you’re selected, we will Zoom you in. 

At the party, we’ll run a live patent hackathon, and the three selected founders will leave the event officially patent-pending. On me.

And if you aren’t selected as one of the three, don’t worry.
You’ll either receive feedback on your pitch, or I may connect you with someone from my network of angels and VCs.

And you’re always welcome to come back and pitch again for the next party.

Ideas are everywhere.
Protected, scalable ideas build real companies.

If you want to pitch yours, you can book a Saturday slot here:

https://lnkd.in/g_jESdm3

Slots are limited.

See event details here: https://lnkd.in/g3dJgkzm

Open article: RSVP to A Patent-Pending Party #AZTechWeek | Partiful by partiful.com

RSVP to A Patent-Pending Party #AZTechWeek | Partiful

DOLPHINS IN THE DESERT 🐬🌵

Today is the day, Arizona!!

I am so excited to be serving as a panelist and workshop speaker for Dolphin Tank with Springboard Enterprises.

For more than two decades, Springboard has been accelerating women-led, high growth companies with an extraordinary track record:

850+ portfolio companies
$36.4B+ in value created
225+ exits
26 IPOs

And today, Dolphin Tank is happening at Grand Canyon University.

This is not your average pitch event.
It is a true launchpad. Women founders receive real time, thoughtful feedback from investors and operators who genuinely care about growth, strategy, and long term success.

I am honored to join an incredible panel and lead a special session during the Founder Workshop from 3-5 PM focused on protecting what you are building before you pitch, scale, or raise.

Joining me on the panel:
• Mitzi Krockover, MD, CEO, Founder, Investor at WomanCentered and Women’s Health Council Member at Springboard Enterprises
• Azin Radsan van Alebeek, Co founder and General Partner at Emmeline Ventures
• Rory Bidinger, Community Development Officer at Stearns Bank N.A.

If you are a founder, investor, operator, or supporter of women entrepreneurs, this is where you should be.

And Arizona…it is not too late.
🔗 Dolphin Tank RSVP: https://lnkd.in/eQDSywgq

🦾 Founder Workshop (3 to 5 PM): https://lnkd.in/ei4XZGSW

Come support the founders who are bravely stepping forward to pitch what they are building.

There is something powerful about watching vision meet opportunity in real time.

Proud to support this right here in Arizona. 🌵🐬

There is something defining about walking into a room and realizing you may be the only woman there and deciding that you belong anyway.

I have felt that in government spaces. In investor meetings. In high level technical discussions. In rooms where expertise is tested before it is trusted.

What I have learned is this. Leadership is not about blending in. It is about standing grounded in who you are, even when the room was not designed with you in mind.

My path began internationally, where at 21 I cofounded a company in Pakistan and learned firsthand that leadership is rarely about position and always about responsibility, requiring conviction, cultural awareness, and resilience. I later served as a United States Patent Examiner, and went on to found and lead my own firm, invest in innovation, mentor founders, and raise seven children. 

Each chapter has shaped how I understand leadership, not as authority, but as stewardship.

As Women’s History Month begins, I am honored to join a panel at The New York Public Library on March 4th for a conversation on growth and leadership alongside remarkable women whose journeys are equally layered and powerful.

We will be speaking candidly about what it truly takes to build influence, the pivots, the pressure, the persistence, and the quiet strength behind the scenes that rarely gets highlighted.

If you are building something, a company, a career, a life, while trying to remain fully yourself, this conversation is for you.

Grateful to James Corry for creating space for this meaningful dialogue and for bringing together such an inspiring group of women. I look forward to sitting alongside Christina Mitine, Laura Kavanagh, Olga Alcaraz, and Rechelle Balanzat for this important conversation.

👉🏼 Join us this Wednesday: https://lnkd.in/gtz_23Eu

Sr. GTM Leader at AWS | Head of GTM at Women in AI | Agentic AI Strategy & Digital Transformation | Industry Speaker

I know what it feels like to be the only woman in the room. If you’ve ever navigated climbing the leadership ladder while authentically showing up, this conversation is for you.

