Katung Aduwak's Inspiring Journey to Franchise Ownership

What inspires someone to open a home care business? For Right at Home Franchise Owner Katung Aduwak, the answer is deeply personal.

After surviving a life-changing accident that left him paralyzed and in a coma, Katung experienced firsthand the life-changing impact of compassionate caregivers. Years later, combined with business partner Tanya Bridges' experience caring for her aging parents, that journey led them to Right at Home.

In this episode, Katung shares how his personal experiences shaped his decision to become a Franchise Owner, what it's really like to build a home care business, and why supporting caregivers and families is at the heart of everything he does.

Listen as Katung discusses the realities of entrepreneurship, the value of the Right at Home support Network, lessons he's learned about building the right team, and the rewarding moments that come from helping families regain peace of mind.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Katung's journey from care recipient to care provider
• Why he and Tanya chose Right at Home
• The day-to-day realities of home care ownership
• The importance of caregiver engagement and company culture
• How Franchise support helps owners succeed
• Advice for prospective Franchise owners
• The meaningful impact home care has on families and communities

Whether you're exploring Franchise ownership or passionate about making a difference through care, this episode offers an inspiring look at building a business with purpose.

Thank you for listening to Franchising with Right at Home. 

Ready to explore ownership? Start here.

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Questions? Email franchising@rightathome.net

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, hello there, and thank you for joining me for today's 15-minute franchisee interview. Um, my name is Jenna Gonzer. I am the director of franchise development here with Right at Home and very excited to talk to you today and hear more about the day in the life of a franchise owner. So welcome.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Thank you very much for having me. I am when I received the email, I felt honored. I'm like, oh, they picked me to speak. Yeah, yeah, it must be pretty it must be interesting or doing something right. But I'm I'm I'm excited to talk about it. I think people need to hear and know what our lives are like.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Yes, absolutely. So why don't we get started and um go ahead and introduce yourself, where you're located, the number of territories you own, and when you became a right at home owner.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

Okay, uh my name is uh Katung Aduak. I like to make sure I let people know what Katung means. Katung means the reason why people come together. So for everything that I do, it seems like my name follows me, and I've fallen on the right path with right at home because my job is bringing people together. You know, so I uh own a territory, just a single territory, along with my partner Tanya Bridges in uh Toquila, Washington. But we consider it the greater South Seattle area, which covers about 16 zip codes. Um we became owners uh in April of 2024, but our doors did not open fully uh to start taking clients and hiring caregivers till the December of the same year, 2024. So I'd say we've been actively doing business and uh providing care for about a year and uh maybe six or seven months now, doing quite the journey.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Okay, wonderful. Thank you for that. And uh what was your background before you became a ride at home owner?

SPEAKER_01 1:55

Woof, where should I start? Um I have a pretty interesting background. I um I uh so I'll start from just before Ride at Home and then walk you back a little bit if you're aware I have the time. I was a project manager, but a project manager who doesn't do linear projections. I was a Scrum Master. Uh Scrum Master is a project manager who uh sits with a client and then takes a product meeting and then comes back with the product every two weeks, two-week reiterations, so that the client is able to say, Yes, I like this, or tweak that, or tweak that, and then we carry the client all the way through the process to the end, versus a linear project manager who comes back after six months and the product might be obsolete or client needs might have changed. That's what I did prior. But before then, I was into entertainment. I worked with Viacom, I was senior creative director and channel manager for MTV and a few of the um Viacom stable channels like VH1, BET Nickelodeon. I was in charge of the African feed. And before then, I was a reality TV star who won Big Brother Nigeria many, many years ago. So you can see why I said, where do I start? But I did but all of this has happened to bring me to this point where I'm an owner with my partner of uh Ride at Home franchise.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

I love it. And why did you choose Ride at Home, Katoon?

