How AgeTech Startups Can Partner with Home Care: Insights from Right at Home’s New Venture Fund | The AgeTech Podcast S5E12 with Bailey Paxton
If you’ve ever wondered what it actually takes to get your AgeTech startup adopted inside a large home care network, this conversation is going to feel like a masterclass. I sat down with Bailey Paxton from Right at Home – one of the biggest home care franchise systems in the world – to talk about what operators need, what they struggle with, and how their brand-new venture fund is thinking about early-stage innovation. Whether you’re building operational tools, AI-powered workflows, or in-home tech, this episode will give you a clearer picture of what’s really happening on the ground.
Catch the full conversation on Youtube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or scroll down for the transcript (auto-generated, so pardon any oddities – the bots are still learning!)
Keren Etkin: Bailey, welcome to the show.
Thank you, Keren. I’m really excited to be here.
Thank you. I’m very excited to have you with us today. Could you share a little bit about your background and your origin story and what brought you to your current role at Right at Home?
Bailey Paxton: Yeah, absolutely. It’s kind kind of a, a long story, but I, I’ve been really fortunate to be exposed to the industry from a ton of different angles. So I know, you know, growing up both my, uh, grandparents, like many others. Suffered from Alzheimer’s and dementia. And so that was kind of the first exposure to the industry.
And then when I was in high school, my parents went through this process of, you know, I wanna buy a company or I wanna start one. And so they looked at a bunch of businesses, we’d talk about different things, and then, you know, they ended up buying a few of these right at home franchises. So I got to see them kind of build these businesses from the ground up.
And I got to work in the business as well. So I grew up working as a caregiver. Part of the office staff and everything in between. So, you know, in the early days when a caregiver would call off in the middle of the night, I would have to go or my brothers would have to go. And you know, it’s all hands on deck, which I absolutely loved.
And so that really kinda got me into the industry. And then when I was at, um, Michigan State you know, I was always very interested in entrepreneurship and innovation. And so, you know, in my classes and different programs, they always teach you to, uh, look for different shark bite problems. And so it’s funny because, you know, every time I’d go back, home on, on the weekends, my parents were always complaining about scheduling and staffing and, you know, somebody calling off and, you know, not having someone to kinda fill in for a client or, you know, not being a good fit.
And so I was like, okay, you know, mom and dad, I’m gonna do something about it. Um, so I went through, uh, I did a startup weekend with some friends. And then we tried to build this company around scheduling and staffing for, uh, home care agencies. And so that kind of started off as smart staffing and then later evolved to agile care.
But we, uh, raised some money. We built a product and then, you know, ultimately, uh, shut down. And I, I think the biggest challenge was, you know, first of all getting access to these, uh, existing ERP software systems and then also really understanding the users, buyers, and payers and how they all kinda work together, um, in, in the industry.
But you know, either way I learned a lot from the process and then, you know, really kind of, you know, I got connected with you and many other kinda industry leaders. And took a ton of great exposure. And then, you know, fast forward a, a couple years, I was actually, uh, recruited by the right at home corporate team to come help build out the, uh, innovation team.
Um, so now I’ve been with the, uh, corporate team for the past few years. And then, uh, yeah, it, it’s been a fantastic experience.
Keren Etkin: It is quite a unique career path that you have. And today you basically are running Reddit homes newly funded or founded corporate venture arm. Is that correct?
Bailey Paxton: Yeah. Yep, absolutely. So we actually just launched the fund earlier this year.
Keren Etkin: I.
Bailey Paxton: We got the approval from the board back in December to, uh, take $5 million off the balance sheet and invest in, you know, seed seed stage. It’s funny, uh, so you know, when you start a venture fund, it’s a lot, it’s very similar to starting a startup and you, you learn so much as you go.
And so, you know, over the past few months, the thesis is, you know, changing, kinda evolved and adapted. But yeah, so investing in startups, enabling the future of aging at home. So AgeTech B2B, SaaS, operational software, but any of these companies that really solve a need for the industry that we can leverage our, you know, 25 years of industry expertise in 600 locations.
So super excited, but we’ll do seed up to kind of series A, um, and then, you know, pre-seed as well, but. Check size ranging between, you know, a hundred thousand and 300,000. So we’re not really competing with other funds, but we are a fantastic strategic value add for the right companies.
Keren Etkin: Absolutely. In terms of sort of the problems you are looking that startups are solving, are those specific problems that you’ve seen at right at Home? So you’re looking, let’s say for companies who do scheduling, payroll and billing.
