Miriam Allred (00:00)
Hey everyone, welcome back to the Home Care Strategy Lab. I'm your host, Miriam Allred. It's great to be back in the lab with you all. Hope everyone's having a great week. Today in the lab, I am joined by Keyur Shah the owner of Senior Helpers of Coastal Orange County. Keyur welcome to the show.

Keyur Shah (00:15)
Thank you, Miriam. Glad to be here.

Miriam Allred (00:17)
This is a really special episode for both of us, and I want to share why, and then we're gonna get into all of the juicy details. but you and I met two years ago, almost to the day, like literally next week to the day. We met two years ago. We were in Florida at Becky Real's first event. She, you know, she put on actually like a couple of retreats before her dinner series. Anyway, we met there in person. Story before that was you were listening to the podcast, you heard Becky's episode, she invited you out.

We met there. I just remember you coming up to me and like hot and fast asking me questions. I felt like you were interviewing me of like, you know, you hadn't even launched your home care company yet, but here you were attending this event, networking, asking me a million questions. And I was like, Who is this guy? But also he's gonna be really successful because he's so passionate and interested and excited. And that was four or five months before you even opened your business and we became fast friends.

You asked me for a lot of advice. I remember you telling me that you had a vision board and you put the podcast on the vision board and I probably like maybe even rolled my eyes of like, Yeah, maybe we'll see someday. But today's the day and I am elated to to have this conversation with you.

Keyur Shah (01:30)
I'm honored as well. I remember that day so clearly when we met. But even before that, discovering your podcast and through that, that's in my quest for education and knowledge and learning as much as I could because I came into this brand new finding Becky, who became again a friend, a confidant, an advisor, someone that I've reached out to multiple times. And she invited me graciously to that event. And y you're telling me that I was prepping you with questions. I was just starstruck.

By being there, talking to you and some of the others that I had only seen online and listened to on podcasts, and I was there in person. So the learning opportunity was phenomenal and also the opportunity to build meaningful relationships.

Miriam Allred (02:11)
Yeah, that's what stood out to me for sure was just like your hunger and your zest. And it was obvious that you had been listening to the podcast because you were asking all of the right questions. And I was like, whoa, you haven't even opened your doors yet, but here you are asking all of the right questions. one of the pieces of advice that I gave you is to document the journey. I was like, write down as much as you can, document as much as you can. I was like, you're gonna be so busy and so tired and so overwhelmed, but like write down as much of this as you can. And so leading up to this conversation, I actually tasked you with.

Kind of like a timeline. You're just over 18 months, 20 months in. And I I kind of gave you this like framework for a timeline to put together all of the key milestones. And you and I have been going back and forth on it for a couple of days. And I'm so excited for you to be able to share this because I told you also recently, I've had more newer owners reach out to me and say, like, hey, can you interview like some newer owners? I interview a lot of like tenured people, but you instantly came to mind of like, let's go through the milestones of your first 20 months.

And This is gonna be one of those episodes any prospective owners and new owners are gonna have to listen to this to a lot of times to grasp it all, but we're gonna go through this really rich timeline. So I am just like really excited to to dial through it. That being said, instead of just like a traditional introduction, I just wanna say you were in corporate for 20 years before this with no ownership experience.

No healthcare experience. Why home care and why a franchise? Let's start there.

Keyur Shah (03:40)
Great

question. yeah, 20 years in corporate. I've spanned a career across a couple of different industries. my functional role in that time at corporate was mostly marketing and brand management, and kind of being the hub of the wheel, working with a bunch of different groups within large corporate, so mostly Fortune fifty companies across entertainment, across technology, and apparel. So I worked at the Walt Disney company for over 10 years. I worked at a company called Life Nation.

For a handful of years and so on. You know, really I was fortunate to be working at some of these beloved brands. and from a marketing professional, it was an amazing place to learn. and I was doing great. And I thought that that was gonna be my future. I was gonna be this corporate warrior, keep moving up the ranks, keep building, learning, managing, and leading. but then life life takes a turn that we cannot predict. my parents got sick.

You know, and the age group that we all are, we have aging parents, in the sense that they're going to need a little bit of care. maybe some will need a lot of care. And my mom got diagnosed with a rare form of esophagus cancer. So she's been a cancer survivor. She's had breast cancer twice before, that we've fought through and she survived. And now most recently she got diagnosed with this, and we were trying everything we could and we couldn't find the right solve and the right cure for it.

that made me rethink my priorities in life. And I took some time to care for her. Like I'm from India, right? And my parents live in India. So this is part of our culture, part of our custom and our tradition to take care and nurture our elders just like they did for us. It's not just our culture, it's across the world, many cultures, but we're one of those as well. So I did that. I took some time and then spent time with her and realized the need for care in my own home.

My father being a bit older, it was a bit harder and more challenging for him to care for her. So you know, that's when I got exposed to this world of senior care for the first time. and it hit me like a freight train just to understand how nuanced it is, how overwhelming and stressful it can be. And I was that person on the other side of the table. Many days now I still am. And then got that situated, and then I realized that instead of working for big corporate, that I'd rather

work for myself. I'd rather work in an industry where I can make more of an impact in people's lives. And this is the first one that I looked at. It also timed well with some of the macroeconomics that were in support. So there's a lot of tailwinds for the home care or the senior care industry. So it lined up nicely for me. And then I just decided to take the plunge.

Miriam Allred (06:25)
And granted, your parents were in India, did at any point in time you bring them to America or their care and they still reside in India?

Keyur Shah (06:32)
They reside there, but they've visited multiple times and you know, they've been here. This isn't a place where they can live. you know, they have a big ecosystem there, as Indian families tend to have, and they're more comfortable there. So, thereby the home care or the care for them just became more of a challenge with us. I have a sibling, he also lives abroad, so it became difficult for us to find the right kind of personal care that we could give ourselves, which has all the more

you know, emphasize the need for the right kind and the right quality of home care. and I have someone caring for my parents. I can't do that for them today. And that's one of the reasons why I do what I do now and I care for others.

Miriam Allred (07:16)
Leading up to this experience, d were you ever exposed to home care or a home care brand in California, Was there any anything previous, would you say?

Keyur Shah (07:25)
No, nothing at all. Different health care for sure, but nothing related to seniors. Again, living here in like relative youth years, going through my college years, grad school, going through work, you know, wasn't really exposed to any form of senior care, specifically not in home care. So this was brand new for me. Being an entrepreneur, major risk at that stage of my life after being in corporate for twenty years, and then also in an industry that I knew nothing about.

Miriam Allred (07:54)
So then you so then you come home, you know, and you're still working your corporate job. At what point do you think like, wow, there's really something here and when did you start to do the research and think more seriously about this?

Keyur Shah (08:05)
Right away. As soon as I came home and I figured like, you know, it j my heart just wasn't in what I was doing at that point. And I wanted to be with my parents, I wanted to care for them, but I knew that that wasn't feasible or sustainable in the long run. So if I couldn't care for them, I needed to care for someone else. And so I started looking in and I started looking at business opportunities in the field of first healthcare in general and home care in specific.