SPEAKER_01 3:23

Um I I had an accident over just about 20 something years ago that rendered me paralyzed in a coma, and uh I uh had to learn how to walk again, switch hands from left to right. It was pretty ghastly, two brain surgeries. And um, even when my doctors had said, look, you might end up in a wheelchair, uh, my caregivers did not give up on me. They were the ones who helped me uh work my way back into full functionality. And I always knew that I was going to pay this forward. So when I was reintegrated into society, I was able to work, save, and then me and my partner came together. My partner also liked Rider Home because she had aged parents who were living far away. And one time her mother fell from a ladder while she was in the kitchen, and her father was in the room next door and couldn't hear her because he didn't have his hearing aids on. So we needed to have eyes on them. And then so she was able to move her parents this way. So when we were looking for a franchise or business to start, it resonated for us on different fronts. For me, the personal experience, the my accident, and for her, the care that she wanted to provide for her parents. So right at home just seemed like something that's that spoke to us, spoke to us personally. And um, we figured if we're going to make a living, let's make a living doing something that we love, something that we can relate to, and something that we can use to actually uh do more for people that we care about and our community.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

I love that. Well, thank you for that. And um, we are so thankful that that all is okay with you and like you said, really having the impact of the benefits of those caregivers to help you during your time of need. Um, so thank you for sharing that. And um, so let's talk a little bit about the day in the life. Uh, so why don't you walk us through what a typical day looks like for you as an owner?

SPEAKER_01 5:22

Okay, so um usually I would say if you are looking to do a nine to five job in this as an owner, I think you should just forget about it and go and find something else. You know, I'm going to give you what I would call a mini masterclass in how uh you live in a controlled chaos and high stakes puzzle solving situation because that's what it is. It is controlled chaos, it's high stakes, and it's a lot of puzzle solving. So when I wake up in the morning, I typically would probably uh even before my coffee, I open my computer and I look at my dashboard. You know, so what am I looking at? I'm looking at the schedule. Schedule is where I usually go to first to see who has called out, who is not going to be able to show up, or what is happening with a client. I just want to make sure I know where every caregiver, where every client is, and I can find that out on the scheduling board. And then I speak to my care coordinator who is already playing chess, trying to fill uh out um uh any call outs that we we have. Uh we have to look at this first because that is the core of the business. Who is available, who is where, and uh, and what have not. And then when we're done balancing the board, we ensure that we have provided premium coverage to all our clients and make sure that all caregivers are also taken care of. Now, after that morning chaos has come down, we are moved to what I would refer to as the midday pivot, which go from uh things like payroll, billing, looking at our financials, making sure that um our billing models and everything is matching so that we are still able to make our margins. Now, there are many, many ways to look at this. You can either choose to I I go to Wellsky sometimes to look at the owner's portal to see all the reports, or I uh which is actually one of my favorite places to go to because it's a real-time uh real-time view of where we are as a business. And then um another thing is after well, after we've done all the caregiving, all the figures, all the scheduling, then we now start to do the human management element. Because one thing that I've established within our business is to keep in touch with our caregivers as much as possible and not just call them about shifts, but calling them about how are you? Is everything okay? You mentioned last week that you were taking your daughter somewhere. How did that work out? Without that human and relationship management, you don't have a business. And then we do that with our clients as well. We don't wait till it's only the 30-day or 60-day or 90-day follow-ups. We call our clients, we show up on their birthdays with a cake and something. So we want to make sure that we see everything that is happening with our clients. And how do we do that? It's almost impossible to manage just from your head. When you go and meet a client, make sure you take notes about them, make sure you take notes about things that they like, you know, things that they do not like. And then you come and put it in your database so that everybody, even if it's not you who is going to handle them next time, they have a background, they have a backstory into how to go into the next conversation. So some of these days go smoother and some don't. There are days when we're pulling our hair out hair out. As you can see, I have none left. Because there's uh maybe four or five call-outs at the same time. And then our two or three on-call people are already feeling that what happens to the rest, you know. So sometimes we have to fold up our own sleeves and go into the field. That is why I advise almost every owner to go and take the HCA or CNA training. Go and do the 75 hours. You know, in the early days, you might have a baptism of fire like I did. You never know. So these are the kind of days. And then there are days when sometimes there's marketing and sales where I have to leave the office and go and knock on doors, you know, to try to build into our referral resources. These are people who will not trust you immediately, but you have to keep on going. You will be frustrated at times, you will just want to just throw in the towel, but you keep on going. Like recently, I just got a referral from a client, a referral source that I've been knocking on the doors for a whole year and a month with no response till just last week. I got my first referral. So one day can actually have all of these things that I've mentioned, and I tell you for a fact that one-third of my time here, my days have actually had all those things together. So nine to five really will not cover that. But initially, you want to be able to do that, know every facet of your business so that when you're hiring people, you know the kind of people that you want to hire to be able to come and fill those slots so you can gain a life work balance at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_00 10:02

Okay, wonderful. Thank you. And it really sounds like um a majority of the day is built on those relationships, whether it's your staff, whether it's your clients, or the relationships that you're building in the community. And you know, it also sounds like the great part about that is you have that real-time dashboard and your wealth guy system to help you keep on track of all those things. So um wonderful. Thank you. And you know, while we're talking about the support structure, um, when you think of all the pieces Right at Home does support and in uh their tools or resources that are available to you, um, which part have you found to be the most valuable?