Bailey Paxton: Yeah, great. Great question. So, you know, I, I think at this point we’re really open to kinda what’s out there. I’m pretty focused right now in some of these operational tools. Um, so like you’re saying, kinda the scheduling kind of the. You know, billing piece, that there’s so much opportunity to really improve our operations and really go from, you know, good to great.
And so looking at these different technologies and figuring out where they fit. And so it’s interesting, like, um, you know, back earlier this year, I actually went through, um, this venture embedding strategy, um, where basically I spent a month in, um. San Francisco a month in Boston and a month in New York meeting with, you know, different venture funds, different ecosystems, and really trying to get a good idea of, you know, what are the technologies out there and how could they fit into our business.
And so that, that’s been super beneficial. But, you know, looking at these technologies, now that I have a good understanding and trying to bring them back into the business, whether they’re venture investible or not, uh, because they’ll still benefit the business overall.
Keren Etkin: Absolutely. That’s amazing. So the operational part of home care is something that I personally am very curious about because when you, right around in the time when you started Agile Care Solutions, had. A bunch of other tech enabled home care software companies popping up. I think ClearCare was the one that got acquired and we had a, a bunch of other software solutions dealing with the operational side of home care. And it seems to me that home care today in 2025 is very different than what it was 15 or 20 years ago. So it’s no longer a a pen and paper type of business, but it’s a, Computerized software driven type of business. Where do you still see opportunity to innovate on the operations side in this day and age?
Bailey Paxton: Super great question. I mean, there, I think there’s opportunities to innovate in almost every aspect of our business. You know, from kind of recruiting to client engagement, to the scheduling piece, hr I mean that. There’s so much opportunity, especially with all the technologies that, that we have. And I think, you know, a big thing for us, it’s, you know, how do we become more efficient?
And then how do we really go all in on that kind of local marketing and then that local relationships that, you know things that computers can do.
Keren Etkin: Right at home works on a franchise system. Is that correct?
Bailey Paxton: Yeah. Yeah. And so I’m happy to talk a little bit more about, you know, right at home as a whole. So we’re, you know, a large home care franchise system. Um. We provide companionship, personal care services, a little bit of skilled nursing, but very minimal. We’re in 46 states five countries. Um, we have 600 locations across the US and then another, uh, 200 globally.
Um, and then we’ll see, you know, over 20,000 clients on any, uh, given day.
Keren Etkin: So these 600 locations, most of them are owned and operated by franchisees.
Bailey Paxton: By franchisees. Yep.
Keren Etkin: And the individual franchisees do they use their own software or does the, does headquarters say, Hey, we’re gonna switch to this software now you have months to deploy it your sites. And we’re gonna streamline operations so everyone is using the same software in the backend.
Bailey Paxton: Yeah. So really, really great questions. And so there are some things that we require and then others are up to the own, dis are up to, you know, their own dis discretion. So, you know. Basically they’re all individually owned and operated businesses. But you know, through the franchise agreement, you know, there’s a few softwares that we do mandate.
And so that’s, you know, um, well Sky Personal Care, um, which is the main operational tool we have, uh, QuickBooks. And then we have, uh, another tool called. Called Z Wise, which is how we can track everything on the backend. The everything else is pretty much up to that individual franchisee. And then what we’ll do is we’ll have preferred partnerships where, you know, you know, ‘ cause.
The business owners are really focused on operating their business and running the day-to-day operations, um, and kind of growing in that way. And then, you know, at corporate we’re able to kind of focus on a lot of the national marketing, you know, businesses best practices, and do much of the r and d that’s required.
And so the franchisees lean on us for that. And so we try and find the best vendors to have preferred partnerships with. And then we’ll kinda go about it that way. But we can’t require them to adopt a certain solution. There really has to be kinda incentive for them, or they really have to understand the value of that solution.
Keren Etkin: So this sort of leads me to my next question. When you’re looking for preferred vendors to partner with, how does the selection process go? Specifically if we’re talking about type of technology that you are looking to bring into the organization.
Bailey Paxton: Yeah, that’s a great question. And so it really kinda depends on like the type of technology because it, it does differ a little bit if it’s, you know, a caregiver engagement tool versus, you know, an operational tool or kinda a more like traditional age tech solution. Uh, but really what we like to see at the corporate level is, you know, some.
Obviously we need to understand kinda the problem they’re solving. How the solution does it actually address the solution that and then, you know, hipaa, HIPAA compliance, it’s all kind of table stakes at this point. But once that’s kind of met, you know, we really like to see these tools working with a number of home care agencies.