And then I landed on a couple of podcasts that I started listening to, yours being one of them. And I just learned more and that just convinced me that, you know, this is the field I need to get into. And then early on I realized that okay, well, the emotional piece was there. It checked all those boxes. What about the practical and the rational and the the economic side of it? That's what I just mentioned with the tailwinds in the industry and the growth of the aging population and the need for care.

being so prevalent, it's something that checked those boxes for me as well. And then the decision for me was okay, franchise or no franchise. Right. And then again, I because this was a brand new thing for me, being in the space overall, I wanted the support of a franchise brand. I felt like that would give me a bit of a running start. And it absolutely has. So I don't regret that decision one bit. And looking through a variety of different brands,

Again, this is six months before I even made a decision on selecting a certain brand. you know, and then I finally landed on senior helpers.

Miriam Allred (09:37)
Amazing. Okay. So let's, we're kind of starting into the timeline. I just want to kind of like set the context of how we're going to go about this. We're going to talk about a few more questions about like before you actually launched. And then we're going to kind of

Keyur Shah (09:45)
Sure.

Miriam Allred (09:46)
take it in like three to six month increments of all of the milestones and the hires and profitability and break even. We're going to try and answer like all of the questions that people ask both of us of like, okay, you know, referrals turning into steady referral streams, profitability, hour milestones. Like we're going to try and cover all of those key things throughout the timeline. So

so a couple more questions on before you actually launch. So you start doing the research, you know, franchise versus independent, there's all those big questions. this is this is about 16 months before opening, is what you shared with me. You began researching the industry. And you probably, I would say for what you've shared with me, did more research than most people do. Granted, if you're gonna be get into an industry and start a business and be an entrepreneur, like you do a lot of research, but I would say you were maybe like on the upper echelon there. 16 more months before opening, you're doing all of the research.

Ten months before opening, you actually buy the franchise while you're still working your corporate job. And then six months before launch, you start networking. You go out into the community. You have the you have the franchise, and you have the license and you're getting all of those things. Six months you go out and you start networking. What does that look like?

Keyur Shah (10:54)
It's hard, you

Miriam Allred (10:55)
Yeah.

Keyur Shah (10:56)
know? It's really, really hard because you don't know anybody. You haven't opened yet. So you haven't lived the life of being an owner in this industry. And it's terrifying to actually go up and start meeting people. But this is a relationship business. This is a heart business, right? So very early on, I learned again through some of your podcasts and other things that I had read and from other experts that it's never too early to start.

because you have to earn the trust of people. And earning trust takes time. It's not something that

you can get at the flip of a switch. And so I wanted to get as much time as I could. I felt there's no need to waste a single day. Once I realized this is the path I want to go, I just started to get out there. And I started pounding the pavement, started networking, learning, listening, reading, talking to people, and just getting out there, getting my name out there. And I was very open, saying that hey, I'm not open yet, but I don't know enough about this industry. And I just want to learn.

and then get advice from people and thereby start building relationships.

Miriam Allred (11:59)
And that was your approach to be transparent with people because you're in reminder, you're in like a very saturated, affluent, lots of competitors right in your backyard. That was the approach that you decided to take of hey, you know, I'm an imposter, I'm just getting started, but I want to learn and be humble. And and were people receptive to that? Or did you get eaten alive? Like was it harder or easier than you thought it was gonna be?

Keyur Shah (12:21)
It was it was not easy. there's more than sixty home care agencies in the territory that I operate. I'm in Southern California and that too in Orange County, and it's ultra competitive. I wouldn't say that I was eight in life. I was really pleasantly surprised at how welcoming the community was. and that just underlined, my

my confidence in being a part of this and it gave me confidence that I can truly become a member of this community. So while people were open and welcoming and in sharing their knowledge, it was overwhelming for me to go in and ask the questions and just be candid saying that, hey, I don't know enough about this and I need to learn. You know, and and I did that. And the number of people that I met, there's so many people that changed my life.

and I think that there's no substitute for being early, for getting out there, getting over those initial fears or qualms that one might have about, hey, I'm not even open yet. Can I go out? Of course you can. There's really nothing stopping you from getting out and starting to build those relationships.

Miriam Allred (13:25)
What were some of the first key people or communities or organizations that were most impactful? Chamber of Commerce, Aging Life Care Association, you think of like the ones that we talk about. What were the the f maybe the first few or the most impactful few before you opened?

Keyur Shah (13:42)
When I started listening to podcasts, that was my first, right? So because there were a collection of experts there, of course, nationally, and one of the things there were a couple of really key people who talked about marketing.

And relationships. Again, going back to that theme. one of those was Becky, who you've referenced earlier. and one of the things that she had also mentioned is just without hesitation going and trying to meet as many people as possible. One of the things that I gleaned from one of her talks was how do I get into organically into some of these conversations that are already happening? So the chambers and networking.

are fine, but they're not specific to healthcare or home care or even senior care. So one of the things that I learned early on was that specifically, again tactically, in my area, in my community, each of the senior living communities, the assisted living memory care, all of those buildings, they hold mixers regularly. and so I started attending those, as many of those. Now the reason that was really beneficial for me is those mixers are at a building, but they

they invite people or they attract other professionals in the senior care space. So going to events of those kind allowed me to mingle with so many different providers. Now these are people that run hospice companies, placement agents, people from other senior living communities and buildings, insurance and so on. So going to one, going to other, I just started, you know, piggybacking on one for the other. And as I started

visiting more of these, I started seeing some of the same people. And that's the crowd that I wanted to be a part of. you know, and this is still early on, no one knows me. So I'm still here asking all these questions and trying to build these relationships. but I did feel that that community was really welcoming to me back then.

Miriam Allred (15:35)
You're really warm and like inquisitive and I feel like your personality probably just like shone through and that was memorable. Is that what you leaned on? Or was there any other like differentiator that you came up with to try and be memorable to these people?

Keyur Shah (15:52)
No, you can't fake it. You know, they you there's no substitute for leading with heart. and one of the things that I led with was my story, was my parents' story, was my why. And the fact that by then I had filed the name of our company as well, of course it's senior helpers, but the entity name for us was Good Karma Home Care. And so that's close to my heart. good karma is very close,

culturally to me being from India. it is about being in a service oriented mindset, being able to serve people. And so I led with that. My story, my reason, my parents, and people respected that. And folks respected the fact that I was willing to leave a corporate career that I had built over these years and I was embarking on something completely new. And then I was doing it from the heart. So you

Miriam Allred (16:46)
How many of these relationships that you built, again, now almost two years ago, how many of them are still relevant? How many of those people that you met early on are you still talking to, interacting with today?

Keyur Shah (16:57)
most of them and many, many of them are deep friends now. Like, you know, it's g it's evolved from just being an outsider looking in to now having a seat at the table. and a seat at the table doesn't really mean it's about building a referral relationship, right? It's about being a b building a personal relationship. The referral, if it happens, it happens. I mean these are all people and we're all trying to serve the same community. and it takes time to do that because

News flash. I'm not the only one trying to build these relationships with these people, right? Everyone else is there as well. And like we said, it's uber competitive. but if you do it from the heart, if you show up day in and day out, people will see that you're putting in the work and they'll know that you're doing it for the right reasons. So now today I am thrilled to be able to call several of those deep friends of mine.