As Women’s History Month begins, I’m honored to be a panelist for “Five Powerful Women: Their Journeys of Growth and Leadership” on March 4th hosted by The New York Public Library.   

I’m joining four resilient women to share our career journeys and dive into the real grit required to build influence in both the corporate and government sectors.

Huge thank you to James Corry for hosting this important conversation! See you soon, Kathryn V., Laura Kavanagh, Olga Alcaraz, Rechelle Balanzat. 

👉🏼 Join us this Wednesday: https://lnkd.in/gtz_23Eu

#WHM2026 #WomensHistoryMonth #LeadingTheChange #IWD2026 #GiveToGain #WomenInTech #NYPL #Leadership

Open article: Five Powerful Women: Their Journeys of Growth and Leadership by nypl.org

Five Powerful Women: Their Journeys of Growth and Leadership

So, so good, Jason Butcher!

Founders - isn’t this true of any relationship? 

Trust isn’t built in moments of performance...it’s built in the quiet, consistent ones. 

In how you communicate when it’s uncomfortable. In whether your actions match your words. 

Investors, like all humans, are looking for patterns. 

Consistency builds trust. Trust builds confidence. And confidence is what ultimately moves capital.

Multi Exit Founder, seasoned advisor and strategic investor backing bold ideas in Payments, Fintech, AI, Sports Tech, Mental Health and creative Innovative projects while empowering founders to make a positive impact.

Long-term trust with investors isn’t built during a pitch.
It’s built, how you behave when nothing is being sold.

Investors pay close attention to patterns, how you communicate, how you handle uncertainty, and whether your words consistently match your actions.

They don’t expect certainty. They expect judgment.

Being realistic earns more trust than being optimistic. Saying what’s actually happening, especially when it’s uncomfortable, builds far more credibility than waiting to “fix it first.”

Small commitments matter more than big promises.
If you respect timelines, follow up when you say you will, and communicate clearly, investors assume you’ll respect their capital the same way.

Numbers alone don’t build confidence. Context does.
Explaining why things changed shows awareness. Avoiding the conversation signals risk.

What ultimately compounds trust is ownership. Founders who take responsibility, without defensiveness or excuses, earn long-term support, even through volatility.

The strongest investor relationships aren’t transactional.
They’re built on transparency, consistency, and alignment over time.

Capital follows confidence.
Confidence follows trust.

#InvestorRelations #TrustBuilding

Professionalism and humanity start with respect. Every message. Every time.

Monday rant.    Apologies in advance but I have to...

IYKYK, I'm here on LinkedIn alot.   

I follow lots of you, I read your posts, I comment on many.   

I love the power of this platform.   Because sometimes, serendipity happens.  Some of your LinkedIn DM's, Hubble calls or Boardy intros leads to me Investing or actively Advising many of you.   The power of connecting, sending that DM, a Hubble call, and having that conversation, it never ceases to amaze me.  

I connect with all of you who request.   I read all your DM's.   My inbox buried but I try to respond to all.  And the DM's I receive, most all are genuine and respectful.    Thank you.

BUT

Sometimes I get -  Terrible.   Not kind.  Not polite.  And some bordering on things I shouldn't have to deal with in 2026.   Seriously.  Can't even repeat here.  But It's so wrong and hurtful.  

And here's what I've learned after 4 decades in Silicon Valley as an Operator and Investor.  The ones who win long term are the ones who treat everyone with RESPECT before they need something.   
Not selectively.   
Not after. 
Never.  

For my entire life, being KIND has never put me back.  
It has never ever been a handicap.  
I think its one of my strengths.

So here's my ask...

Before you send that cold DM, before you hit  'connect'  ask yourself
Would I say this to someone's face at a dinner table?
Will my Mom or Dad be proud of me? 