Um, and, you know, if somebody’s earlier and they really solve a need, we’re, we’re open to that. Uh, but really we like to see you working with a handful of, uh, customers. And then at, at that point, you know, we, we’ll, depending on the traction, we’ll work with that vendor to, you know, test out in some of our company owned locations or some of our more innovative franchisees and really test and validate that ROI from there, once we’ve kind of decided that.
You know, hey, this is a approved vendor. We do wanna move forward with them. Then we have, uh, takeoff Tuesdays where, you know, every week we’ll meet with the whole system. We’ll give them the opportunity to present to the network. Um, we have our national owner’s conference and then another, uh, bunch of other kind of vehicles to kinda push out.
But you know, again, you know, we really have to kinda show the value, um, because it’s not, you know, we’re not mandating anything.
Keren Etkin: Absolutely. So this makes a lot of sense. Testing with the company owned locations, and then with some innovative franchisees. How do you see the bell curve of technology adoption around your 600 or 800 actually locations? Do you see that there are always those who are right like on the front lines, wanting to try out new stuff, and then you have. A small percentage of sort of the laggards who are just waiting to see what everyone else adopts. What is the preferred vendor that most of the other locations are selecting, and then they will partner with that vendor.
Bailey Paxton: Oh a absolutely. I I think it’s a perfect case study on that innovative innovation curve. We spend a lot of time thinking about that we know have a good idea roughly. Of where all, all of our franchisees can fit on that.
Keren Etkin: Brilliant. And do you have any examples for solutions that you are? Super proud of in terms of how they were deployed, throughout the franchise, any specific solutions that you ran a pilot with and you saw good ROI and then you saw hundreds of locations adopt.
Bailey Paxton: No, that, that’s a great question. So, you know, there’s two that are in the earlier path right now. One company that we’re really excited about that we’ve been working with for probably the past year and a half, two years is, uh, caribou Care. And they’re a, uh, caregiver rewards platform. And so basically, you know, if you pick up a shift, we can send you points, which you can use to redeem for gift cards.
It also tracks the, uh, employee referral process. So if, um, you’re a, a caregiver and you post one of our jobs on Facebook, you get a point. If one of your friends applies, you get more points and then so on until they you know, pick up shifts and, you know, have kind of 30, 60, 90 a day retention. So it’s been a fantastic tool for us.
So we kinda introduced ’em to the system. I wanna say two years ago we did a six month pilot and then have really been kinda rolling out for the past, you know, six to nine months. Uh, but so they’re at 75 offices today. Another tool that we’re rolling out. So, um, we just rolled out our in-home technology solution right assist, which is powered by the company Pacsana and so this is a wellness bracelet that really enables us to provide the best possible care. So, you know, it’s a wearable, it lets us see kinda sleep gate speed activity levels, time spent in, out, in, out of the home. You know, so this kind of gone through the full. Innovation process of, you know, I looked at, you know, close to a hundred companies in the space.
We did an RFP with, uh, 12 vendors. Um, we narrowed it down to three and then we piloted for six months across, you know, 10 or so offices. And then we actually rolled out. The solution or launched back in May. And so we went from, you know, a handful of offices to now we’re, uh, clo coming on, uh, close to 40. Um, so it’s not a quick process.
Everybody thinks that, you know, you can just turn the lights on and, you know, immediately everybody adopts it. But you, you really have to have those initial case studies. Then more people will kind of jump on. And then you have performance groups where, you know, owners. Or communicating and talking about what’s working for them.
And so, you know, the app adoption isn’t always as fast as, you know, startups wanna see when they’re doing their initial business planning.
Keren Etkin: Thank you for sharing those examples. I think it’s fascinating that you highlighted these two because first of all, caribou Rewards is one of the most interesting startups that I’ve seen in the past few years in terms of the problem they are addressing. And I’m, I wonder of the, like the top challenges you hear home care owners and operators talk about is staffing.
Basically everyone is short staffed. We know that the, there is a significant, very significant turnover rate. Industrywide. How do you measure the ROI from a solution like Caribu are you able to see turnover reduced in the specific locations that adopt this solution?
Bailey Paxton: Yes. Um, there, and there’s a couple ways to measure it. ’cause so retention, having, if you try and measure employee retention, it, it’s really hard to do. Um, what you can do is look at net 30, 60, 90 day turnover rates before and after adopting a solution. And so that gives you a good idea, but it’s still.
Not perfect. So you kinda have to look at other KPIs to see to look for that. ROI. So another example is like a cost per hire, you know, so if we know, you know, cost per hire is usually X dollars and, you know, care, caribou Care can do it for like 297 or $197 per caregiver. That’s a, a kind of good business case for us.