Miriam Allred (17:48)
And like you said before, you really can't fake it in this industry. Like it's you're either genuine or you're not. You're either in it for the right reason or you're not. And you're also the owner. And we're gonna talk about, you know, you becoming a bottleneck and what your day-to-day looks like and hiring and all of that good stuff. But something I admire about you is you still have a really tight handle on these relationships because you know how important they are to you and to the business. And, you know, not to get ahead of myself, but it's like we we talk a lot about owners that,

kind of take their hand off some of these referrals and these relationships and that can hurt the business long term. But you're just a good example of like knowing how important those are and keeping a handle on those,

Keyur Shah (18:25)
Now let me add one more thing as it relates to being an owner. That was another thing that's important because people noticed that at some of these mixers and networking events and meetings and introductions and breakfast and coffees and all of that, there's a lot of salespeople doing this. There's a lot of business development folks, right? These are established companies or new companies. There's not a ton of owners getting out there, right? And that I felt was something that allowed me.

to have those conversations and being earnest in just trying to learn saying and and being willing to put in the work, right? So that also, you know, represented the brand that I wanted to build. That I'm the one, who is responsible for the care that we eventually will provide. And therefore I'm the one who needs to build this relationship with you. It's not

Miriam Allred (19:14)
Mm.

Keyur Shah (19:15)
just a sales quota.

Miriam Allred (19:17)
Mm-hmm. you launched the business in January of twenty twenty five. So again, you're about 20 months in. You launch the business right, right in January. You decide to open with an office manager. So everyone starts, with a different kind of like office structure, you wearing hats, hiring for hats. Why did you decide to start with office manager?

Keyur Shah (19:39)
Well, I knew I couldn't do it all. And I had I had a pretty strong growth mindset. And I at that time I didn't want to be the bottleneck right out of the gates. and I felt like of course as an owner, I wanted to learn the entire business from the ground up. I was building it from the ground up, but I needed a hand. And so I ended up hiring someone who was part of the senior living industry. Again, the industry was new for me, right? So if I could have any kind of external person just

with a voice of reason, with some experience, having known how this industry operates and it works, that's something that I invested in pretty quickly. I knew that A, I couldn't do it all. I wanted to learn it all, but didn't want to do it all. I understood that my strengths lied in certain areas and they didn't very clearly in other areas. But if we needed to grow, we needed to make sure that everything that we were doing was going to happen at a certain level of quality that I was expecting to happen.

So I wanted someone to help me with that.

Miriam Allred (20:41)
So high

level, what was your kind of role and responsibilities and what was the office manager's role and responsibilities?

Keyur Shah (20:50)
Client relationships, client communication, referral partner relationships, business development, marketing, and then foundationally billing payroll, that sort of stuff was predomin was everything that I wanted to have a handle on. I wanted to be involved in and lead. what the office manager did earlier on was mostly recruiting, compliance, legal documentation, and that sort of stuff. Again, I had not

built a business before or run a company before. So a lot of that was new. And there weren't any rules. This was truly a startup. In many ways it still is. We were both wearing so many different hats. And it was nice to have someone that I could bounce ideas off of. But at the same time, those areas that I didn't feel like I needed to have complete control over. And I wanted her to do and have ownership of those areas. And those were more of those back office kind of tasks that are again really critical in this industry, right? The legal, the complex

DHR work is absolutely critical, and I didn't want to get it wrong. And I knew that my strength was more outside the office.

Miriam Allred (21:55)
So thinking back to like those first three months, what did you expect it to look like? And then what did it actually look like? You know, you start the business, you're all gung-ho, you're like, okay, the clients are just gonna come pouring in, the caregivers are gonna be lining up. Like, what did you think it was gonna look like the first three months? And then what did it actually look like?

Keyur Shah (22:14)
man, hair on fire. It was we were fortunate in a way. So the luck plays a big part as well. And for me it did. I started strong out the gate, opened in January in the first week of January twenty-five. at my second week, late second week, early third week, I had two clients. and

By the fourth week I had a third client. So in my first month I had three clients. I didn't have enough caregivers. And so immediately as the clients came in, we ramped up recruiting and we realized very early on that this is where the challenge is going to always be. And it still is today, in terms of caregiver shortage. So being a new kid on the block, we had our set of challenges, getting the right care caregivers in.

But at the same time, I wanted to make sure that desperation didn't lead us to making a bad hire. Right. Now the reputation and so on was really, really critical for us. but so getting out of the gate quickly, it allowed us to learn many things very, very fast. You know, we just jumped right in at the deep end. And so client servicing began right away, compliance, legal, HR recruiting, all of that was full guns blazing right out the gate.

Miriam Allred (23:32)
Did you or the office manager take some of those first shifts? Cause it sounds like you got the clients first and then the caregivers kind of followed. Did you work some of those first shifts? Did the office manager work some of the first shifts?

Keyur Shah (23:43)
several shifts myself. I was really nervous and

And maybe it showed, but I tried to put a game face on and I had to do it because these were the clients that we were getting and that were trusting their parents or their loved ones' care. And so we knew how big of a responsibility that was. And as a new business owner, also on the business side, I wasn't gonna let a shift go unscheduled or unfilled. So I did a handful of shifts. I'll tell you one, Miriam. The hardest shift that I did early on, we got a client that needed night shifts, and I couldn't find

caregiver. I had a handful and they weren't ready for night shift. So I did it myself. And man was that hard. I couldn't keep my eyes open. And she wanted me to sit in the other room. I'm like, I'm not going anywhere. Cause if I go to the other room, I'm gonna pass out because I'm not used to this thing. And so I sat in the most uncomfortable chair I could find because I knew that it wouldn't let me relax. And I am a light sleeper. And so did I doze off? Yeah I did.

I I couldn't help it. But at the slightest of sounds, I would just jump right up and try to help her. The next day was brutal though. But it gave me a sense of satisfaction that you know, I can do this and it needs to be done. and it helped me learn or see the business in a completely new light really early on. So while I say that,

that we struggled with caregiver hiring, that was a blessing in disguise 'cause it allowed me to do the things that were outside of my comfort zone. And I do it.

Miriam Allred (25:14)
And your advice to probably every new owner is you need to work some shifts

and probably an overnight in order to empathize with these employees.

Keyur Shah (25:21)
Hundred

percent. They'll start you'll start appreciating the work that they do and they'll start seeing you in a different light as well. and that's really important both ways. I still I still do that though. Every other week, even though now we're about twenty months in, every second or third week I'll go and do a shift. It can I am now starting to take on more personal care work as well, even though I'm not a trained caregiver in the true sense of the word, but I am learning and I am

you know, getting my hands involved in many different areas. They including sitting for hours with a hospice person just to kind of know what they go through. It allows you to build a certain kind of a respect for our caregivers that do this every single day. and also helps strengthen the bonds with our family members.

Miriam Allred (26:07)
Yeah.

So let me let me kind of cover a few more milestones here in these in these first few months. So at month three, you actually reach 300 hours, which is pretty impressive. So month three, you reach that 300 hours. You just talked about working like your first overnight shift and what that looked like. Month four, you make your next hire and you decide to go with a part-time virtual assistant recruiter.

After recruitment was kind of your ongoing challenge. You know, you were doing all the sales and marketing and you had kind of this like steady, becoming steady stream of clients, but recruiting was more of your challenge. So you decided to hire that part-time virtual assistant recruiter. month six is where you identified your early networking really started to pay off and you started to get a trickle of referrals. And so I say six months in.

