Business
How one founder and director leveraged the pandemic as a growth engine without focusing on revenue
We started with nothing; we found funds where we could through savings and borrowing from friends and family that wholeheartedly believed in our brand. The main driving force that sustained us was a strong belief that we were creating something worthwhile
Steve Moon Founder & Director, LinkSafe
In early 2020, LinkSafe remodelled its cloud-based contractor management system to keep up with client demand for a trusted, easy solution to new vaccine protocols. This quick change in gears resulted in a 33 per cent increase in revenue and almost doubled their client base.
Since 2012, the team has grown their client base from 10 to 545, with over 30 international businesses utilising the platform daily. LinkSafe founder Steve Moon says that the company worked tirelessly in the early stages of the pandemic to ensure they could capture sensitive medical data on behalf of their clients. However, there were many lessons to learn along the way.
“As LinkSafe developed and grew, there were many things I had to learn. At the beginning of this journey, I could concentrate on doing what I enjoyed: the creative side of product development. 
“As we grew, I had to step out of my comfort zone and work on things like sales, marketing and managing overheads and staff. None of these came naturally to me, but I accepted that they needed to be done and had to do it. I decided early on to employ great people and contractors and implement systems to take on the things I didn’t have the time or skills to do properly,” Steve says.
“While this created additional costs, it was an investment that had to happen to grow the business to what it is today. Without a solid and trusted team by my side and bulletproof systems and processes, LinkSafe could not have succeeded. I have found that you have to be passionate about what you do to develop a new business from scratch. This passion helped me get through the lean times at the start and helped me get support from friends and family. It then helped me sell the vision to staff and clients.
The inception
The idea for this business was developed over time, according to Steve. “Initially, it came out of discussions with clients about the challenges they were facing with the operations and processes of their business.”
“From the initial idea, I engaged in more in-depth discussions with clients regarding ideal ways to improve and automate safety and compliance requirements in their business. The needs within the safety and compliance sector expanded rapidly, and we were quick to understand the importance of ensuring we were continually developing and innovating new features and modules to stay relevant and successful in a growth market.”
The early stages
Steve says that the early stages of establishing the business in 2005 stemmed from a combination of communicating with potential clients about their needs and proposing various ideas and possible solutions to meet said demands.
“The first 18 months of the business were predominantly research and development-based, typified by hard work and long hours, but also great excitement for the future as we were developing an innovative software product in the emerging market of safety and compliance.
“This was followed by creating a mock-up of the software screens to garner client interest and, in some cases, receiving a forward commitment from clients to use the software when it was ready.”
“The thing I want to highlight for others who wish to start their own business is how important it is to ensure you share your vision and your passion with your staff and your clients, as this will help your business grow and thrive in a dynamic and changing market.”
Because we were stepping into a relatively new and undefined market, we propelled our business forward by reaching out to potential clients with the trust and confidence to adopt new technology to fulfil their demands. In other words, the typical ‘early adopters’ were our first clients.
Revenue wasn’t the driver.
In the early stages of the business, revenue was not deemed a primary driver for LinkSafe – it was all about investing in the future, Steve says.
“We started with nothing; we found funds where we could through savings and borrowing from friends and family that wholeheartedly believed in our brand. The main driving force that sustained us was a strong belief that we were creating something worthwhile – we were creating a valuable service that businesses would not only want but one they would need to achieve their growing safety and compliance obligations.
“At the end of the day, we’re providing essential software and services that clients of our kind cannot do without. Not engaging in or having poor contractor safety management could result in dire legal and financial ramifications.”
The catalyst
Steve notes that the company worked tirelessly in the early stages of the pandemic to ensure they could capture sensitive medical data on behalf of their clients while providing a way to redact this information once stored.
“We needed to help bolster our client’s online abilities around contractor engagement, enforcement of vaccine protocols and COVID Safe Plans. Although we could not see the complications of a global pandemic, we were lucky because our system was built with the foresight to handle unprecedented circumstances.
“During 2020, our legal advisory arm LinkSafe Legal, which contractor safety heavyweight Sue Bottrell now leads, was able to provide critical advice, assistance and support in navigating new COVID-19 laws, requirements and differences in health directives issued from state to state.”
Steve continues by saying that the business’s provision of necessary services contributed to increased demand during the pandemic.
“Our products and services were deemed essential by our corporate and Government clients, thus resulting in the strong demand for our business. We proactively remodelled our cloud-based contractor management system to keep up with client demands.
“We strived to be a trusted, easy solution with setting up and actively managing new vaccine protocols for our clients during the pandemic’s uncertain times. Like many other businesses, we were significantly impacted by restrictions and had to find a new way of doing ‘business as usual. Thanks and credit to our team, we were able to pivot to a working-from-home model quickly.
“While this model was not ideal, we found that by utilising our strong internal work systems, we could complete work faster than before. Over the pandemic, the uncertainty of a ‘new normal’ faced by businesses highlighted the importance of safety and compliance. This cemented safety and compliance processes as a mandatory requirement until this day.
