It’s the type of made-in-Canada story that every Canadian entrepreneur likes to hear. In the latest episode of BNN’s The Disruptors, co-host Bruce Croxon sat down with Martha Scully, founder of CanadianNanny, and John Philip Green, the founder of CareGuide, the company that acquired CanadianNanny in September of this year.
“It just didn’t feel right to sell CanadianNanny to an American company.”
Scully founded her company after struggling to find a babysitter in 2002, when newspaper ads were unsuccessful and nanny agencies were too expensive. She looked to the dating site model as an example of how to run her business.
After thirteen years going strong, Scully said that she had been approached by several American companies to be acquired, as her business was the number one nanny site in Canada. “It just didn’t feel right to sell CanadianNanny to an American company,” said Scully. Green, admitting that he was a user of CanadianNanny before he started his own company, ended up approaching Scully after his own positive experience using the platform. “We posted a job in our area, and we had 130 applicants — more than enough than you can even choose between.”
Stating that CareGuide’s continued path to growth will be through further mergers and acquisitions, Green explained how he came to choose RBC to fuel the CanadianNanny acquisition.
“We had term sheets from at least two other banks and were running a fairly competitive process there,” Green said. “The other two were from California, and RBC just gave us a better deal. They were really aggressive in pursuing our business and I was just really delighted.”
Croxon and co-host Amber Kanwar later sat down to share their thoughts on the companies. “What I love about CareGuide is that it’s five verticals and a Canadian company. There’s gotta be a public story coming out of there,” said Croxon.
Watch the interview below:
BetaKit is a production partner on The Disruptors. Tune in to BNN every Thursday night at 7pm for full episodes!