But to me, really, you had been networking for a year. But since open to six months, that's when you really started to get like a steady stream of referrals, which therefore you needed the the recruitment engine to kind of ramp up. So it was probably obvious that you needed a recruiter. I think a lot of people would ask why a virtual assistant and why part time? Like how did what factors went into making that decision?

Keyur Shah (27:23)
Sure, great question. And many people deal with this. and I talked to several new owners who are looking to get into this the space. And one of the first questions that comes up is about recruiting as well. So I'll shed some light on this. we were doing all recruiting in-house, and we were doing in-person interviews, sometimes we're doing Zoom interviews. it just wasn't as productive and it wasn't as efficient. and as we started scaling.

This we needed to get some specialists. So my office manager started started taking on more and more. I started taking on more and more, again, more clients. We had those milestones, as you mentioned, and I was a person that was always out there every single day. Like I'm saying in my office right now, I'm here every day, but I'm not here all day, any day, right? I'm out and about every single day. And as I needed to do more of that, and my office manager started taking on more work, we knew we needed a specialist because we realized

I realized that the caregivers shortage wasn't going away. Again, this is a year before now, right? and it taught me that recruiting is not merely like an HR function, it's a core growth function. And me being growth-minded and having that mindset.

and seeing the growth as well, I knew that I needed to dedicate the resource. Now, why did we go part-time? Again, ramping up slowly. I'd something that I hadn't done before. So I wanted to try before I truly went all in. and we didn't really know how much demand, like it was tough to predict the kind of business that would come in, the client, the relationships, the referrals, the hours, and the growth. Still early days, right? A few months in. And so but I felt very, very clear.

Clearly in my mind that we needed to have a specialist. So we got a part-time virtual assistant recruiter because the recruiting function is something that can be done virtually. Right now, it's working phenomenally for us, right? I know I don't want to jump to now, but back then that's what we wanted to start to do. And also, given the relationships that I had built over time, stuff that I was listening to on podcasts and others as well, this was becoming a larger and larger thing. So it's something that I wanted to be a part of right away.

Miriam Allred (29:38)
And think back to when you first hired that again, virtual assistant, part time recruiter. How long was their ramp period? Like were they able to like, you know, generate results like pretty quickly or did it take several months?

Keyur Shah (29:52)
it took a few weeks. You know, we were changing processes again. We were trying to grow quickly, we were onboarding clients quickly. the person we ended up getting, so nowadays the VA companies, even back then, the virtual assistant companies are really strong in finding the right kind of candidates with recruiting experience. And many of them having worked in home care. It's not a brand new concept of having a virtual assistant, right? So it's been around for a long time, but now it's getting more and more prevalent. So we were able to find people that had recruiting.

As a background, I had them to learn some they had to learn a little bit about home care. So there was a bit of ramp up there. But the riff recruiting function in itself, there wasn't that much of a learning curve. So in a few weeks, we were able to ramp up to full capacity. and it felt like it was it was the right decision that I made at that time.

Miriam Allred (30:41)
And you had you mentioned it a minute ago, like this chicken or the egg. We don't know how quickly we're gonna get clients. We don't know how quickly we're gonna get caregivers. Like that is the balancing act of home care and you identified that like almost right away. How did you think about that at that stage? How do you hire according to clients, like mentally and operationally? Like how did you think about that early on?

Keyur Shah (31:07)
I leaned on the people that I knew. I leaned on other home care owners, both within senior helpers and outside in my community that I had built relationships with. and like I said earlier, really welcoming, really open to share their knowledge and their insight and their experience of having been there and done that. And of course, using my own common sense and what I was seeing every day, it felt like

You know, there's no shortcuts, right? So we wanted to make sure that our fundamentals were really strong. and initially, when we're wearing a lot of different hats, we are doing shortcuts, right? We are taking on clients that are that may not be the right fit clients. Again, something you instilled in me really early on. and so we wanted to invest and make sure that we have the right caregivers, the right process of getting the right caregivers. because the caregiver sits at the center of our business.

You know, we don't have a caregiver business, we don't have a client business. Like you said, it's one business. and the caregiver sits in the middle of it. So we needed to make sure that we had the right process at the right time to find this right person.

Miriam Allred (32:13)
And then conceptually you're just filling both funnels all of the time. And operationally you're just doing the matchmaking, the scheduling, the piecing it all together. But the concept being we just need to focus on right fit clients and right foot caregivers, be filling both funnels and the rest will kind of like sort itself out organically. Does that feel accurate?

Keyur Shah (32:35)
In a way it does. Yeah. I mean, again, startup mentality, right? This is the fire in front of us today, so let's put that out. and being in growth mindset, there's so many things that I wanted to do. but I had to slow down on some of those areas because we needed to do with them the right way. So at some point I know you'll ask me about mistakes. there were a lot of them.

and but that's the operational challenge about trying to understand what is the right thing to focus on, especially for an owner at that point in time. and we learned so much along the way. And I'm having that head start that I had, the networking is not just for marketing, right? The networking is for learning. And that's the core that I think people wait too long to get in.

and understand that that allows you to build relationships that'll allow you to learn. and learning comes in all forms, right? So I was a very active listener early on and a follower of some of the people that I knew and I respected. And so that helped us smooth out some of those operational challenges that we faced early on.

Miriam Allred (33:39)
So define what it was you wanted to accomplish and then define what the bottleneck was. Was it the caregiver funnel? What were you trying to accomplish and what was the bottleneck?

Keyur Shah (33:51)
What I going back to the good karma home care, right? Name, what was really important was that we needed to provide a certain level of service and impact the most people that we could. The the big thing coming in again, that why was making an impact in people's lives and me being there, seeing that every single day, that I that was like an unshakable truth for me. No matter what we do operationally.

Right, the client service and the care that we provide has to be exceptional. And we had heard so many horror stories about where that is not the case. And I didn't want to be one of those, right? So I was obsessed with making sure that we had the absolute best care that we could provide. and so that is what my North Star was. And

How do we get there by again the the right client fit and the right caregiver, the right relationships, but everything had to go back to the reason why we're doing this for me is someone's out there taking care of my mom and I wanna take care of the next person the same way that I would. I would for my parents.

Miriam Allred (35:03)
And so I'm I'm reading between the lines, but then

the challenge is finding the workforce that can deliver that.

Keyur Shah (35:10)
Yeah.

Miriam Allred (35:11)
Finding the workforce that has the potential, but then also doing your part to train them and educate them and help them see and believe in that North Star vision. But that's really hard to do. Is is that the challenge?

Keyur Shah (35:26)
It's part of the challenge. It is hard to do that because caregivers right now they work for multiple agencies. And every company, every owner has a story, right? And for them, it this initially this is just a job, right? for some of them, it is truly just a job. And for others, there's a personal story and a personal connection and a deep desire to serve people. Right. And so our job here, my role has been to try to identify.

especially those and hire those that come with heart. Because we train for skill or we hire for heart. and 'cause you can't train for heart. and it that was the obsessiveness that I had when we started looking at hiring people. And that created some bottlenecks and that created some slowdown because we were we tried to be I tried to be so careful with our hiring because it wasn't just about our reputation, it was level of service and the level of care.

and you know, and so we had to I don't want to say we wanted to loosen the reins on that, but we wanted to make sure that we provided the right structure for them to get there, even if they didn't come in with that, right? So we overinvest in training. we have a huge training studio in our office and we want to make sure that we've we spend enough time in understanding their desires, their goals, their personalities, their life.

