As a kid growing up in the tiny town of Gooding, Idaho, Curtis Anderson never imagined one day he would travel the world filming leaders of his church and later build a highly successful business. 

It would be tempting to say he’s lived a charmed life. But that wouldn’t take into account the years of hard work and “epic failures” that brought him to where he is today.

As early as high school, he laid the groundwork for his future success while being paid to build webpages in the school’s IT department during school hours. Fast forward to BYU-Idaho where he wrote, directed and filmed a five-minute video for the communications department about Newell K. Whitney, a historic figure in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

He was shocked to get a call from the head of the department. “She told me I had an interview lined up at LDS church headquarters, had arranged with my professors for me to take my finals digitally, told me to pack my bags and not come back,” Anderson said. “I hung up and started packing without even asking what the job was.”

The unforeseen job was as a media associate for the church’s welfare department. Three months later, he was asked to travel the world with the church’s 12 apostles filming their acts of service for distribution to news outlets. He also produced 200 original films all while finishing a business degree at Utah State University. 

In 2013, four years after taking the position, he decided it was time to leave. “I was on the road 14 to 23 days every month,” he said. “I thought if I wanted to get married, I needed to be in one place more.”

That also meant turning down a job offer to work for Madonna’s ex-husband, director producer Guy Ritchie. Both of Anderson’s job decisions felt validated when he met his current wife Stacie just two weeks later. He returned to working in software with the goal of creating his own business. 

“My first two attempts at creating a business were failures of the most epic variety,” Anderson said. “But those four or five years of trying are precious to me. I learned what software solutions people would pay for. I learned the work I was producing didn’t measure up, but I look back at that time like it was the biological equivalent of puberty. No one wants to relive it, but you had to go through it. And in terms of my business endeavors, repetition trumps perfection every time.”

His luck changed after meeting with the owner of a staffing agency for nurses. “He had a whiteboard and colored sticky notes that he moved around to signify when he connected a nurse with a hospital,” said Anderson. “I thought, if I’m half what my mom thinks I am, I could create software that works better than sticky notes.”

Long story short, he took out a loan that required a lien on his family’s home, bought the company he called Nursa, and created software to support it. Growth was rapid and Nursa was profitable on paper but cash poor. Nurses were paid immediately, but Anderson couldn’t collect from hospitals for 180 days. At one point he accrued $110,000 in credit card debt. He needed at least $200,000 in a holding tank.

“I started knocking on doors begging for an angel investor,” said Anderson. “I eventually found seven angels who allowed me to pay off my credit card debt and righted the ship.” 

Nursa took off around the end of 2019 and Anderson began to realize his goal of putting a nurse at the bedside of every patient in need. “Having the company up and running at the start of COVID made all the difference since the need for nurses was so crucial,” said the Bountiful father of three.

Growth continues to accelerate. Nursa currently has 216 employees nationwide and an office on 5300 South in Salt Lake. More than 350,000 nurses and over 25,000 medical facilities use Nursa’s app. “Our first year we did 20,000 hours of work,” said Anderson. “And in 2024, we completed north of two million hours of work.” 

His success is a testament to his hard work, resilience and the lessons he learned along the way.