After falling in love with his now-wife Gina during college four-plus decades ago, Tim Murray didn’t expect for his college sweetheart to become his business partner. Fast-forward to the present and the duo not only built and sold a successful business, they are now developing a quickly growing tech startup.
Their current project, CINCH CCM, is the first cloud-based, mobile technology designed to organize community-based home care. The Cary-based startup will be presenting at CED’s Venture Connect summit on March 29-30 in RTP.
“I admire that partnership that we built,” Tim said. “It just segues into building a stronger marriage.”
Soon after the Murrays got married, Tim ventured into the military while Gina became a nurse. In the ’90s, Gina concentrated on hospice and geriatric care where she was inspired to put her own foot into the home care industry door. Tim had been working with a successful software company in Florida, and he later received a hefty payout after the business was acquired.
“That was the signal,” Tim said.
He and Gina used their experience to create their own senior care agency—Aware Senior Care, which they sold in December of 2020. But while building that company, the Murrays noticed a need for a more efficient, innovative way to provide community-based home care in independent senior living communities.
The partners started developing CINCH after being called in to take over care for a community homecare center in Raleigh.
“The executive director called us and said, ‘Can you come and help me and take over care,’” Tim said. “And we didn’t have CINCH. But we had in our mind how we wanted to do it.”
The Murrays began building out the technology with spreadsheets and Adobe platforms and soon built a prototype for their own software.
“And then fast-forward a little less than three years later, since Version One, and it’s transformed everything,” Tim said. “We started making a profit. And then we started making a better profit. And then we started getting more caregivers, and then our reputation grew.”
CINCH now provides a tech platform to make the entire scheduling and recruitment process of community home caregivers easier by offering scheduling, client visit planning, simple invoicing, and a business dashboard for community homecare centers.
Traditional home care requires providers to be in the home anywhere from six to 24 hours, but Murray said that homecare within senior living communities is unique in its business model and requirements.
“In communities, it’s way different,” Murray said. “They just may want someone to stop by to remind them to get up, or have a medication reminder, or to help them calm down.”
Tim also said not only does the technology improve the efficiency of connecting clients with caregivers, it’s also a “caregiver recruiting weapon.” The platform offers caregivers more options, more hours, more stability—and thus more money.
Now, the Murrays are spreading their technology to homecare agencies across the Triangle.
“Everybody’s light bulbs are going off,” Tim said. “They see it as an opportunity for their businesses.”
He also said CINCH creates a ‘win-win’ for both residents and the caregivers of the community and increases the reliability and profitability of the entire process.
Although CINCH has provided the Murrays with an incredible business development opportunity, it’s also provided them with something even more valuable—more time with their children and grandkids.
“It’s now morphed into a phase where we can give back not only to our own family, but to the world,” Tim said.
As CINCH has expanded, the Murrays have proudly taken the title as “cool grandparents.” They plan to continue developing CINCH with the contacts they might make with potential investors or partners at Venture Connect.