And then so we know who they are as individuals and not just employees or workers. and then we know clearly who our families are, and that allows us to do that matching much more efficiently, which leads to a better client experience.

Miriam Allred (37:07)
Yeah. So getting back to the timeline, around month five to seven. So kind of around that six month mark, this is summer of 2025. You actually hit your first slowdown, like your first plateau, you know, kind of slow and steady growth of the first six months. And then that summer, you hit your first slowdown mentally and emotionally. That is really, really challenging. And I imagine you do like a lot of soul searching. What am I doing wrong? What are we doing wrong?

talk a little bit about that first slowdown and how it affected you and what what was going through your mind.

Keyur Shah (37:38)
there

were times where it feels like you start questioning the decision that we've made, that I made, about getting into business because it's the first time it's the first time we hit a major roadblock. Again, this this industry has a very roller coaster nature to it. It will ebb and flow, right? Now I don't have like yours doing this, but in the amount of time at least I've understood that. And earlier on I didn't understand that and it felt devastating.

You

know, there could be a week, there was a week, where two clients passed away, one moved to assisted living and one stopped services because they couldn't afford it anymore. Now, for someone who's doing this for six months, that's a huge impact to our business. Now, if I Right, exactly.

Miriam Allred (38:20)
To the rest of the industry, it's called Fatal Monday. Yeah.

Keyur Shah (38:25)
Like if someone's dealing with five thousand, eight thousand, ten thousand hours a week, a couple of hundred hours is merely a blip.

But this was the bulk of our business going away and in the matter of weeks. So it's like, my gosh, how do we deal with this? And it's extremely stressful because it's not it's not just about how will we get the business back. For me, the stress was not that I had enough confidence in myself that there's enough people there, there's enough trust that is being built that the referrals will come, the clients are there to be found, right? There's no shortage of demand.

The biggest thing that worried me personally was how do I keep these caregivers? Right. And if you're losing two, three hundred hours right away off the bat, there is maybe seven to ten caregivers attached to that. And these were some of my early hires. and so that's something that stresses it out. So then we try to tend to be really creative on how we can find ways to keep them employed because they have tremendous choices out there. Again, there's a lot of demand and there is a shortage in supply.

So they can find work right away. But going back to the amount of investment that we had in finding the right people, building a relationship with them as well. Again, relationship business. It's not just client relationships, it's not just referral partner relationships or professional relationships. It's employee relationships. And we want to treat these people like people. And they have families and they have goals and desires. And the more we learn to speak with them at that level, more we make them feel like they're part of our story, that we're building something.

The more they'll stay with us through thick and thin.

Miriam Allred (40:04)
Very good. And you cited this kind of at the beginning, but I want to reiterate it of there's just this natural churn that happens in home care and senior care that's kind of unlike any other business. And you you cited some of those reasons. Obviously, the obvious people pass away but get readmitted and go into senior living or go back to pe you know, there's all of these scenarios. And so going through that for the first time is really stressful and really overwhelming. But as you gain more experience,

In this industry, you realize okay, there's just a natural ebb and flow, and mentally and emotionally and operationally, you become more resilient to handling those things.

Keyur Shah (40:40)
Course.

Miriam Allred (40:42)
So let let's keep going here. And I want to get into some of the finances. These are the other questions that people ask about break even and profitability, et cetera. So around month nine, October 2025, you had your first profitable month. And this was also.

Approximately your break-even point around 20 clients, around 350 weekly hours. this is when you became consistently profitable. Can you share kind of initial investment, if you're willing to kind of ballpark what your initial investment was and then how long it took to recoup that investment? Because then profitability to me, it's kind of like a separate metric. Can you kind of address those three things?

Keyur Shah (41:21)
Yeah. from a franchise standpoint, the initial investment, again, I say franchise because there's a franchise fee, right? There's an element there. an independent does not have that. But from a franchise standpoint, it's typically in the hundred and fifty to two hundred thousand dollar range, right? Your overall investment. And that's what most franchise brands will ask that you set aside as working capital, at least for your first year. and typically well, my goal was to try to hit

that point right don't need to invest any more money into the business. So that operational break even, right? The amount of revenue will take care of all of our operational expenses. And we're fortunate to be able to hit that within our first year, well into our first year. It takes a little bit longer to recoup the full investment, including the the franchise fee, about 50K in general. but operationally we did enough things right, or we did plenty wrong.

But we did enough things right that allowed us to hit this hit this milestone relatively quickly.

Miriam Allred (42:23)
And month nine to month ten, you went from kind of that three hundred and fifty that to that first five hundred hours. So you hit five hundred hours around, you know, month nine, month ten. Was that on track with what you hoped? Was that faster or slower than you anticipated?

Keyur Shah (42:38)
it was it was good. We were satisfied, right, with the kind of growth. We wanted consistent growth, but we had inconsistent growth. And that is the unpredictability of just home care, which I'm learning now. It's also the nature of being in my first year, right? And not having the smoothing of the curve, right, so to speak. So that

the fact that the business can ebb and flow at the drop of a hat was something that I was getting more accustomed to. we were fortunate that we landed a couple of big clients. Two of them came from building those relationships with professionals in the industry. So they weren't just your digital lead gen clients, right? So that also brings a certain level of satisfaction back to the amount of work that we had done earlier on. And it's not and that kind of work

I'll digress for a second, isn't that you do it once and then you're set, right? You gotta keep at it, right? And there's new people that join the industry, both professionals. And as you wanna continue to grow, you wanna maintain the relationships that you've built. And you wanna continue to build more of them, right? So

Going out and building relationships isn't a set it and forget it, right? It's something that has to be done constantly, even today. And we'll we'll get more into what I do today. but going back then, it did feel like we were on a good pace. every corporate has a certain number of break-even, of first year, and so on. And we felt like we were we were we were in a good place at that time.

Miriam Allred (44:14)
So this is month nine, month 10. This is when you also bring on your next hire, which is a full-time virtual assistant scheduler. You know, with the rise of clients, the rise of caregivers scheduling becomes more and more of a hot mess for to put it mildly.

Keyur Shah (44:26)
Yeah. Yeah.

Miriam Allred (44:29)
and so you decide to hire a full-time scheduler at that point in time. and then also month 10 and onward is where you you start producing recurring profitable months. So this is really where

I don't know, would you say the business is humming? It's like, okay, you have three three employees and you're doing five hundred hours and I don't know, did it start to feel like a business? Did you start to feel like, okay, we're really doing this?

Keyur Shah (44:57)
I mean looking back, I'd l I'd have to say yes, because we given where we were in a span of a year, it was it felt really good to be able to build something from scratch again, not having done not having worked as a business owner before.

