MSN / Sympatico

December 20, 2007

Ken Sim Profile

by Kerry Gold, MSN / Sympatico

For anyone who's ever felt like they weren't living life to its fullest, Ken Sim's story is a message to seize the day.

Sim was a merchant banker living the good life in Toronto with his wife, who had her own record industry career, when he decided that he couldn't go on working at a soul-destroying job.

He had the potential to soon earn $1 million a year, but there was one glitch. He was miserable. When he announced to friends that he and his wife were quitting their jobs and he was going to start his own business in Vancouver, friends and co-workers thought he'd lost his mind. But Sim was unfazed. He remembers the day he quit: Jan. 17, 2001. He has never looked back.

"If someone said to you,  ‘I'll pay you $10 million but you have to spend 10 years in jail,' would you do it?" asks Sim, who is 37 years old.

"When I was in investment banking or merchant banking, the hours would go by and it was literally like watching paint dry."

Sim relocated to hometown Vancouver, and through high-profile businessman Milton Wong, he met John DeHart, who had a similar background. They met at Starbucks and decided to either start or purchase a business. But when Sim's pregnant wife became bed-ridden and DeHart's grandmother needed at-home care, it became clear to both that their future business was in front of their eyes.

Sim and DeHart started Nurse Next Door, a home care service that offers everything from basic help with household chores to 24-hour-a-day nursing care, and everything in between.

Since launching the business in September 2001, Sim and DeHart, 34, have seen revenues grow by a whopping 3400 per cent. They've expanded operations from six part-time staff to an office of 30 as well as 1,000 more system-wide staff, and five franchise partners.

Sim says they've already met their goal of becoming one of the top 10 workplaces in B.C. (they placed No. 6 on a list that was released earlier this month). Next up is their goal to become one of the top 10 workplaces in Canada, by 2013.

Sim believes strongly in learning from others. In the last couple of years, he and DeHart have gone to Japan to tour Toyota, Mitsubishi and Honda, just to study successful operations.

However, in order to reach their goal to be in 30 cities by 2011, Sim knows that they have to seriously invest in timesaving infrastructure. So they've partnered with Cisco Systems to implement a call centre system that will allow the organization to receive calls and schedule homecare within minutes — not just for their own Vancouver-based operations, but for their growing franchise operations which exist in Burnaby North, Burnaby South, Abbotsford, New Westminster and Kamloops, and the ones are being considered for Toronto, Ottawa, North York and Scarborough.

The call centre, which requires an investment of about $1 million, is a crucial component that will enable Nurse Next Door to expand because it will free up scheduling time and allow franchise partners to freely pursue sales and customer service.

"Once a company gets 50 employees and 50 clients, the sole owner is working 80 to 90 hours a week just maintaining their current business, so they can't grow," explains Sim. "The choice they have is, make a big investment like we did and get to the next level or get stuck in a rut ... or fold up shop — and that's what we see."

Although he faces new risks and earns a fraction of his old paycheque, Sim wouldn't change that fateful decision he made back in September 2001, when he quit his job.

"Here's the big distinction. Now I get up super early or stay up really late and I don't really think about it," he says. "It's like Tiger Woods – is he working or is he playing golf?

"I've definitely been following my passion."

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