SPEAKER_01 10:41

I think the part that I found to be the most valuable for Ride at Home, it's hard. It's hard because there's so many. I can I'm looking at the pillars that have been able to support me, and it's hard to just pick one. Okay, but if it's okay, I'll probably give you two or three. I'll try and run through them real quick, but I'll start with maybe what's the most important. I think one of the most important is the investment in leadership and mentorship. The fact that I can pick up my phone at any point in time and call another owner, or call somebody within the franchise, or call my coach, and then they answer and they have an answer. And usually when they don't have an answer, people are not so pig-headed here where they say you want to throw something at you that is not true. You say, I'll come back to you. Sometimes, I mean, we have the hub, we have all this uh big repository of information, but sometimes it can get a little confusing and daunting, and you want somebody to just tell you, you know what, this is where you should go, this is what you should do. One of the strongest things that I appreciate about Rider Home is that support structure, you know, that comes from other owners, comes from staff and uh and members of the uh Wells um Rider Home team, and then also coaching, you know, that is one of the strongest things. Another thing that I've seen that Rider Home has done is they've done such a good job in positioning themselves, the market positioning on authority, such that when you walk into a place, yes, the name recognition alone, first of all, does half of your job for you. And if you are able to know what you are talking about based on the information and training you've been given, then you will live up to that uh market positioning, and then things kind of move a little faster for you. Another thing that I've seen that works with NRA at home is the operational sandbox. It is such a good information. It's uh it's the compliance, you know, the training, the software. It's glaring that there's a lot of investment that's gone into it. Let me give you an example. I was talking to an owner who has been in the business for about 16, 17 years. So when I was doing my due diligence, she said, and one thing I'll tell you is that things have changed so much, so rapidly, it's even hard for me to catch up. She said, I've had to hire a few younger people who understand technology to help me understand this business on a more granular level. And so, since I've been here for two years, the things that have been upgraded are so much sometimes, I won't say it's overwhelming, but I'll tell you one thing: you have to be on your toes so that you can stay sharp, so that you can stay compliant, and then so you can stay consistent and ahead of ahead or at least at power with your competition because it's a very competitive state that we live in. And then finally, the freedom to innovate. You know, if right at home would give you guardrails, give you guidelines, and tell you how to position, you know, if when it comes to payments, like uh private pay, VA, uh long-term care insurance, they give you those guardrails, but then they let you go and work with what suits you. As far as you stay within the guardrails, nobody's gonna come and try to micromanage you and say you have to do this, do this, do that. There's a freedom to operate, freedom to express, and freedom to create a model that suits you. I think I've not seen this anywhere else, and I have friends who own other franchises. So I think we are the envy of the town, and I don't just say this lightly, I take it very, very seriously because these things are things that I can relate to.

SPEAKER_00 13:59

Wonderful advice and support is support, support, I think is what I heard from you. Um, you're definitely in business for yourself, but never by yourself, based on all the different ways that Right at Home can support you in your business. And um, you know, I appreciate you sharing that because you know it's one thing to get the tools, but it's another thing to implement everything. And it sounds like you're really serious about you know the information that you're getting to be able to be successful in your business. Um, and as I mentioned early on, you know, there are candidates currently looking at right at home for ownership. So, what would be a piece of advice that you would give to that individual?