Right, not having worked in healthcare, home care at all. So completely new virgin territory for me. And to be able to get to a certain level of performance in the first ten months was deeply satisfying. Still is. and I I think the biggest

I was trying to think if there's a thing or two that I can attribute to this, but there isn't. going back to what you were asking about scheduling, scheduling is at the heart of the business, right? Yes, of course recruiting is for sure, but

Client acquisition, caregiver acquisition will always happen. But if you can't find a way to schedule them together, then you know your business isn't isn't going to grow or succeed. And until that point in the timeline, scheduling was a joint activity between my office manager and me. There were some days or weeks where the load was more on her, some days or weeks it was more on me. But getting to about 500 hours or so, it became it became a lot, right? We were being stretched through too thin, and that started taking

toll on the other areas that are just as important, recruiting and client acquisition and marketing and relationships, right? So once it started getting to that point, I knew that we needed to find again a specialist for that role. So I ended up hiring a full-time virtual assistant scheduler.

Miriam Allred (46:33)
And like we talked about before in that as an owner you needed to experience caregiving, you needed to work an overnight shift. Do you feel the same way about scheduling? You wouldn't have an appreciation or an understanding for

Keyur Shah (46:40)
my gosh.

Miriam Allred (46:41)
scheduling had you not gone through it yourself.

Keyur Shah (46:43)
A thousand percent.

I still do it. I did it at 9 p.m. last night for for about half hour when I got a call out. So that stuff still happens. And you wanna as an owner, you wanna get get in there and learn how to do that the right way, because that is the backbone, right? The scheduling is the backbone of our business and that is how we we build and we grow and we bill and so on. So it is really important for every new owner to just go in there and spend hours and days just doing it themselves. that

also allows them to build a really deep relationship with their caregivers. With the clients

Let's let's take that for granted, right? As an owner, you will have the relationships with your clients, with your referral partners, sure. But you won't see your caregivers all the time. And this allows you to stay in touch with what they're going through, what you need, what they need, and find the right match. So I'll keep going back to that. The well that I'm gonna keep pulling from is relationships again. So caregivers, the scheduling not only allows the growth engine to operate, but

Behind the scenes, it allows you to strengthen the relationships with those caregivers that is providing that growth.

Miriam Allred (47:54)
Absolutely. So let's talk about your year one achievements, I'll I'll say. Around around month twelve, you finish at approximately 700,000 in revenue, which is very impressive. You know, kudos to you. That's extremely impressive. you began paying yourself in a limited capacity. Again, that's another question a lot of people ask of like when do you start, you know, taking your own paycheck? So for it was around year one, you started paying yourself in limited capacity, and then you also converted that.

part-time virtual assistant recruiter into a full-time role to continue to ramp up the caregiver pipeline. So those are some of the key milestones that happened right around a year. Any of those that you want to address specifically?

Keyur Shah (48:41)
we were super blessed and super proud to get to the revenue numbers that you mentioned, you know, corporate

We got tremendous amounts of support along the way, not just from the corporate office, but the other family of senior helpers owners that I continuously even today reach out to for advice and for guidance. we quite healthily beat corporate projections, which again felt really immensely good and again feeling really blessed to be part of this. And to me, it went back to the number of people that we impacted and we continue to impact. so all in all, it was a feel-good thing.

Miriam Allred (49:20)
And I'd imagine

Keyur Shah (49:20)
it was

Miriam Allred (49:21)
paying yourself for the first time after a year, you know, just speak candidly about that. That's a a probably a personal and a milestone for you and your family to think like, Okay, this is actually turning into something.

Keyur Shah (49:37)
It a hundred percent was. Until that point, right, everything that we earned was being reinvested in the business. and I feel like that's the right way to do it. but everyone who will come into this industry will have a different financial background, need, desire, and goal. we were able to sustain without me taking a paycheck or getting paid from or any distribution. But that's when we started doing that and it just brings with us a certain level of peace, peace of mind and

just more confidence that we're doing the right thing. You know, it's working. Now we're getting to that point where

We don't need to invest everything back into the business. We've actually built a business, right? They say 90% of startups don't survive after a year one. And we felt like we were in a good position to be in that 10% that do, even with taking some distribution out of it. So for anyone new that's out there that's thinking about this, it's absolutely possible. It's absolutely doable. Get do it the right way. think about building not a big again. This is what I told myself, but I'm not focused on being building a big agency.

I I'm focused on building a great agency. And that comes with getting the fundamentals right. And along the way, as I talk about year one, at that point my reflection was that here are the things that we knew that we had to get right. And we did, many of them. And that is what allowed us to get to that point financially where it gave us that confidence and that peace of mind when we could take something out of it.

Miriam Allred (51:06)
Yeah. So jumping forward a little bit to around month 17 to 19. So we're getting closer to present day. This is kind of like the latest six months of, you know, the evolution of the company. Something that surprised me a little bit, month 17 to 19, around month 18, you added a client care manager kind of slash trainer. So to make sure I understand, up until this point, you owned basically everything that had to do with the clients. Is that correct? To me.

Keyur Shah (51:35)
It

is

Miriam Allred (51:35)
This is a higher

I would maybe have expected earlier on, but you took on that burden and then it wasn't really until about month eighteen that you brought in someone to help with the client care management. Talk a little bit about that.

Keyur Shah (51:48)
We should have brought someone on sooner. We should

Miriam Allred (51:50)
Okay, okay.

Keyur Shah (51:51)
have brought on a couple of people sooner.

Miriam Allred (51:54)
Okay.

Keyur Shah (51:54)
this is an area that I enjoyed the most and I didn't want to let go. You know, this is

In hindsight, maybe I should have let go a little bit more, but it was just giving me so much satisfaction being with our clients. not just initially when we're signing someone on, but repeatedly checking in on them and seeing how they're doing. That also allowed me to check in with the caregivers and so on. And I felt very much, I strongly believe that needs to be something an owner needs to do. Okay. And it tr it is, but that's not scalable, right? so to get to the point where we were

I because I still truly, truly, truly believe in the power of maintaining that relationship with the client. Again, it's not set and forget it. No way. That's not how I want to run the business. That's why I was doing that. But as we grew and we scaled, it wasn't possible for me to do it continuously, but I did not want that task to be

ignored or even not g being done the right way. So that's actually where the bottleneck is. And let me talk about it. I didn't have the confidence, a folly perhaps, that someone else will be able to do it with the level of heart that I will be able to do it. And that's why that was a hire that we made probably little too late.

Miriam Allred (53:15)
How many clients were you reasonably able to keep track of? You know, this is month eighteen. We talked about kinda like the twenty client mark, but we're talking like, you know, you yourself were managing thirty clients, forty clients?

Keyur Shah (53:30)
I would say maybe 75% of them is where I was having direct touch, be it phone call, be it text, be it in-person visits. especially when you know something, especially when let's say maybe a family member from out of town would visit a son or a daughter and an adult child. I would want to make sure that I'm around to to discuss the health.

Also when let's say something bad happened and they're in the hospital, I would make sure that as many of those opportunities I can get personal FaceTime with the clients and the families I took on. and so I spent a lot of time doing that. I still spend a lot of time doing that. it may but it's gotten to a point where like I can't do it as well as I would like to with every single person that I would need to do it with. Right. So therefore

now trying to delegate a little bit of that. Still, it doesn't mean that I don't talk to them, but again, it's just that the rotation is a little bit different now.