Keren Etkin: Wow. So there are multiple metrics that you track in order to show ROI for each of these solutions. Is
Bailey Paxton: Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Keren Etkin: And in terms of the business model, what type of business model do you see that franchisees are more open to? Because I assume that in the case of caribou rewards, they have to spend some money out of pocket in order to see that ROI and for other solutions.
Maybe there’s a rev share model where they offer this solution, the technology to. The end user, so the care recipient and they buy it, and then there’s some rev share. What do you see that works?
Bailey Paxton: Yeah, so really kinda that per caregiver per month, um, is what seems to work. It’s tougher on the per client per month basis. You know, we’ve seen, you know, a number of kinda AgeTech startups come into this space. You know, and the reality is running a home care business is hard. You know, there’s a lot of things going into it.
You have, you know, people calling off. Um, there’s a lot to manage and so we’re really good at, you know, providing care and selling care and getting into the home and, you know, having that kind of really, you know, emotional. Kind of crucial conversation with the family and with that client. But it’s really, really hard to pull technology into that.
Um, and then it kind of can take away from. Actually providing that care and kind of, you know, doing that job that, that’s required to be done in that moment. And, and so it can be a challenge to try and push some of these technologies off at that time or even at, at a later date. You know, obviously we wanna be a resource for them, but, you know, it’s tough because.
You know, things work for the caregiver, engagement per caregiver per month or per client per month, but it’s just more difficult and so you really have to be kinda strategic. I haven’t seen revenue share business models work successfully yet. Um, if you know of any. Be happy to learn about, but I just haven’t really witnessed that to date.
So it’s really something you have to be creative in. You know, our, our owners are very price sensitive as well. So, you know, there’s kinda a range you know, what makes sense for that a business owner’s willing to adopt.
Keren Etkin: Absolutely. So this sort of leads me to my next question. What do you know today that you wish you would have known 20 17, 18 19 when you were running Agile Care Solutions? What if you could get a time machine and go whisper something in Bailey’s ear Young Bailey, what would you say to him?
Bailey Paxton: Yeah, so I, I think one of the things that I wish I knew was really. The importance of understanding all the industry stakeholders and what kind of motivates them and how to communicate to them, you know, because you can kinda understand the different pieces of the puzzle, but. Communicating in this business is so hard.
So if you think about, if we wanna roll out a new solution to the system, you know, we have a good kind of voice to the franchisees, but from there it’s kind of a telephone game, right? So they have to, not only do we have to get the franchisee on board, but they have to get their office staff on board. Who then has to go and, you know, whether it’s communicating that to the caregivers or to the clients, um, it, it’s so important and there’s just, it’s a very kind of complicated, the, the telephone game gets, it’s very complicated very quickly.
So I mean, that, that’s something I, I would really kinda, you know, advise myself is to just spend a lot of time. Um, really understanding and then understanding the motivations and how it all works together. And then understanding, you know, the, the business model that fits into that.
Keren Etkin: Absolutely, that is solid advice. So would you recommend to any up and coming entrepreneurs to really go and spend some times and interview all the different stakeholders, in order to really refine the value proposition for each and every stakeholders so they can give that to the, to corporate or to the franchisee on a silver platter so they don’t have to try to think for themselves to. Convey the message.
Bailey Paxton: Yeah, absolutely. And I would also really advise these companies not to build up just a point solution, but a more robust program. So, you know, we don’t just want one piece of the puzzle. It’s, you know, how can we wrap around this kind of comprehensive, you know, program that we could then offer to our clients and really give that on a silver platter to these business owners.
Uh, because a lot of times these franchisees, of course, you have the innovators who are willing to kind of work and, uh, tweak and figure things out, but a lot of times they don’t have. Enough time to do that job for you. And that’s kind of your job as the entrepreneur, is to build this kind of robust, attractive program that makes sense for you.
It makes sense for the business owner and then it also makes sense to client, their family. I.
Keren Etkin: Absolutely, because at the end of the day, you have to have either the client willing to try or adopt the solution or the office staff or the caregiver. So you always have multiple stakeholders and that’s what sort of makes. it’s so challenging, I think, to build in this ecosystem because you have multiple stakeholders to make happy.
what do you do when there’s sometimes a misalignment of motivations between the different stakeholders? How do you solve that? I.
Bailey Paxton: I mean, Keren, that’s the, the million dollar question. I, I mean, it, it’s really hard. You know, I noticed, you know, from being on kind of the other side of the table and starting a business, you know, these things look so good on paper.
