Over the past couple of years, we’ve heard from a lot of healthcare professionals that Knack Packs are among the best backpack for nurses. Since nurses and medical workers have undoubtedly served as society’s MVP’s throughout the pandemic, we’re thrilled to be launching our partnership with LumifyHub, an online platform full of incredibly helpful tools and resources for healthcare professionals.
And guess what? Lumify just launched as an app. It’s your go-to resource for finding the best gifts for nurses. And yes, you can find Knack Packs on there :)
LumifyHub has a pretty awesome backstory. And this week, we had the honor of speaking with its founders Jennifferre and Anthony; a NICU nurse and a nursing student, respectively. These healthcare pros started their entrepreneurial journey when they designed the uNight Light - a wearable light made specifically for healthcare professionals working in the clinical environment.
Check out our conversation with Jennifferre and Anthony to better understand how their healthcare careers led them into entrepreneurship, and what they’ve learned along the way.
Tell me a little bit about yourselves and your background in nursing:
Jennifferre - I’ve been a registered nurse for the past 10 years and have worked with both adults in acute care and infants in the Neonatal ICU. Creating solutions for the pain points experienced by healthcare pros has been the best journey!
Anthony - I’m actually a new grad nurse. I graduated from the University of Pennsylvania this past May. My previous background was in theater and I was on Broadway when I was younger! I have always been drawn to healthtech so building Lumify and supporting our fellow healthcare pros has been an incredible experience.
What made you notice the need for the uNight Light? Was there a specific experience?
We are both nurses who have experienced caring for patients in the dark or in low light environments. It is nearly impossible to complete a task with one hand, while your other hand tries to hold a flashlight; all the while trying to keep your patient asleep. We knew that there had to be a better way!
So we worked to design the uNight Light, a wearable LED made specifically for healthcare professionals working in the clinical environment. The uNight Light has definitely been a great springboard for Lumify and has allowed us to see how desperately healthcare pros need better access to the tools and resources that make it possible for them to excel at the bedside and beyond.
No doubt that the pandemic has been a challenging time for healthcare workers. How did Covid impact your decision to start Lumify?
We launched Lumify January of 2020, right when Covid began to surge across the globe. We saw so many of our fellow healthcare workers struggling to gain access to the resources they needed and saw this unprecedented time as an opportunity to support the healthcare workforce.
The launch of our Lumify App was the answer to a larger systemic problem; poor access to the tools and resources that healthcare pros need. The Lumify app has partnered with 100+ brands, communities, and organizations; unifying the professional ecosystem for healthcare workers and making it easier than ever to access all the gear and resources they need to thrive, in one app.
How has a background in nursing helped you with your journey into entrepreneurship?
Being nurses ourselves has definitely been a benefit to us in our build of Lumify. It has allowed us to be more empathetic, connect with our users in a way that would not have been possible otherwise, and has allowed us to build relationships with people and brands that have been vital to Lumify’s growth. Additionally, it has been really motivating to be building solutions for our fellow healthcare pros, who remain our daily inspiration.
Are there any must-have items that you’ve discovered through starting Lumify?
Definitely a uNight Light! Other things that come to mind are great supportive shoes, a great water bottle, compression socks, a good planner, a fun badge reel, a cute functional scrub hat… and they all fit nicely in our Knack bags!
We love our Knack bags - they're amazing nurse work bags! We were both in awe of how many pockets there were! You all were so intentional about how these bags function. There is space for an extra set of clean scrubs, a place to put our dirty ones, loops for our pens, a pocket for our water bottle, a spot for our laptop! Honestly, amazing and so great for travel as well. Having one bag that does it all, is perfect!
Read why Knack Packs are the best backpack for nurses here.
What’s one major lesson that a year of Lumify has taught you?
I think this is a two-part answer! During this past year we were very surprised at how underserved healthcare workers are. The resources and tools they need for their profession either don’t exist or are so siloed and disjointed that accessing them is a chore. Despite their lack of resources, their working environments, their pay, their exhaustion, they continue to be so resilient. The past few years of Covid have shown this to be true; however, after a year of speaking with so many users, we were reminded how amazing our profession is!
All of us at Knack can’t thank Jennifferre, Anthony and all the rest of the healthcare community for what they do for us every day and, particularly, what they have done for us since March 2020.