Miriam Allred (54:33)
So again, this is around month month eighteen that you make this hire and you cited y it's you were worried about finding someone that could do it as well as you. So then you go into trying to find and hire this person. You put a lot of pressure on finding the right fit. How do you approach that? Are you looking for someone with home care experience, care management experience? Are you promoting from within? What was your approach to go out and find someone of the caliber that you were looking for?

Keyur Shah (54:58)
I followed the advice of of someone that that I had met many many, many months ago early on my cycle, and they said that the best employees the

Some of your best caregivers will make your best office employees. and I went back to that well. So one of I actually hired one of our caregivers into this role. And he's been with me a long time. And while he still does caregiving, this allows him to broaden his skill set. Again, he has that empathy of being a caregiver, so he knows what it's like. and

It's someone that I knew from a long time. So I didn't have to bring in someone brand new into such a critical role. In my mind, this is the client relationship is ultimate, right? Again, good karma. and so this person knew our business, he knew me, he knew our clients, he knew some of the other caregivers, because he was a trainer. And so this is the person that we tapped on to be this client care manager.

Miriam Allred (55:54)
Amazing. And it's worked out. You know, it's worked out. In that we hear some good, some bad. Some some promoting from within are the right fit. Sometimes other not. But you obviously did enough of the kind of due diligence to make sure it was what he wanted and what was good for the business. And it's worked out.

Keyur Shah (56:08)
Yes, yeah.

Miriam Allred (56:09)
That's amazing. So around this month eighteen mark two, to throw in a couple of other milestones, you hit that eight hundred and fifty weekly hours, around sixty-five clients and

I think you're on track to your to your first million. I don't know if you've hit the first million just yet. You're on on pace to do that. But 850 weekly hours, 65 clients at the 18th month mark. And then over the last few months to kind of get us like t up to speed, over the last few months, you shared with me you really feel like the referral marketing efforts are producing the consistent referrals that you wanted. And so this is again.

eighteen to twenty months into the business, you're getting consistent referrals. Do you feel satisfied with what you're getting? Do you feel like you wish this I mean, of course you wish this would have happened sooner, but do you feel like all of the work that you've put in for now almost two years is is turning into the fruit that you wanted it to?

Keyur Shah (57:11)
I'm immensely satisfied, you know, with where we are. The the growth that we've had, some of the numbers and milestones that you talked about, it's extremely satisfying. There's no question about that. it does take time. going back to building trust and earning someone's trust, now and only now are we starting to see consistent.

referrals from some of these professionals that I've spent the last year and a half building relationships with. Again, goes to show that there's no shortcut there. There's no way that you can fast track or accelerate that. It takes time to earn the trust and we have to be willing to put in that time. go ahead.

Miriam Allred (57:54)
Who are

some of these key referral sources that you're talking about? Are they hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, others? Who are who are the key referral players for you right now?

Keyur Shah (58:02)
For me is some of them are the senior living communities, they are placement advisors, they are real estate agents. the hospitals and skilled nursing are still really hard and I can't break through.

I don't know if I should be saying this right now, but that's a struggle. It's really, really hard to get into the healthcare side. so there's some other experts that I've listened to as well that say that the everyone is trying to talk to the healthcare people. there's people outside of healthcare, there is the legal financial trust advisor space as well, right? So that's something that I've tapped into as well. So I've started to get some referrals from fiduciaries, a financial advisor. So it is diversified, which is a good thing, for sure. but

For most home care, you know, the common thinking is that the hospitals and the skilled nursing are the holy grail. And I'm not making a dent in that now. So well I'm still keeping away.

Miriam Allred (58:54)
Are you gonna keep are you gonna

keep going though? Are you gonna keep chipping away?

Keyur Shah (58:59)
Absolutely. I am going to keep chipping away. one of the things that I am now thinking about, given close to present day or I have been, is the value of having a business development person. And so chipping away at the hospitals, skilled nursing means that you're in there once a week or twice a week.

Right with the number of visits. I mean, we've seen all these numbers that, you know, there's number of touch points and so on. And that's just not sustainable for an owner to be able to do that consistently. So I haven't even tried that. you know, because I wasn't going to put a you know ha half-hearted effort into doing that. Again, relationships, trust takes time. but now is a point where I'm starting to think about it. If for me to get to that next level of growth, I need to start

potentially thinking about investing in a business development person. I'm still going to do as much as I can because I really enjoy that. And I feel that it is part of my strength and my skill set. Knowing what I do well is something that I've kind of crystallized now over the last year and a half. And I want to keep driving that advantage. So I want to keep leaning into that, but at the same time also knowing that I can't do everything as well as I would like. I need to bring other people in to help me grow and get to the next level.

Miriam Allred (1:00:17)
And I'm glad you mentioned that because that was gonna be one of the things I wanted to ask is about hiring a business development rep because it is definitely your skill set, your passion. But I think what you're saying is it's an investment, you know, up front. But then also if you want to achieve that next level of growth, you you shared this with me. In order to grow, you have to hire, not the other way around. Did I I hope I got that right? And that's one

Keyur Shah (1:00:41)
Yeah.

Miriam Allred (1:00:42)
of the things that you've learned, maybe the hard way is

Grow to higher, but it's actually higher to grow.

Keyur Shah (1:00:48)
Yeah, let me say that in how I remember hearing

Miriam Allred (1:00:50)
Okay.

Keyur Shah (1:00:51)
it from somebody and it just kinda blew my mind when I heard that. That sounds so profoundly simple. yet it, you know, we lose sight of that sometimes is my mistake, and many folks will think of it that way, is that we need to grow to get to a point where now we can hire people. Rather, someone really smart said that you need to hire people now to help you get the growth that you desire.

And it's some it's an area or two where I may have done okay, but it's another area or two where I didn't follow this advice. But now it's becoming eye opening for me, right? That I can't wait for the growth, which I have been doing so far, to hire people. Now to get to the next level of growth that I'm I'm I'm envisioning, I need to hire the team that'll help me get there.

Miriam Allred (1:01:38)
And I can't wait to see how that turns out because I think that's a universal business principle of grow to hire instead of hire to grow. But I hear so much of that in home care. There's all the factors, you know, the investment and the commitment and the, you know, all of the market, all of that. But I'll be curious to see if that's a decision you make probably in the next six to twelve months is do I bring that person on and, can they be successful and can we recoup the investment and does it make sense and all that? There's all those factors. So I'll be curious to see how that turns out.

just citing present day milestones as we wrap up here, you've passed a thousand weekly hours, I believe this month, which is massive milestone. and then kind of your next hire, I I don't know if you've made this or you're about to, but began hiring another part-time weekend scheduler to reduce the scheduling and on call load, which is an again, really important role. Maybe something you wish you would have hired sooner, or do you just feel like volume-wise you need more scheduling support?

Keyur Shah (1:02:38)
there's no question I should have hired this sooner. my

Miriam Allred (1:02:40)
Okay.

Keyur Shah (1:02:40)
gosh. The going back to God getting to these number of hours now I'm hiring. Everything that I'm telling you, I know, but in the day-to-day sprint, we lose sight of some of those things, right? So the advice is there. It's on us to implement that advice. And I'm saying that I haven't done that myself.

