How a First-Time Owner Built to 1,000 Weekly Hours in 20 Months (Keyur Shah)

Keyur Shah entered home care with no ownership or healthcare experience and grew Senior Helpers of Coastal Orange County to 1,000 weekly hours in just 20 months. He walks through the agency’s growth month by month—from reaching 300 hours in Month 3 and becoming profitable in Month 9 to generating $700,000 in Year 1. Keyur explains why he opened with an office manager, added a VA recruiter in Month 4, hired a full-time scheduler near 500 hours, and waited until Month 18 to hand off client care. He also shares the ~$150,000 investment it took to reach operational breakeven, the impact of sudden client losses, and why consistent referrals took more than two years of networking. His biggest lesson applies to owners at every stage: don’t wait to grow before you hire—hire the team that can create and sustain the growth.

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min

Sep 15, 2026

How a First-Time Owner Built to 1,000 Weekly Hours in 20 Months (Keyur Shah)

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.

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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.

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