BCBusiness

48 B C B U S I N E S S . C A J U N E 2 0 24 one that seized on the demographic shift of aging in place. They then shared the plan with their mentor. "The funny thing was, we weren't there to pitch him or raise money," recalls DeHart. "We just wanted to know if it was a good idea or not." Five minutes into the conversa- tion, Wong said it was the right business to be in—and that he would be their business partner. "He became chair that day... before we even started the company!" Nurse Next Door ( NND) officially launched in 2001, and within the year, Sim and DeHart found themselves sitting at the HSBC table when Wong won his EY Lifetime Achievement Award. "We were these two young entrepreneurs with barely any rev- enue," recalls DeHart. "I remember look- ing at Ken and saying, 'We're gonna win that award someday.'" Four years later, in 2006, the pair were awarded the Emerging Entrepreneur prize; at that point, they had about 1,200 employees and 1,000 clients. It wouldn't have happened, says DeHart, if Wong—flapping his wings—hadn't inspired the pair to apply. Gaining that EY recognition was a cat- alyst for NND's exponential growth and inspired the founders' pivotal decision to franchise, says DeHart. By the time NND won its next EY award in 2016—with CEO Cathy Thorpe and as the category winner in health-care services—the company had 140 franchises across North America, with five- year revenue growth of almost 200 percent. But the business was changing, as was the partnership between Sim and DeHart. The pair had alternated the top role for years, but in 2014 they hired Thorpe to take over as president and CEO. And both found- ers started to pursue other interests: Sim launched the Rosemary Rocksalt bagel chain with his wife Teena Gupta—and then, in 2018, he launched a political path that even- tually led to the Vancouver Mayor's Office. DeHart launched Live Well Exercise Clinic in 2015, with Sarah Hodson, before exiting that business in 2019; also that year, Sim bought out DeHart's remaining stake in NND. As DeHart tells it: "The problem is that when I get involved in a business, I'm all in—it's all I think about. And I just didn't want to build another business." Today, the 51-year-old DeHart (who went to Cornell on a hockey scholarship) is enjoy- ing the freedom of being "a sports dad," driving his two girls—Aja, in Grade 8; and Daisy, in Grade 11—to their various practices. He's also found a way to transfer his exten- sive franchising knowledge through his lat- est venture, the Franchise GrowthLab—an accelerator that has DeHart and a few NND alumni helping emerging franchises scale up. "The average franchise system in Can- ada has fewer than 10 franchises," he says. "So we build the systems for them, using our diligence engine, and make investments in the ones we really like." Looking back at his EY experience, DeHart says that winning an EOY award— twice—helped pave the way to Nurse Next Door's success. But it also served as valida- tion and offered a sense of community in an otherwise lonely world. "The entrepreneur- ial life is very solitary," says DeHart. "And we never think we're good enough. I would encourage people to apply for the awards— even if you don't think you're ready." And don't discount the profound impact of a mentor, too. "Milt was the Bud- dhist businessman," DeHart says of Wong, who passed away in 2011. "He had this wis- dom, this kindness, combined with a desire for everyone to do their best. I was lucky to have been mentored by him—and now I'm paying it forward." London—and when he returned home to Vancouver in 2000, he decided he wanted to pursue an entrepreneurial path and called up Wong for advice. Meanwhile, tech entrepreneur John DeHart was also looking for a new career path. After graduating from Cornell Univer- sity in the mid-'90s, he rode the tech wave to New York, Boston and London, starting a venture capital fund and launching sev- eral tech startups. "When I moved back to Canada, I wanted to build a company, but I also needed to do something purposeful," recalls the Penticton native. DeHart had a connection with Wong that went back to his childhood, as his uncle, Bob DeHart, had served as Wong's business partner at M.K. Wong & Associ- ates before it was sold to HSBC Canada. They talked regularly. "Milt loved chatting with young people—that's how he kept his edge," says DeHart. "Once I moved back to Vancouver, he was my first call." Seeing their potential, Wong connected the young men. Sim and DeHart met over coffee, bounced some ideas around, and over the ensuing weeks hatched a business plan for a new home health-care concept—

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