Smart50 rank: 50
Revenue: $1.40 million
Growth: 17.57%
Founders: Kevin Conlon, 35
Based: Queensland
Employees: 12
Industry: Health and community services
Website: www.kinnect.com.au
The journey to building a successful occupational rehabilitation business has not been without its kinks and strains for Kinnect founder and owner Kevin Conlon.
Conlon's first attempt to build a business in the sector in Townsville was stymied by the existence of entrenched relationships between existing service providers and industry.
Rather than giving up, however, Conlon returned to his home town of Inisfail and started again, this time succeeding in building good working relationships with other providers and solid referral sources.
After two years of hard slog, the business was slowly becoming successful, but events took a further twist when Conlon was given the opportunity to develop his skills with specialists in Britain and Canada. After initially putting the business on hold, in 2002 he hired two new practitioners to continue to run the business with Conlon in remote control, a decision that ended up providing the basis for 80% growth in the business over the following three years.
The pace of growth in the business has since slowed a little, but 17.57% over the two years to 2007-08 to revenue of $1.4 million from operations across Queensland is still cause for some satisfaction. The company produced revenue of $1.3 million in 2006-07.
As for the future, Conlon says he is planning a restructure that will enable him and his partners to step back from day-to-day management and drive the further expansion of the business across Australia.