The secret recipe
Steve believes that the success of any business relies on establishing a name for itself in the market.
“To ensure the success of our services, we worked closely with clients with a strong vision, industry knowledge and the ability to collaborate with us in strategising a viable solution that we could incorporate into our products. In turn, their constructive feedback greatly informed our current capabilities in developing a functional and valuable service that could be applied to a plethora of clients from various industries.
“When we started the business, safety and compliance requirements in the general commercial and industrial sectors were just beginning to emerge. Safety and compliance were commonly managed with paper-based or spreadsheet systems, or in many cases, not done at all.
“One of the initial challenges was to understand the operational issues faced by clients and successfully design a system that reflects those needs into automated processes efficiently – such as providing users with a straightforward and clear workflow and record-keeping features for audit and compliance requirements.”
“Another challenge we recognised was to make sure we developed a service that was not only useful to clients in specific sectors but also to ensure we prevail as a well-rounded service that is well-informed and flexible to be used in every industry. Over time, we applied an agile approach to developing our service, which allowed us to pivot and respond to emerging needs efficiently.”
While many Australian businesses providing contract management services are relying on offshore tech support and customer service partners, Steve and the LinkSafe team believe these services should be kept in-house.
“We’ve developed an on-shore, in-house proactive client support network which allows us to service our clients, get to know them intimately and strengthen our relationships by providing them guidance, support and introductions to various networks we’ve formed relationships with. We are more than a software company; we’re a trusted industry partner always a phone call away,” says Steve.
“As LinkSafe developed and grew, there were many things I had to learn. At the beginning of this journey, I could concentrate on doing what I enjoyed: the creative side of product development. As we grew, I had to step out of my comfort zone and work on things like sales, marketing and managing overheads and staff. None of these came naturally to me, but I accepted that they needed to be done and had to do it.
“I decided early on to employ great people and contractors and implement systems to take on the things I didn’t have the time or skills to do correctly. While this created additional costs, it was an investment that had to happen to grow the business to what it is today.
“Without a solid and trusted team by my side and bulletproof systems and processes, LinkSafe could not have grown. I have found that you have to be passionate about what you do to develop a new business from scratch. This passion helped me get through the lean times at the start and helped me get support from friends and family. It then helped me sell the vision to staff and clients.
“The thing I want to highlight for others who wish to start their own business is how important it is to ensure you share your vision and your passion with your staff and your clients, as this will help your business grow and thrive in a dynamic and changing market.
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Transport providers, businesses and governments on Saturday are rushing to get all their systems back online after long disruptions following a widespread technology outage.
The biggest continuing effect has been on air travel. Carriers canceled thousands of flights on Friday and now have many of their planes and crews in the wrong place, while airports facing continued problems with checking in and security.
At the heart of the massive disruption is CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm that provides software to scores of companies worldwide. The company says the problem occurred when it deployed a faulty update to computers running Microsoft Windows, noting that the issue behind the outage was not a security incident or cyberattack.
Here’s the Latest:
Microsoft: 8.5 million devices on its Windows system were affected
Microsoft says 8.5 million devices running its Windows operating system were affected by a faulty cybersecurity update Friday that led to worldwide disruptions.
A Saturday blog post from Microsoft was the first estimate of the scope of the disruptions caused by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike’s software update.
“We currently estimate that CrowdStrike’s update affected 8.5 million Windows devices, or less than one percent of all Windows machines,” said the blog post from Microsoft cybersecurity executive David Weston.
“While the percentage was small, the broad economic and societal impacts reflect the use of CrowdStrike by enterprises that run many critical services.”
Weston said such a significant disturbance is rare but “demonstrates the interconnected nature of our broad ecosystem.” Windows is the dominant operating system for personal computers around the world.
Austrian doctors’ group calls for better data protection for patients
In Austria, a leading doctors organization said the global IT outage exposed the vulnerability of health systems reliant on digital systems.
“Yesterday’s incidents underscore how important it is for hospitals to have analogue backups” to safeguard patient care, Harald Mayer, vice president of the Austrian Chamber of Doctors, said in a statement on the organization’s website.
The organization called on governments to impose high standards in patient data protection and security and on health providers to train staff and put systems in place to manage crises.
“Happily, where there were problems, these were kept small and short-lived and many areas of care were unaffected” in Austria, Mayer said.
Germany warns of scams after major IT outage
BERLIN — The German government’s IT security agency says numerous companies are still struggling with the consequences of a far-reaching technology outage.
“Many business processes and procedures have been disturbed by the breakdown of computer systems,” the BSI agency said on its website.
But the agency also said Saturday that many impacted areas have returned to normal.
It warned that cybercriminals were trying to take advantage of the situation through phishing, fake websites and other scams and that “unofficial” software code was in circulation.
The agency said it was not yet clear how faulty code ended up in the CrowdStrike software update blamed for triggering the outage.
