Melbourne-based medical information startup<\/a> has been growing rapidly while still being bootstrapped, expanding from a team of eight in November to 17.<\/p>\nThe company saw more revenue in November and December last year than all of the previous financial year and is \u201cquite profitable\u201d, Westley says.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe business is growing fast \u2013 we\u2019re earning good revenue,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019ve turned into a profitable organisation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Because of this Westley says he isn\u2019t interested in any outside investments at the moment \u2013 even a $1 million one.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe did take it seriously and had a look at taking the investment but my co-founder and I decided that our focus is on generating revenue and proving we can be a profitable company,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a little bit further down the track before we want to put effort and commitment into raising capital and working out who would be the best partners.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re very grateful for the offer but we\u2019re not desperate for cash \u2013 we think we\u2019re doing lots of good things.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re trying very hard and the focus right now is on funding the business through creating a great product, having happy customers and earning revenue.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t need to take money to grow the business.\u201d<\/p>\n
Product over capital<\/h3>\n
CareMonkey provides a system of managing sensitive personal and medical information stored by schools, clubs and groups with a duty of care.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight from the get-go we decided that unless we could prove that customers were going to get massive value and want to pay to use the service then we weren\u2019t really a business,\u201d Westley says.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom the very first customer we had revenue \u2013 I think that\u2019s a good way to build a sustainable business.\u201d<\/p>\n
While admitting the startup may have been able to expand quicker with the prize money, Westley says a move into the US and UK is already in the works.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m happy with the course we\u2019ve chosen and right now we\u2019re starting operations in the UK and US, and we\u2019ll do the same there as we\u2019ve done here,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll get a foothold, get happy customers, earn revenue and understand what we need to do to be a dominant player in those markets.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter that it\u2019d be a good time to go to investors.\u201d<\/p>\n
Follow StartupSmart on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Soundcloud.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Melbourne-based entrepreneur Troy Westley held an oversized cheque worth nearly $1 million above his head on a stage in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":59153,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44637"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}