SPEAKER_01 14:42

I'll I I I'm gonna I'm gonna give this piece of advice, it's gonna be as unconventional as possible. I'm gonna speak about it how it related to me. I would say don't try to be a lone wolf, because that is that has been me most of my life. I have a God complex where I feel I can solve the people's problem. I don't need anybody. And I and I also brought that into this big mistake. However, I did learn a lot from doing it, you know, because you have to be you have to learn how to be a scheduler, you know, a salesperson, an inbound salesperson, an outbound salesperson, you know, a care coordinator, uh uh even a caregiver. You cannot do all these things by yourself. As in if you if if you if the reason you're doing it is to try to save money, that's pennywise pound foolish. You know, I learned it very, very hard way. I did it for two reasons. One, I thought, well, I can do these things, and then secondly, I wanted to see if I can understand every facet of the business by experiential um uh um methods that I had so that when I'm hiring somebody, I will know the kind of person to hire. But do not be a lone wolf when it comes to within your own business and when it comes to trying to reach out to other people that can help you. Find talent, identify talent. You might not get the right one the first time, but go again. You cannot do it on your own. My first year was very tough because I did most of the things on my own, you know. But even though we still were able to record some kind of success, it could have been bigger and it could have been better. And now in our second year, I've learned, I've been able to expand the team, I've been able to grow it, and you will not believe how in the last two to three months, how things are beginning to change. We're beginning to set ourselves up for success and automation. The more people you have that know what you what what what needs to be done, you know, everything doesn't have to rest on you. There are fresh ideas. You know, you are able to challenge each other versus just hiring yes men or whatever that is, and then when you reach out, when you reach a block, reach out to other people who have been in the business for a while. Everybody represents the same brand, so nobody is your competition. Everybody wants to see the brand succeed. So do not be a lone wolf. Make sure you identify your strengths and then hire people who can do the things that you cannot do so you focus on what you can do. You know, it's a it's it's a mistake that I made and I paid dearly for it, but you know what? It wasn't so bad that I was underwater. I was able to come back, realize, and then move forward with the right steps to try to expand and scale up this business to where I think it should go.

SPEAKER_00 17:05

Nice. All right, so take advantage of all those support tools that all those support tools.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

So you keep coming back to support. So keep coming back to support.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

Yes, be open to being coached and and getting the guidance you need to be successful. I love it. And you know, congrats to you for recognizing that. And it sounds like you've really turned that around. Um, you know, and I'd love for you to just maybe share a feel-good moment recently um that made you really feel good and made you feel like you made an impact.

SPEAKER_01 17:36

Um within this business, there's there are many different things that just make you want to smile, that just pop up, that bring color to life, you know. Uh okay, I would say from a business standpoint, the fact that we were able to um uh surpass what our first year projection was by about 60 or 70 percent was great. It was really, really great. And we got like uh uh uh the superstar, um what's what what you call them, though you have I've forgotten what they're called. We received quite a number of them in our first year. But the things that are making my life happy every day when it comes to this business is having to turn daughters and sons from care managers and making them back into daughters and sons, having to get people to relax and trust that their loved ones are fine and then they can go and have a life of their own. I come from a background where my parents and my family, my everybody took care of me when I was in my wheelchair, when I was in my bed for three years, and they lost their lives completely. So I saw the freedom when I could walk again. I saw them trying to catch up back with life. But now I'm seeing that I'm able to do that in people's lives on a daily basis. And those small text messages that come, those who do not want to go and leave a Google review but want to just send it to me, you know, that makes me sleep well at night most of the time. So those little wins are a lot bigger than uh surpassing uh our projections. However, when you add that, it's just cherry on the icing, and probably even a little cherry on top of it. So these little things are the things that uh make me happy, and then my team also I see them struggle, and then I'm seeing some of them now beginning to understand where we're going. The light bulbs you see in their faces when they realize something that I'm trying to show them also just makes me just want to keep on spurring everybody on to good work. So it's little, little things, but I would say the main marker is the fact that okay, the business is at the way it should be and it can get better.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

I love that. And kudos to you for your leadership as well, um, for your team to recognize that and their strengths as well to all be on the same page. So uh it's been a pleasure, Katun. Uh, what wonderful tips, suggestions, ideas that you've given throughout this presentation. And um, you know, thank you really from the bottom of our heart at Right at Home for all you do to improve the quality of life for those that you serve and the families and the clients and the staff. And um, we really are honored to have you as part of the Right at Home family.

SPEAKER_01 20:20

I want to say thank you very much also for thinking that we were worthy to carry this on our shoulders and uh for continuing to trust us, continuing to educate us and continuing to understand that we make mistakes and continue to be impatient with us. It is beautiful to see that it is a family set up, you know. I've been to both uh uh home improvements, and I I will never miss anyone because of how I connect with people when I go there and exchange ideas. It's just a great place to be. Thank you so so much.

SPEAKER_00 20:51

Absolutely. All right, have a good rest of your day. Bye bye.