Building the operating systems behind Responder1st
A healthcare staffing company grew from $1.5M in year one to $11M in year two, served more than 20 hospital systems, and placed 200+ contract clinicians across the year with a five-person operations team.
Context
Healthcare staffing runs on coordination between hospitals, contract clinicians, and the financial partners behind the payroll. When Responder1st started, that coordination was manual. Payroll was a manual process that could not scale. Communication between hospitals, employees, and our factoring agency depended on effort rather than a system.
The compliance exposure was just as serious. A staffing company placing clinicians into hospital systems carries HIPAA obligations, State of Florida requirements, and, for the contracts we wanted, Joint Commission accreditation standards.
My role
I co-founded the company and owned its operating systems.
My responsibility was the machinery underneath the staffing business: the technology, the payroll system, the credentialing workflow, the compliance program, and the processes that let a small team run a growing operation.
One rule shaped all of it. We did not grab the first system off the shelf. We designed the process first, then chose the technology to support it. Process first, then tech stack. Never the other way around.
What changed
Payroll moved from a manual process to a fully digital system on ADP Workforce Now with custom workflows, supporting custom payroll per contract employee and per hospital on the accounting side. The system scaled to weekly payroll cycles that peaked near 150 contract employees, and more than 200 placements across the year, without scaling the team that ran it. Receivables aging fell from 150 days to about 60, which lifted the margin 15 points to 26%, and operating leverage carried overall profits up 30% as the same team absorbed more volume.
A fully digital flow built on JobRobotix scraping and Labor Edge NexusATS pulled in job postings, calculated rates with our margin built in, and matched them against the qualifications of the clinicians who had applied. The credentialing team stopped hunting and started contacting the right person about the right posting. Non-fulfillment across placements held at 0.6%, tracked in NexusATS.
The team and I built the systems and SOPs for full compliance with HIPAA and State of Florida requirements, and earned full Joint Commission accreditation in May 2023. The whole of the first quarter that year went to preparing for a three-day on-site evaluation, and the survey came back clean. Compliance was designed into the operating system rather than audited onto it.
Jared designed and implemented operational systems that not only enabled rapid expansion but also ensured we maintained full compliance, including earning Joint Commission certification.
Revenue from year one to year two, $12.5M cumulative.
Hospital systems served, with hundreds of staff placed.
Contract clinicians placed across the year, with weekly payroll peaking near 150, run by five full-time staff.
Joint Commission accreditation earned after a full quarter preparing for a three-day on-site evaluation.
Receivables aging, which lifted the margin 15 points to 26% and carried profits up 30%.
I designed and ran the operating systems. The team delivered the staffing, credentialing, and compliance work. The company achieved the revenue and the accreditation.
What it changed in my thinking
Install the operating system on day one, not after the pain.
At ProChamps, we adopted a formal operating system mid-flight, after growth had already exposed the gaps. At Responder1st, that discipline was the founding structure: clear roles, useful numbers, documented processes, and an execution rhythm from the beginning. The company never had to unlearn improvisation because it never depended on it.
The second lesson was the process rule. Start with the process, then find the technology to support it. Every system that scaled at Responder1st was designed on paper before it was configured in software.
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