Care and Commerce
Care and commerce - they often sound like opposites.
In social care, talking about commercial sustainability can sometimes feel uncomfortable, as though caring and running a successful business don't belong in the same sentence.
A few years ago, I might have thought the same. Today, I see them differently.
Building inCharge has taught me that if you want to create something that genuinely improves people's lives, you also have to build a business that can survive, grow and continue serving those people for years to come.
As a founder, I know that my job isn't just to build a product. It's to build a company that deserves to exist in five, ten and twenty years' time. That means thinking about sustainability every single day.
Can we afford this? Should we invest now or wait? Do we recruit, or ask our incredible team to keep stretching a little further? Which opportunity do we say yes to? Which one do we have to let pass? How do we stay true to our mission while making commercially responsible decisions?
These aren't the glamorous parts of startup life. They rarely make it onto social media.
People see the product launches, the new customers, the partnerships, the awards and the milestones. It's important to celebrate progress.
What they don't see are the hundreds of conversations, the constant prioritising, the difficult trade-offs, the steep learning curve and the huge determination to make sure the business is still here tomorrow.
Building a mission-led company means living with uncertainty while making decisions with incomplete information.
Some days you're building. Some days you're fundraising. Some days you're selling. Some days you're solving problems you didn't know existed when you got out of bed.
It's exciting, exhausting and deeply rewarding, often all in the same day.
One of the biggest lessons I've learned is that purpose doesn't remove the need for commercial discipline. It demands it.
Every improvement we make to the platform, every security enhancement, every customer conversation, every hour of product development, every round of testing and every contribution from the talented people building inCharge has to be funded.
The reality is that we're still a young company. We're a long way from making a profit, and that's okay.
Like many startups, everything we earn - along with a fair amount of our own savings - goes straight back into building the product, supporting our customers and creating the foundations for the future.
The mission hasn't changed. The mission depends on it.
For me, commercial sustainability isn't about chasing profit. It's about earning the right to keep serving families for decades, not just the next funding round.
The families we support deserve technology they can trust, not just today, but for years to come. They deserve a platform that continues to evolve, improve, respond to new challenges and remain secure. That doesn't happen by accident. It happens because there's a sustainable business behind it.
From the beginning, I've described inCharge as a purpose-led business.
I've always known that purpose and commercial thinking aren't competing priorities. They're partners.
Without purpose, you lose your direction. Without commercial sustainability, you lose your future.
The goal has never been to build an app. The goal has always been to build something that lasts.
Caring isn't just about what we do today. It's about making sure we're still here to do it tomorrow.
A caring founder has to care for three things at once: the mission, the people you serve, and the business itself. Neglect any one of them, and eventually you can't sustain the other two.
If coordinating care is part of your everyday life, inCharge was built with you in mind. Start your free 30 day trial - you won't be charged until day 31. Find out more, click here.
If you work with families who coordinate their own care and support, we'd love to talk. Get in touch to find out more about partnerships and pricing, click here.