Nurse Next Door thrives in Australia
In 2018, Matt Fitton and the writer secured the Australian master franchise rights for Nurse Next Door, gaining access to a successful North American franchise framework, a defined mission, and a distinctive pink branding. While these elements provided a strong starting point, they represented only the initial building blocks for what would follow.
The vision for what Nurse Next Door could become in Australia was something Matt and the writer had to build for themselves. From the beginning, they had absolute clarity about their purpose, with no grey areas. This clarity mattered enormously because there was no established Nurse Next Door Australia success story for people to buy into.
Building a Culture
Their earliest franchise partners were backing Matt and the writer as much as they were backing an international brand. They were the early adopters, and the shared sense of purpose and the culture it created have been among the most important drivers of exponential growth. As franchise partners built their businesses, they brought their own motivations to Nurse Next Door – often deeply personal reasons for what they wanted to build and the difference they wanted to make.
Those individual motivations connected back to the purpose and vision Matt and the writer had established, and as others joined, that shared sense of purpose grew with them. They didn’t simply scale a franchise model that had been handed to them; they scaled belief in what they could create together. This culture became the glue binding a network of independent business owners, caregivers, nurses, and HeartQuarters team members around a common purpose and shared ambition.
One of the lessons Matt and the writer had in mind throughout the 12 months of due diligence they undertook to assess whether Nurse Next Door was right for them came from Starbucks’ experience in Australia. If a business with the resources and global recognition of Starbucks could misread Australia, Nurse Next Door‘s success in North America certainly didn’t guarantee success in Australia.
Matt and the writer were very clear about what could never change: the brand’s heart and soul – Making Lives Better, the four core values, and the bold pink identity that made Nurse Next Door unmistakably Nurse Next Door. Beyond those foundations, almost everything else was open to change, given Australia’s different consumers, employment conditions, government funding systems, legislation, and home-care environment.
Read Also: Indigenous chef builds thriving hospitality empire rooted in culture
Adapting to Australia
They spent months pulling the model apart to understand which parts would translate, which wouldn’t, and what they needed to adapt for the Australian market. One of the clearest examples was their messaging. In North America, Nurse Next Door had historically focused on senior care, with “Happier Aging” central to how the brand spoke to customers. But that message didn’t describe the business they were going to build in Australia, where supporting people living with disability through the NDIS would form a substantial part of their business.
The writer made a deliberate decision to put Making Lives Better at the centre of everything they said. They had acquired the rights to franchise Nurse Next Door across Australia, but they couldn’t franchise a theory. So they launched their first corporately owned location in Melbourne on 1 January 2019 and became operators themselves. The North American operations manual gave them a framework, but there is a world of difference between reading how a business should operate and actually operating it every day.
The writer needed to understand where the pressure points were, what could go wrong, what needed to change for Australia, and importantly, where their future franchise partners would need the most help. That experience shaped the Australian operating model they ultimately franchised, which was grounded in their market, workforce, customers, and regulatory environment rather than simply replicated from somewhere else.
Today, more than 55 franchised businesses operate across 77 territories, with more than 150 pink cars on the road in communities around Australia. The scale is something Matt and the writer are incredibly proud of, but increasingly, the writer thinks about what having built a successful business now gives them the ability to do.
Scaling the Business
The Australian operating model has enabled businesses to grow to significant scale, with around two-thirds of locations generating more than $2 million in annual revenue. One in four locations generates more than $5 million, demonstrating the model’s effectiveness.
The experience of operating the business in Australia has shaped the model, which differs from North America’s in many respects. Care funding and regulation, as well as employment and pay practices, are tailored to the Australian market.
