Meet Lumify: The world’s first super app for healthcare workers
Our team spent the past six months reflecting on what problems Lumify is positioned to solve now more than ever. In this blog, we hope to share insights on our process of building Lumify 2.0, including our super app and new product line. We’re so excited to share this journey with you!
Anthony:?Hi everyone! Today, Team Lumify is thrilled to announce the launch of our Lumify App, the world’s first super app for healthcare workers, in addition to our Lumify Essentials collection. Along with these launch announcements, we’ll be sharing our rebrand of Lumify, a refined mission statement, and an expanded goal for how we plan to impact the healthcare workforce. Jennifferre and I are excited to share the story of how we got here, why we decided to build a super app, and what’s next for Lumify.
Background
Anthony:?In 2021, I was working clinically at the?Emergency Department?of the?Hospital?of the?University of Pennsylvania?. Looking around at both my fellow students and healthcare workers, I saw folks struggling and burnt out, yet underutilizing resources that could support us. The chaotic nature of where to access gear, educational tools, wellness resources, communities, and more left us all feeling overwhelmed, while the underwhelming availability of these resources felt discouraging.
Jennifferre:?Being a Registered Nurse for the last 10 years, I can definitely echo similar frustrations. Beyond accessing gear, every time we need to renew our certifications, find per diem shifts, chat with someone in our specialty, or access mental health resources, we must navigate through dozens of different websites and platforms. The pandemic has only exacerbated this challenge — our profession is exhausted and stretched thin. We simply do not have time to find and manage the resources that can support us.
We set out to build a company that was committed to improving the lives of healthcare workers by creating tools and resources that truly supported us. We started with a light, but we knew that was just the beginning.
Light to Hub
Anthony:?Our Lumify journey began by solving a problem we discovered along with fellow healthcare workers: Caring for patients when they’re resting meant either waking them up with an overhead light, or completing assessments in the dark. This led to the launch of Lumify’s flagship product, the uNight Light: a patent-pending wearable light designed for clinical settings that allows healthcare workers to illuminate their work space while decreasing patient disturbances, keeping staff safe and patients asleep.
Jennifferre:?The uNight Light’s immediate and widespread adoption showcased just how many healthcare professionals are actively seeking out tools and resources; however, the process to find out about new or existing brands and resources has been archaic and overwhelming.
Anthony:?A?recent report?found that Registered Nurses may spend up to $14,000 per year in out-of-pocket expenses to practice in the United States. Considering there are 4 million nurses in the U.S. alone, that’s over $50 billion dollars. This large market may come as surprising to some, but brands like FIGS, a direct-to-consumer scrubs brand which IPO’d in 2021, have proven the magnitude for healthcare workers’ spending habits.
Jennifferre:?It’s true! Healthcare workers are responsible for purchasing our own gear like scrubs, shoes, stethoscopes, uNight Lights, etc. however, we also need to access things that are a bit more complex, like continuing education, student loans, job boards, employer reviews, certifications, professional organizations, wellness apps, career coaches, research, and more. Despite this large need for gear and resources, healthcare workers continue to navigate a siloed professional ecosystem to access what they need.
500 user interviews later…
Anthony:?After we reflected on our own experiences and interviewed over 500 healthcare workers throughout the summer, the problem and solution became very clear. 85% of healthcare workers felt overwhelmed navigating their professional ecosystem. Lumify needed to build a central digital home for healthcare workers to access everything they need to excel at the bedside and beyond.
Jennifferre:?Staying lean, we pulled together a scrappy MVP which we launched this past summer to test our hypothesis that if we unified all of the brands, resources, and communities that were built to support healthcare workers onto a single platform, while also offering rewards and a supportive community, that users would come.
Anthony:?After only a few weeks of launching our MVP, thousands of healthcare pros had signed up to access the brands and communities on Lumify’s platform. 90% of our traffic for the Lumify Hub came from mobile phones, so we knew the value of building a mobile app to better support our user base.
Building the Lumify App
Jennifferre:?Bringing a physical product to market and then expanding Lumify to include an app was definitely surprising to some. We had people along the way who questioned our ability to scale Lumify, because after all we are “just nurses”. Despite the adversity, we stayed gritty, kept a growth mindset, leaned in, utilized our resources, and did what nurses do best: made it happen!
Anthony:?Expanding our vision meant expanding #TeamLumify, so we brought on Adrian, a software engineer, and Chip, a product designer, to the team. Adrian and Chip bring a wealth of talent and experience to Lumify — we’re truly fortunate to have them in #TeamLumify. In just two and a half months, after many zoom calls and Figma brainstorm sessions, we successfully created the first version of the Lumify App, which we launched to 250 beta users in December.
Jennifferre:?Once our beta users had a chance to use the app, we completed over 100 user interviews with healthcare workers to gather feedback! During these calls, we learned more about what was important to our users and began to focus on building Lumify’s community features and centralized marketplace.
Anthony: So without further adieu, we are excited to share that the Lumify App is officially launched! With Lumify, healthcare workers can buy their gear, find new jobs, trade advice with their peers, access continuing education, and so much more. We have partnered with 100+ incredible brands, organizations, and resources with a simple goal in mind: to be the most transparent and inclusive digital home for all healthcare workers and students.
The Lumify Essentials Collection
Jennifferre:?Beyond the launch of our Lumify App, we’re excited to grow our product line with the launch of some new and cozy products in the Lumify Essentials Collection! Lumify’s marketplace will now include t-shirts, underscrubs, mini whiteboard reels, and scrub hats. And we're not stopping there: we have 4 new products that will be launching in the next 2 months, so stay tuned!
The Lumify Rebrand
Anthony:?Along with our 1 year anniversary and new year launches, we’ve updated our branding to better reflect Lumify 2.0 and how far we’ve grown beyond our flagship hardware product. Our new mission statement:
“At Lumify, we’re on a mission to ensure that all healthcare workers and students have access to the gear and resources we need to excel at the bedside and beyond.”
We love this mission statement for many reasons, but personally, the two that stand out to me are its inclusiveness and emphasis on bedside and beyond.
Jennifferre:?Those are two of my biggest reasons also! At Lumify, we’re building the most inclusive community of healthcare pros and students centered around the ideology that united we’re stronger than siloed, hence our hashtag #UnifyHealthcare. As nurses ourselves, we know how important it is to feel supported beyond the bedside.
Additionally, our new branding elements showcase a bold, impactful, genuine, and welcoming brand — all characteristics that make up Lumify’s identity. Major kudos to our designers, Chip & Gio, for their incredible work.
Looking ahead to 2022
Anthony:?Our team is beyond excited for the year ahead! We truly are just getting started. Many more app features, launches, and surprises to come… Thank you for being a part of this journey with us.
Jennifferre:?Yes, thank you to our phenomenal team, incredible #LumifyFam, and amazing supporters. Lumify has grown from a wearable light product to the umbrella of the healthcare workforce — supporting a market that has been underserved for far too long. As nurses ourselves, we know what healthcare workers need better than anyone, and that’s what makes Lumify so special.
For more information, please visit?www.lumifycare.com?or reach out at [email protected]!