27 Blisscare Health

Two brothers Igor and Andrei Statkevitch with Igor’s wife Stevi Statkevitch founded Blisscare Health almost four years ago in Mount Waverly, Victoria.

A new entrant to the Smart50 this year, Blisscare Health focuses on health and wellbeing services in the aged care, retirement and public sectors.

Blisscare Health’s focus on these niche health markets has quickly paid off. The business turned over its first million in its first nine months and has grown by an overall rate of 181% since 2012.

Igor Statkevitch says Blisscare Health aims to provide better services for elderly clients in the community and aged care settings, calling the existing medical and healthcare management infrastructure for such clients in Australia “unsustainable”.

The business’ start-up costs came to between $50,000 and $100,000, which Igor says represented a major early challenge for the Statkevitch family.

“My wife had just given birth to our fourth daughter. (We) learned to be unified, never give up and be very focused. Hard work and a smart approach will pay off,” he says.

Statkevitch says adapting to the rapid growth Blisscare has experienced in the past year alone has also been challenging.

“[In the] last 12 months we have grown beyond our forecast and had to recruit 25 staff members, provide training and make sure the service model is not compromised,” he says.

“There is no easy solution for hiring staff, but long hours and smart strategies around inspiring staff was the winning formula.”

The fast pace of growth is something the Statkevitchs will likely need to get used to, with Statkevitch predicting Blisscare will triple in size in the next nine months.

Expansion plans are also on the horizon, with plans to open a branch in Western Australia soon and explore international opportunities.

“We received multiple invitations to export our IP and model to Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and Japan, but we will take one step at a time,” Statkevitch says.