My business partner and I started Kaylim Career Institute in 2004 to satisfy a pressing need: Nurses were in high demand in Georgia, but many of the RN programs at local schools had waiting lists two to three years long.
Distance learning programs were taking off. That's what Kaylim did. Students were able to learn at their own pace. Books were sent to their home, and they were able to take tutoring sessions and their exams at our onsite education facility in Atlanta.
We were doing $1 million in business each year, and we had just invested $40,000 into a second location. But just four days after we opened in 2008, Georgia state laws changed, forbidding anyone who didn't earn their degree at a state school from becoming a licensed RN.
Our receivables went down 80%, and we had to shut down our facilities. We had to rethink our business model. We founded The RN Bridge Program, the first and only all video-based tutoring system to help nontraditional students earn their RN degree from home.
Our customers were people from states which did not have laws preventing them from earning their RN degree from videos.
Everything we went through was completely devastating. But it forced us to adapt, and we created a nationwide business far greater than we could have imagined.
Some small business owners say they're hiring but they can't find employees, despite millions being unemployed.
