Episode 5: Sejal Shah | Chief Executive Officer of TotalMed

Building a company is never just about the idea. It is about risk, timing, people, persistence, and the ability to keep going when there is no guarantee the business will work.

In this episode of The Disruptors, Sejal Shah shares the story behind TotalMed, the healthcare staffing company he co-founded in 2005, and reflects on what it took to grow the business, scale through uncertainty, build a trusted team, and eventually reach a major exit.

Shah’s entrepreneurial story did not begin with a polished business plan or a perfectly modeled market opportunity. It began with ambition, friendship, and the belief that he and his co-founder could outwork the competition.

After college, Sageel was working in Wisconsin, managing database marketing and e-commerce at Miles Kimball. During that time, he stayed close with friends from Ripon College, including Jason Beck. The two would often talk about starting something of their own. They knew they had the drive, but they needed the right opportunity.

That opportunity became TotalMed.

TotalMed started as a healthcare staffing company and later evolved into a broader workforce solutions business within the healthcare space. The original idea was simple: healthcare would always need people, and the industry had long-term demand driven by patient care, staffing shortages, and demographic trends.

But the early years were anything but easy.

Sageel explains how the company was built without outside funding. He personally took on major financial risk, relying on credit cards, borrowed money, and mortgaged homes to keep the business moving. At the same time, he chose not to let the team carry that anxiety. His focus was on keeping everyone aligned around the work, the customers, and the opportunity ahead.

The episode explores how TotalMed began to grow through relentless sales, recruiting, customer service, and hiring. Sageel and Jason learned that scaling a people-driven business required a different mindset. Instead of hiring one person and waiting to see if they worked out, they hired multiple people knowing that only some would make it. That approach allowed the company to move faster, build capacity, and keep momentum.

A major theme of the conversation is leadership through people.

Sageel is clear that TotalMed’s growth was not just about him. It was about finding driven people, putting them in the right roles, trusting them, and letting them own their responsibilities. Over time, the company’s leaders treated the business as if it were their own. That ownership mindset became one of the reasons TotalMed could scale.

The episode also covers a pivotal moment in the company’s evolution: the decision to invest in technology. In 2017, TotalMed acquired a tech-focused company led by Steve Swan, who had built automation tools for healthcare staffing workflows. That investment gave TotalMed a major advantage when the pandemic created explosive demand in healthcare staffing.

When COVID hit, TotalMed had the people, processes, and technology to respond quickly. Sageel describes the period as intense, fast-moving, and impossible to fully prepare for, but also as a moment when the company’s earlier decisions paid off. The business scaled rapidly because the foundation had already been built.

The conversation then turns more personal.

Sageel reflects on the emotional side of selling a company after nearly two decades of building it. The exit was not only a financial milestone. It changed lives across the team, including key leaders who had been part of the company for years and shared in the success.

For Sageel, the next chapter is not about walking away from entrepreneurship. It is about supporting the right people, helping other founders, giving his family the freedom to choose their own paths, and continuing to build when the right opportunity appears.

His story is a reminder that successful exits are rarely overnight events. They are built through years of risk, pressure, loyalty, discipline, and the ability to keep reinvesting in people before the outcome is obvious.

This episode is about the real work behind an entrepreneurial success story.

From the outside, a major exit can look like a clean milestone: a company is founded, it grows, it sells, and everyone celebrates. But Sejal Shah’s story shows what happens underneath that headline. The early debt, the uncertainty, the hiring mistakes, the pressure to make payroll, the long years of reinvesting, and the emotional challenge of letting other people lead.

It is also a strong episode for anyone interested in healthcare staffing, workforce solutions, entrepreneurship, bootstrapping, leadership, and scaling a people-driven company.

Sageel’s story highlights a lesson that applies beyond TotalMed: businesses are built by people who care enough to act like owners. Technology, timing, and market demand all matter, but they only become powerful when the team is ready to use them.

The episode also shows why exits are not only financial events. For founders, selling a company can mean letting go of an identity. For employees and leaders, it can mean life-changing opportunity. For families, it can open a new conversation about legacy, freedom, and what comes next.

Watch the full episode to hear how Sejal Shah built TotalMed from the ground up, scaled through uncertainty, and created a company whose success was shared by the people who helped build it.