WHITESBORO — Kathleen Rutishauser and Denise Flihan have known each other since the mid-1990s when their daughters were in the same ballet class. Each has a “strong” business-development background, says Flihan, and they now co-own a business that Rutishauser launched in late 2012. Daughter for Hire, LLC, a firm that operates from Rutishauser’s home in […]
WHITESBORO — Kathleen Rutishauser and Denise Flihan have known each other since the mid-1990s when their daughters were in the same ballet class.
Each has a “strong” business-development background, says Flihan, and they now co-own a business that Rutishauser launched in late 2012.
Daughter for Hire, LLC, a firm that operates from Rutishauser’s home in Whitesboro, provides non-medical, in-home services that assist the elderly.
The LLC’s services focus on a variety of household chores, companionship, accompaniment, running errands, handling outside chores such as lawn mowing or snow removal, or handling financial matters like banking or bill paying, according to the company’s website.
Both Rutishauser and Flihan spoke with The Business Journal News Network on July 9.
When Rutishauser first started the business, she figured it would be something that she alone could maintain. But she eventually realized the service-oriented business would require additional help.
“So, really, in about 18 months, we’ve gone from 1 [employee] up to 26 [part-time employees] and we’re just constantly growing,” says Rutishauser.
And just because the company’s name is Daughter for Hire, the firm also employs male caregivers, she adds.
As of July 9, the firm was servicing more than 100 clients, according to Rutishauser
She declined to release specific revenue information for the business.
“We’re on track to more than double the revenue that we [generated] in 2013,” says Rutishauser.
A new start
Rutishauser had been working for NBT Bank as a vice president and retirement-plan specialist when the company eliminated her position in December 2012. Her career in banking and finance had spanned three decades, she says.
In recent years, Rutishauser would use her free time to help senior citizens she knew.
“It was bringing meals to people that had hurt their back, helping people around the house, doing some errands, taking them to doctor’s appointments, and that kind of thing,” Rutishauser said.
Using her own assets, Rutishauser spent about $5,000 to launch the business. “A lot of the expenses related to marketing, a little bit of advertising, the insurance for sure,” she says.
She spent some of the money on legal and accounting fees, Quickbooks software, establishing the firm as a limited-liability company, website development, and classes at the Small Business Development Center at Onondaga Community College, says Rutishauser.
Flihan had served as vice president of sales and marketing at Human Technologies Corp. in Utica before leaving in June 2010 to work with her husband and his small business, N.J. Flihan & Co., Inc., a restaurant equipment and supply company in Utica.
She had been working there for about three years. While doing so, Flihan kept in touch with Rutishauser as she was developing Daughter for Hire and “took a very strong interest in [the new venture].”
At the same time, Flihan was helping her mother-in-law who had developed some health issues, which inspired her to partner with Rutishauser and Daughter for Hire.
“There was definitely a hole that I was seeing in the care of the senior population, and I wanted to help make a difference there,” says Flihan.
Flihan and Rutishauser started discussions about a possible partnership in the summer of 2013, says Flihan.
“Denise joined the business this past January, though she’s been very heavily involved before January. We firmed up our partnership agreement January 2014,” says Rutishauser.
Flihan had provided Rutishauser with friendly guidance and advice since her job elimination sparked the effort to start her own business.
Growth, protection
Initially, Rutishauser was planning to work on her own with clients until she determined “there was such a need out there.”
Her appointments started to overlap. She started having conflicts with days and times for client meetings, so Rutishauser hired her first employee in March 2013.
As Rutishauser continued her marketing efforts for the business, the client requests and referrals kept coming. She eventually realized a need “to start hiring some people.”
Besides the 26 part-time employees who currently work for the firm, Rutishauser expects to hire additional workers, but it’s “hard to say” how many as of now.
Both women have been focusing on marketing and business development, visiting all the “centers of influence” and working “hand-in-glove” with the hospitals, independent-living facilities, estate-planning attorneys, accountants, financial planners, and senior residential-living facilities in the Mohawk Valley area, says Rutishauser.
They find that they’re getting “more and more” referrals every day, she adds.
Daughter for Hire’s rates depend on the number of hours a caregiver provides a given client per week, she says.
“So they would range anywhere from $16 an hour up to $20 [an hour] …” says Rutishauser.
All Daughter for Hire employees are bonded, background checked, and insured, she says.
“We have an insurance policy that bonds each of our employees in the event of some sort of theft,” she adds
The firm also has a liability-insurance policy and a workers’ compensation policy for each employee as well, according to Rutishauser.
Daughter for Hire also has its employees background checked both in Oneida County and nationwide.
“We want to make sure that they’ve never done anything, anywhere” says Rutishauser.
John (Chip) Hemmel, an agent with the insurance firm Gilroy Kernan & Gilroy of New Hartford, handles the bonding and the firm’s liability and workers’ compensation policies, she adds.
L.B. Security and Investigations, Inc. of Utica handles the background checks.
The company on June 12 announced the Mohawk Valley Business Women’s Network presented Daughter for Hire with its 2014 Endowment Award, a grant of $750, which Rutishauer and Flihan are using to purchase customized scheduling software to more efficiently serve their clients in Oneida, Herkimer, and Madison counties.
“What this endowment allows us to do is invest in software that will allow us to easily schedule our caregivers with our clients and make a whole bunch of processes easier for us,” says Flihan.
Besides scheduling, the software also “interacts” with other software programs they use for payroll and billing.
Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com
SMALL-BUSINESS SNAPSHOT
Daughter for Hire, LLC
500 Brett’s Way
Whitesboro, N.Y. 13492
Phone: (315) 725-2955
Website: http://www.daughter-for-hire.com
Type of business: non-medical, in-home service provider
Year founded: 2012
Employees: 26 part time
Co-owners: Kathleen Rutishauser, Denise Flihan