Who is Cathy?

I run a real everyday-support business on Tasmania's east coast, and I built the course I wish somebody had handed me at the start.

I'm a wife and a mum to five, and I've run a household while running businesses. Before this I worked in offices and in small business, and I owned a few businesses of my own in completely different fields. Some worked. Some didn't. All of them taught me something.

I've also been a carer my whole adult life — my uncle and my dad, both right through to the end, and my mum, who's still going and still has me there for her. I'd just never once called it work.

When things were hard with Mum, she looked at me and said, "I don't know what people do if they don't have a daughter like you." I've never forgotten it. That's where this started — not with a business plan.

Eighteen months ago I started 1st 4 Care from home, with no nursing degree and no medical training, in a town where I didn't know a soul. It's a real part-time business with regular clients. These are my own figures: $47,060.52 in client revenue across six months, about 23 hours a week. Gross, not take-home — and an example, not a promise.

Two names, and how they fit together

1st 4 Care is my business — the everyday support I deliver to people in my own community. Cathy's Care is the course I built from it, so other people can start their own. Same person, two halves of one thing.

1st 4 Group Pty Ltd t/a 1st 4 Care and Cathy's Care · ABN 96 690 366 075 · 0494 800 799 · cathy@cathys.care