Metal is something that isn't a like something that isn't like permanently damaging. So it's something that we can fix that I will. but we're getting to this point where now, you know, the scheduling pressure gets quite a bit weekends and after hours. and in hindsight, maybe just from a

number of hours metric standpoint, maybe three, four hundred hours prior is when I should have thought about having a weekend or an after hour scheduler. But I'm I'm at that point now where I'm gonna, you know, remedy that.

And at the same time, I'm already thinking about my next two hires. Again, that is a piece of the advice that this conversation especially and this back and forth that we've had is putting it in prime focus for me. That while I can't fix everything, let me at least try to fix some of this with getting a hire in now. But at the same time, let me actively think about now being in September, b between the next between now and the end of the year, I'm actively thinking about two more people.

Miriam Allred (1:04:04)
You've cited a few times all the mistakes that you've made and we don't need to go through all of them. I'm sure you've made a few along the way. You interface with a lot of new owners. What are maybe one or two of the mistakes that you want to share that you think everyone should hear? Can you come up with one or two?

Keyur Shah (1:04:21)
Yeah, I mean, I'll talk about mistakes and lessons. you know, and I'll use them interchangeably. I think one of the things is that one of the lessons that I had for me is that growth kind of exposes a lot of things. having early growth exposed a few things to me that I was able to get in and rectify right away. but at the same time, there's other areas that I was slow to pull the trigger on. the mistake is

I mean for me, not a letting go. and it's gotten to a point where my admin staff has point blank told me that. That and that and and it makes me realize that, you know, I'm part of the problem in this sense.

Right. and this is not a new problem. I mean, this is new owner syndrome, right? Everyone feels that they're really close to doing the job and that others can't do it my way. I've I fell into that trap as well. And some of the people that they say about, I mean, they say again, something that I know profoundly simple. You want to work on the business, not necessarily in the business.

To be able to take it to the next level. And that's a mistake that I'm making. I have been making and I still do. I mean, all of this is rectifiable and we're working towards finding the right processes so that, you know, we don't do this going forward. but there's some of these mistakes I'm glad I made because it helped me learn the business the right way. And and it's not just operational. There's things that are

you know, some mistakes we made in marketing and sales, investments in certain areas that didn't turn out the right way for us. But I've in some of those that we failed fast. and I'm glad we did. Yeah, we now, you know, I don't look at it as money wasted. And I look at the cost of learning. now we know what works or what doesn't work in respect to that particular area. So again, some of the mistakes is you know, I didn't

I didn't hire a recruiter sooner, even though I did hire one part-time soon enough, but I didn't hire one sooner. the caregiver shortage is real. one bad hire can lead to a it's not just a

staffing problem, but it's also a scheduling problem, it's a retention problem, it's a client relationship problem. And in the end, it's a reputation problem. Right. So being desperate and lowering the bar on hiring is not the way to go at all. Right. So I would urge people listening is to try to get ahead of that. Cause that the cause of shortage is real. and the other thing is I initially was only looking at growth.

By adding hours and adding clients. And I was in a way kind of myopic that I had this vision that okay, the 300 hours is my big milestone, 500 hours is my next big milestone, and I want to hit 50 clients, 100 clients, a thousand hours. And and I shouldn't be looking at it that way. It's about how do I, not how do I get to a thousand hours, but how do I build a company that can organically sustain a thousand hours regularly.

So what what are those so again, this is very mature thinking, I must say. This is new ground for me to cover. But this is where my mind's at right now.

Miriam Allred (1:07:40)
Yeah, so so good. I'm just like hanging on every word of like, wow, what have you learned? And what mistakes have you made? What lessons have you learned? I I just love this what we you were kind of like answering the like the hire to grow. And it sounds like one of the key insights is hiring sooner, hiring that recruiter sooner, hiring that client care manager sooner, hiring, you know, part-time weekend scheduling sooner. That's a good lesson for a lot of people to hear.

new owners and tenured owners in that, you know, hire a little bit sooner knowing that you are going to keep growing, you are going to keep building this sustainable, scalable business. You have to trust that you have the right people and processes in place and trust that making those hires will help get you to the next level. I think that's kind of like my biggest takeaway. And again, I think that's relevant to old and new in this industry because everyone struggles with that.

Keyur Shah (1:08:33)
Yeah, the word that you used a couple of times there was trust, right? And that's really critical. It is about letting go and trusting people. So that's been a mistake for me. And that too, right? It's about it's about focusing on which I didn't do is progress over perfection. And I think you said that earlier to me. and and that's right. as an early

an early owner in a new industry, I wanted to do it all. And you can to some degree, but when you s but that's not effective for scaling, right? And you can't do everything at that level of excellence that you desire. so I know we're talking about the same thing in different ways, but investing early, failing fast, hiring early,

All of those are really key fundamental pillars to help grow the right business. So it's building it the right way, right? Again, not focusing on hours of clients, but focusing on building the company the right way.

Miriam Allred (1:09:36)
And just to address the other comment that you made about being your own bottleneck and getting in your own way, again, a universal principle that a lot of owners struggle with, how are you thinking about that right now? How are you gonna slowly try and chip away at getting out of your own way and and letting your team, you know, manage more of the the operations? Like how are you letting go slowly and strategically?

Keyur Shah (1:10:03)
damn, that's a good question, Miriam. I am I'm trying to hire people in the right areas, right? Like I said, it's about making sure that we provide the right kind of training, the right foundation for setting them up for success. Right. Of course, letting go doesn't mean ignoring all of that and not having our finger on the pulse. Of course not. but it is about

you know, creating an environment that allows them to thrive. and an owner being over involved is not that environment. Right. So that's something that I need to kind of r remind myself every day that we're we still operate like a startup and at the pace of a startup, that hustle mindset of a startup, but we're building a company now.

Right. And we we need we need to start thinking. I need to start thinking about how do we build a great company with the right kind of people with the right service levels consistently day in and day out. So that is a lot of where my mind, yes, I want to reach all these numbers and the win these awards and get all these kudos, of course. But at the same

Miriam Allred (1:11:18)
And you're going to.

Keyur Shah (1:11:20)
but at the same time, going cannot lose sight of why we do this in the first place. Right? It's about people.

And it's about heart.

Miriam Allred (1:11:29)
My advice me to you on that topic, you're really inquisitive and good at asking questions. Whenever you interface with home care owners right now, ask them that question. Especially people that have been doing this longer than you. I have heard that from so many owners in this business because again, they get in it for the heart and the passion. They want to stay close to the clients. How do they get out of their own way? Ask every home care operator that you talk to, ask them that specific question. I think all of them will say they're still struggling with it, but they too are working on that and they can impart a lot of advice on that.

Keyur Shah (1:11:58)
I absolutely will. I appreciate that.

Miriam Allred (1:12:00)
Keyur, this has been so enjoyable for me. I hope it has been for you. To look back at your journey, you have accomplished so much. And you answering all these questions and laying out this milestone timeline, like this is so valuable for so many people. So thank you for sharing this. And good luck. The next six months, 12 months. I'm gonna be here following along your journey, but you have accomplished so much. Hold on to all of the good things that you've done as well. Granted, we're talking about

You know, the good, the bad, the ugly, everything in between. There's so much that you've done right and continue to do those things and you will continue to succeed. So thank you for joining me in the lab. Thank you for sharing all of this.

Keyur Shah (1:12:39)
My pleasure. Thank you for having me, Miriam.