So I mean, that, that’s something I, I would really kinda, you know, advise myself is to just spend a lot of time. Um, really understanding and then understanding the motivations and how it all works together. And then understanding, you know, the, the business model that fits into that.
Keren Etkin: So that sort of leads me to my next question. Right now in the position that you’re sitting in right now and you’re going to New York and San Francisco and Boston and looking for new solutions, are there any specific challenges you wish you would find a solution for, but you haven’t seen any companies solving for that yet?
Bailey Paxton: I think a big one. Like, you know, I’m really excited about the application of all these AI tools. You know, whether it’s kind of like the operation kinda scheduling piece, whether it’s, you know, following up and communicating with the caregivers office staff, clients, really to give the best possible experience.
And so I, I’m excited about. Combination of these tools and not just. Solving one issue at a time, but really stringing these tools together to have a more robust offering. There’s a lot of fantastic tools out there that, you know, we could bring into the consultation that’ll listen in, take notes, and then.
Fill out that care plan. There’s tools that will listen into different conversations and kind of transcribe and provide feedback for that office staff. Um, there’s tools that’ll do different pieces of the puzzle, but I’m really looking forward to being able to combine these tools together in a congruent way that doesn’t require the office to have 10 different platforms just to manage them all.
Keren Etkin: So if I understand you correctly, you would love to see an AI solution that sort of helps with intake, with building care plan and also maybe then transcribing what the caregiver says that they did during their shift to feed that back into your back office software.
Bailey Paxton: Um, yeah, yeah, absolutely. That. Um, and then, you know, on the caregiver recruiting piece something that I could kinda manage the, you know application process recruiting application, kinda that whole process of filling out all the forms and then, you know. Working through that engagement and then really giving our staff the opportunity to kind build those relationships and spend time building those relationships instead of kinda doing the manual follow up of, you know, did somebody, isn’t somebody’s insurance out of date?
Keren Etkin: That is such a fantastic point and it comes up in so many of my conversations. The fact that we have now these AI tools that could do a lot of the busy work, it really can help the humans who work in this industry which. Like everyone I meet always say that they come to this industry because they wanna work with people.
No one says they wanna sit in front of the computer nine hours a day typing. So we now have finally have the tools that could help us delegate that work, the busy work to AI and leave it to the humans to to do what you just exactly described, to build those relationships with the clients and to provide that tailored hands-on care that everyone. So everyone wants at the end of the day, ’cause everyone wants to be seen as a human, not just as a shift that needs to be filled.
Bailey Paxton: Oh, absolutely.
Keren Etkin: What has been, from your viewpoint, what has been the perception of these AI tools or the emergence of AI in general? In the industry have you what is the conversation like when you have like your national conference, what are people saying? Are they excited to be adopting some of these tools? Or do they wanna set it out and see what happens, what the regulatory landscape looks like, and maybe in a year or two.
Bailey Paxton: Really great question. I think, you know, it does standard that follow that standard innovation curve. So we have a ton of offices that are ready, willing to adopt. Willing to kind of test and, uh, see because they know that this is the future.
And so we do have a lot of excitement, a lot of appetite from the system to test and adopt these solutions. And I, I think the difference between, you know, now and the.com boom is, you know, the.com boom. You know, you could afford to wait, right? Like if you didn’t have a website, you were still probably gonna be okay.
I think. The problem is with these AI solutions that it’s happening so fast. And if you don’t start to adopt these things now and start to learn and start to adapt your business, you know, you, you will be left, uh, behind and you can’t afford to wait. And so I think we have a bunch of very smart business owners who recognize that and they’re willing, to begin to test and adopt these solutions.
So, you know, we’re already testing and adopting things at the corporate level. We have a bunch of franchisees that are testing a, a number of different tools. So the appetite is huge. There’s a ton of opportunity. So if you’re building in this space, we, we absolutely would love to talk to you.
Keren Etkin: That is awesome. And that was actually my last question. anything that we didn’t talk about that you would like to add? Any call to action to people in the audience?
Bailey Paxton: Yeah, no, a absolutely. I mean, if you have a company in the space that you think kinda meets the criteria or solves a need for the home care industry, I’m happy to chat. You know, and then, you know, if you’re another fund or investor in the space, we do wanna co-invest. So we. Have a lot of strategic value add, um, and we’re the experts in this space, so we, we wanna work together.
Super collaborative. So
Keren Etkin: Awesome. That is a fantastic note to end with. Bailey, thank you so much for joining me on the show today. It was an absolute pleasure chatting with you and. Learning from your vast experience in the industry.
Bailey Paxton: Thank you so much, Keren. I appreciate it.