Photo: “There were certainly a lot of ways that it might not have worked, but I think that’s how businesses grow. They take calculated risks that are planned,” says Campana co-founder and CTO Brad Bell (left), shown here with Jim Hardy, VP of systems (centre), and co-founder Grant Roberts, the company’s president. The company celebrates 25 years in business this month.
Before the internet, before startup was an everyday word and before there was a supportive tech ecosystem in Waterloo Region, there was a small company making bold moves.
That company was Campana Systems Inc., an enterprise software provider focused on the health-care and auto club industries, which started in 1988 and celebrates 25 years in business this month.
As Waterloo Region companies go, Campana was a pioneer for the now-vibrant tech community that generates $30 billion in annual revenue.
Its story offers lessons for the new era of startups, as it found its way without the kind of support available today and made its own luck in the process.
Like many of today’s startups, Campana can trace its roots to a University of Waterloo co-op program. Brad Bell, a math and computer science student at the time, created what would be its first product – a billing system for a small retirement home in his hometown of Owen Sound, Ont.
That product was the foundation for Campana, which Bell founded with fellow UW graduate Grant Roberts.
Since this common beginning, two moments have stood out as pivotal for the company, which now employs more than 100 people and provides software to hundreds of organizations around the world.
The first moment came about five years into its slow but steady growth from a two-man operation, which had been focused on providing solutions for the health-care industry, specifically long-term care facilities and nursing homes.
“We purchased a software business from another company that was in town,” says Bell, who is now chief technology officer at Campana. “That was exciting and it was a bit like the minnow swallowing the whale, because I think at the time we were maybe six or seven, and the company we purchased had 12.”
By buying that struggling company, Campana not only tripled its workforce, but diversified its offerings beyond health care to include the auto club industry.
Although a daunting move, Bell and Roberts had reason to be optimistic. “We knew the market space, we knew the technology, we were pretty confident about that, and that we could grow the business,” Bell says.
With startups there are no guarantees, but for Campana, the gamble paid off.
With two separate divisions, Campana continued to grow and focus on delivering its software systems by “really trying to listen to the customers and learn the industry very well, and then developing,” says Roberts, the company’s president.
After more than 10 years of steady growth, Campana moved in 1999 to its current location in north Waterloo.
The company’s second pivotal moment came in 2002, when the chance to bid on an account in New Zealand came up by sheer luck.
“I think it all started with someone finding us on the internet, which would be completely normal now, but this was quite a few years ago, so it’s not like people were looking for suppliers in other countries,” Roberts says.
Like the acquisition a decade earlier, the opportunity was a calculated risk for Campana, but the fit with their current software convinced Bell to fly down and do the executive presentation.
Bell did his homework on the long flight to make sure he could talk about more than just business when giving his presentation, and was thankful that he had.
“When I got down there, I am presenting to executive owners of Healthcare of New Zealand, in the box at the stadium where the All Blacks play, and they are fanatics,” Bell says, referring to the country’s well-known rugby team.
His approach worked and Campana won the business, sending one of their project leaders to implement the system.
This win in New Zealand was small in comparison to the opportunity that came the following year in 2003, but again, the company’s leaders were methodical in assessing the risk.
“Peter, who is the CEO of Healthcare of New Zealand, phoned me up one day and basically said, ‘Brad, we keep getting interest from other clients and some in Australia,’ ” Bell says, adding, “I think he got us the first lead in Australia and his joke was that he wanted a share of the company for recommending us to some sites in Australia.”
After presenting to and landing their first client in Australia, more followed, quickly adding to their workload down under.
“It became obvious that we needed to have a presence in that part of the world to provide good support, and the time zone is a killer,” Bell says. “We really needed a local presence, not only to learn more how they do business and to really make the product Australian, but also just to handle the time zone.”
Today, Campana has seven people in its Melbourne office, as well as satellite offices in Edmonton, Vancouver and New Zealand, and more than 100 employees, most of them at its headquarters in Waterloo.
The challenge for companies like Campana that help pioneer an industry is to stay relevant and continue to innovate once they scale beyond startup status.
“Probably five years ago I was more worried that we wouldn’t be able to keep pace, but we have, and in some cases we are again out in front,” Bell says. “We’re doing things in mobile that people haven’t done yet and that’s cool, but you have to work at it.”
Mobile, analytics and wearable technology are the future focus for Campana’s GoldCare software, which automates health-care and nursing records. Axis is the company’s integrated customer relationship management system and automated dispatch solution for auto clubs.
Finding that focus for the future in an ever-changing industry is another challenge.
“For me one of the things is watching what’s new, but [asking] is it a fad,” Bell says. “I’ve seen a lot of stuff come and go. We’ve been in business for 25 years and I’ve had a lot of people tell me this particular thing is the next big thing, and then in a year or two, you don’t hear about it anymore.”
Those 25 years also saw significant change in the level of support for startups in the region, Bell notes. “We got used to doing everything on our own, [and] it’s just been in the last four years or so that we’ve even looked at some of the IRAP [Industrial Research Assistance Program] funding.”
What hasn’t changed is that this is the place where graduates from the University of Waterloo choose to stay, create and innovate, and for Bell, the talent in the community is a huge draw.
“Now there is no way that we would ever entertain leaving, because we have 90 or 100 families here that are all deeply invested in the community,” he says, “and it’s the people, it’s the smarts, it is the people that make the company what it is.”