If the answer is no, pls. DON'T SEND IT 

To the 90% of you who show up with kindness, curiosity, and good intent 
Thank you so much.   

To the other 10%.   PLEASE DO BETTER.  
Be kind.  Be respectful.  Be human.  It's not that hard.

Thank you.   Okay, Rant over.  
I promise to be my colorful smiley positive self soon.  

p.s. - Turns out I don't have 'gloomy moody not smiling pics' but this one styled by ChatGPT, I think did a good job of showing how I really feel right now...

Reposting this from Hubble because every founder needs this reminder. 👇

The desert is real.
The no’s are loud.
The pivots are humbling.

But:
• Anything is possible.
• You’re not trying to be right...you’re trying to get it right.
• Give before you receive.
• And don’t forget to celebrate the milestones.

Kevin's lessons aren’t just inspirational...they’re practical survival strategy.

To every founder building right now (especially in the quiet, unseen moments), you are not alone. Keep going. 🚀

And congratulations to the graduating founders of Spring 2026, Founder Institute Caribbean!! 🎓🚀

Starting a company is choosing one of the hardest, and most rewarding journeys of your life.

Recently, our cofounder Kevin Jurovich was a keynote speaker at the Founder Institute Caribbean Spring 2026 Graduation Ceremony.

Here are Kevin’s 4 personal lessons to carry any new founder through the hardest days as a founder:

1/ Never, ever let go of the feeling that anything is possible.

“In 2016, I left my job in banking, packed up all my stuff, got in my Ford Explorer Sport, and drove up to San Francisco to chase that dream.”

Once you enter the real world, it won’t be kind.

You'll pitch 10, 50, maybe 100 investors who say no.

Cofounders will decline, and customers will churn.

Those rejections will get to you if you don’t do something about it.

You have to find a source of inspiration to pull you out of the cycle.

For Kevin, it was listening to hours and hours of founder podcasts. 

You have to do the same for yourself.

2/ You’re not trying to be right. You’re trying to get it right.

"Every opportunity is an opportunity to run an experiment and learn.”

It’s inevitable you will face a time called “the desert.”

The period when you’re at a dead end, trying to find the path forward.

Kevin spent five years wandering his own desert.

When you arrive, don't panic.

The product you just pitched might look completely different in a year.

Your GTM will shift. 
Your story will evolve. 
You might pivot entirely.

Don’t resist this time.

This is where you get it right.

3/ Always give before you receive.

"Do the most with what you have, give to the world, and karma has a funny way of working it all out in the end.”

Before Hubble, Kevin started writing on LinkedIn about his journey.

His goal was simple: to help other founders.

One day, he wrote a viral post about Uber's first investor, and caught the attention of Mike Walsh.

After a friendly back-and-forth for months, Mike slid into Kevin's DMs:

"Hey pal, I want in."

He led Hubble's pre-seed round.

Being a founder is not about what you can extract from people.

It's about what value you can create for them first.

The returns come when you stop chasing them.

4/ Don’t forget to celebrate the milestones.

"You are exactly where you need to be. You have exactly the abilities and attributes you need.”

As a founder, you’ve one of the hardest paths a human can walk.

The stakes just keep rising.

Don’t skip the milestones.

Everyone’s on their own timeline.

You are exactly where you need to be.

To every founder reading this:

You're not alone.

The journey will be difficult, but you have everything you need already inside you.

P.S. Congratulations to the graduating founders of Spring 2026:

Andrew Phillips, Brian Branch, Dr. Sophia Morgan, Gerard Llanos, Jasmine Greene, Javanna Haughton, Jonathan Joel Mentor, Laureano Leguizamon, Michael Staniewicz, Mileyska Rodriguez, Navin Seeterram, Rodney Browne, Ryan R. Roper, Samantha Carter, Ph.D., Silvia Guzmán, Darren T., and Angela W.

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