Nikhil Krishnan founded Out-Of-Pocket in February 2020. In 2022, Danielle Poreh teamed up with him to start new Out-Of-Pocket products, including events, podcasts, and more. The goal of Out-Of-Pocket is to make healthcare accessible, entertaining, and understandable for anyone that wants to learn how it works.

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Over the years, they’ve built a newsletter, podcast, crash courses, educational novelty products and more to help cut through the noise and explain plainly the business of healthcare and where the industry is heading. They also happen to be a part of as well as organize several networking and informative events and conferences targeting healthcare operators.

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While the business was growing, Nikhil and Danielle found themselves struggling with very different kinds of growing pains:

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- Nikhil wanted more hands and eyes on website management, invoicing, and streamlining a bunch of their processes like payment tracking, back end course infrastructure, etc.

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- Danielle was looking for help behind the scenes with more strategic decision making and project management tasks connected to the company’s event planning.

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Muzni Mubarak, Executive Assistant at Oceans, found that Nikhil and Danielle’s pain points and styles of working were entirely different. Which meant he’d have to take very different approaches to problem solving for the both of them.

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Here’s how it panned out…

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THE EA+ SOLUTION

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1. How an Oceans EA+ works seamlessly with different management & working styles

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While Out-Of-Pocket was looking for extra help, the company’s founder and Danielle had different ideas of what to do with this help once it came onboard:

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A. Nikhil wanted help with daily operations and technical tasks.He’d convey his pain points in the business to Muzni, along with what he thought the ideal outcome would be. Nikhil preferred delegating open-ended tasks to Muzni, expecting to hear progress updates and suggestions from him.

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“If I find a flow or feel like a certain part of our processes could be automated, I reach out to Nikhil and suggest that we could use Zapier or an API to automate the said task and he’d be open to such suggestions and ask me to go for it!” - Muzni

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Nikhil and Muzni have a weekly sync meeting where they both share suggestions and updates on where things are, what improvements are/should be on the horizon. 

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Muzni employs a more results-based approach to cater to Nikhil’s style of work. Less task trackers and inbox management, more thought partners identifying areas for improvement and taking action!

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Before: Payments were manually tracked for each course by exporting data. This was both prone to error and time-consuming.

After: The process has now been automated using Zapier. Now, whenever someone purchases a course, the payment details are automatically updated in the specific course tab, eliminating the need for manual exports or sorting. Time-saving and ensuring real-time accuracy to track payments for each course.

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B. Danielle was looking for someone that could handle vendor coordinations, and logistics that went into planning events & conferences, as well as sponsorships.

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“We maintain a task tracker for each of our events, detailing tasks that need to be completed 6 months prior, 4 months prior, 3 months prior, and so on. I manage various aspects, from researching potential venues to booking catering vendors, preparing follow-up documents, and sending out sponsorship guides. I also coordinate with vendors for more technical requirements related to these events.

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For instance, we’re currently working on an SMS campaign for an upcoming event, where I researched the best software tools, handled the payments, and set up the backend. Additionally, I was involved in setting up the technical infrastructure for the Hackers in our first-ever Hackathon”
- Muzni

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Muzni employs a more structured, detailed approach to complement Danielle’s more hands-on project management style. They have a weekly sync call to catch up and plan ahead.

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2. How an Oceans EA+ improves efficiency

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Muzni proactively suggests process improvements and automation ideas to Nikhil & Danielle.

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A. Course infrastructure: Out-Of-Pocket’s courses play a large role in driving their community. Podia was the platform used to host these courses. However, Muzni saw that this platform wasn’t being used to its highest potential.

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“Previously, we generated a Stripe payment link for each product, but this setup had limitations when it came to automations. Stripe’s API doesn't support a wide range of automations, which made the process cumbersome. I saw an opportunity to leverage Podia’s full potential by utilizing its built-in payment system, which allowed us to add a seamless payment wall for products.

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Podia is much more automation-friendly and integrates easily with ConvertKit, making it simple to set up email automations. I took this as an opportunity to not only automate course emails but also streamline the payment process using Podia’s payment gateway. On top of that, we're currently experimenting with affiliate marketing and exploring several other features that Podia offers”
- Muzni

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Muzni also discovered that Podia’s API integration with Zapier could benefit Out-Of-Pocket with automating more processes relating to their course enrollments.

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“So if someone buys a course on Podia, we send out an enrollment email. But the problem is if 20 people sign up, that means we have to manually send those 20 emails. I’ve now utilized ConvertKit, connected to Podia via Zapier, to automate those emails. So as soon as a customer signs up, the email is sent out without any manual involvement!” - Muzni

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B. Real-time payment dashboard: With the help of Looker Studio, Muzni is currently in the process of creating a real-time payments dashboard. This would help Nikhil save a bunch of time by forgoing the manual process of exporting and filtering course payment transactions.

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“For example, once an instructor is done with a course, he would be able to see what the total income of that course was. Nikhil would no longer need to manually export the payments, filter through the dates, etc. On one page he’d be able to see who has paid, what amount, what the net profit of that course was, who has asked for refunds, etc!”
- Muzni

C. Designing in-house + agency liaison: Saving Danielle and Nikhil the effort and money that goes into working with third party designers, Muzni utilizes Canva to help them with material for enterprise sales as well as sponsorship packets.

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As the sole point of contact for web development, Muzni is responsible for all tasks related to the website, including development, design, addressing bugs, and even managing Google Analytics. He uses project management tool ClickUp to delegate and keep track of tasks with their agency.

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‍“The process here is I initiate the discussion with the agency, where I’d tell them what I want for the site. I then assign the task to the agency and keep track of progress on ClickUp. Once they come back, I’d get Nikhil’s feedback, relay it back to the agency and when we’ve got his greenlight, the project goes into production.”
- Muzni

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THE IMPACT

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In February 2024, Out-Of-Pocket decided they were ready to take a chance on offshore talent with Oceans. With Muzni Mubarak, both Nikhil and Danielle found someone who could play to their strengths and take on the varying tasks they assigned to him. 

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Within the first 8 months of his integration, Muzni:

• became a liaison between third party vendors/agencies and Nikhil & Danielle
• identified bottlenecks and areas for improvement 
• researched the best tools to implement 
• executed numerous automations to optimize and streamline business-critical processes
• adapted to simultaneously working with Nikhil’s and Danielle’s contrasting management styles and expectations 

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“We see Muzni’s role expanding further beyond an EA+ to taking on the role of a Community Manager in the near future, where he’ll essentially be directly dealing with Out-Of-Pocket’s entire community, addressing their concerns, keeping them active.”
- Nikhil Krishnan, Founder 

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