European airports appear to be close to normal
LONDON — Europe’s busiest airport, Heathrow, said it is busy but operating normally on Saturday. The airport said in a statement that “all systems are back up and running and passengers are getting on with their journeys smoothly.“
Some 167 flights scheduled to depart from U.K. airports on Friday were canceled, while 171 flights due to land were axed.
Meanwhile, flights at Berlin Airport were departing on or close to schedule, German news agency dpa reported, citing an airport spokesman.
Nineteen flights took off in the early hours of Saturday after authorities exempted them from the usual ban on night flights.
On Friday, 150 of the 552 scheduled inbound and outbound flights at the airport were canceled over the IT outage, disrupting the plans of thousands of passengers at the start of the summer vacation season in the German capital.
German hospital slowly restoring its systems after widespread cancellations
BERLIN — The Schleswig-Holstein University Hospital in northern Germany, which on Friday canceled all elective surgery because of the global IT outage, said Saturday that it was gradually restoring its systems.
In a statement on its website, it forecast that operations at its two branches in Kiel and Luebeck would return to normal by Monday and that “elective surgery can take place as planned and our ambulances can return to service.”
Britain’s transport system still trying to get back on track
LONDON — Britain’s travel and transport industries are struggling to get back on schedule after the global security outage with airline passengers facing cancellations and delays on the first day of summer holidays for many school pupils.
Gatwick Airport said “a majority” of scheduled flights were expected to take off. Manchester Airport said passengers were being checked in manually and there could be last-minute cancellations.
The Port of Dover said it was seeing an influx of displaced air passengers, with hourlong waits to enter the port to catch ferries to France.
Meanwhile, Britain’s National Cyber Security Center warned people and businesses to be on the lookout for phishing attempts as “opportunistic malicious actors” try to take advantage of the outage.
The National Cyber Security Center’s former head, Ciaran Martin, said the worst of the crisis was over, “because the nature of the crisis is that it went very wrong very quickly. It was spotted quite quickly and essentially it was turned off.”
He told Sky News that some businesses would be able to get back to normal very quickly, but for sectors such as aviation it would take longer.
“If you’re in aviation, you’ve got people, planes and staffs all stranded in the wrong place… So we are looking at days. I’d be surprised if we’re looking at weeks.”
Germany airline expects most of its flights to run normally
BERLIN — Eurowings, a budget subsidiary of Lufthansa, said it expected to return to “largely scheduled” flight operations on Saturday.
On Friday, the global IT outage had forced the airline to cancel about 20% of its flights, mostly on domestic routes. Passengers were asked to take trains instead.
“Online check-in, check-in at the airport, boarding processes, booking and rebooking flights are all possible again,” the airline said Saturday on X. “However, due to the considerable extent of the global IT disruption there may still be isolated disruptions” for passengers, it said.
Delta Air Lines and its regional affiliates have canceled hundreds of flights
DALLAS — Delta Air Lines and its regional affiliates canceled more than a quarter of their schedule on the East Coast by midafternoon Friday, aviation data provider Cirium said.
More than 1,100 flights for Delta and its affiliates have been canceled.
United and United Express had canceled more than 500 flights, or 12% of their schedule, and American Airlines’ network had canceled 450 flights, 7.5% of its schedule.
Southwest and Alaska do not use the CrowdStrike software that led to the global internet outages and had canceled fewer than a half-dozen flights each.
Portland, Oregon, mayor declares an emergency over the outage
PORTLAND, Ore. — Mayor Ted Wheeler declared an emergency Friday after more than half of the city’s computer systems were affected by the global internet outage.
Wheeler said during a news conference that while emergency services calls weren’t interrupted, dispatchers were having to manually track 911 calls with pen and paper for a few hours. He said 266 of the city’s 487 computer systems were affected.
Border crossings into the US are delayed
SAN DIEGO — People seeking to enter the U.S. from both the north and the south found that the border crossings were delayed by the internet outage.
The San Ysidro Port of Entry was gridlocked Friday morning with pedestrians waiting three hours to cross, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.
Even cars with people approved for a U.S. Customers and Border Protection “Trusted Traveler” program for low-risk passengers waited up to 90 minutes. The program, known as SENTRI, moves passengers more quickly through customs and passport control if they make an appointment for an interview and submit to a background check to travel through customs and passport control more quickly when they arrive in the U.S.
Meanwhile, at the U.S.-Canada border, Windsor Police reported long delays at the crossings at the Ambassador Bridge and the Detroit-Windsor tunnel.
U.S. filings for unemployment benefits rose again last week and appear to be settling consistently at a slightly higher though still healthy level that the Federal Reserve has been aiming for.
Jobless claims for the week ending July 13 rose by 20,000 to 243,000 from 223,000 the previous week, the Labor Department reported Thursday. It’s the eighth straight week claims came in above 220,000. Before that stretch, claims had been below that number in all but three weeks so far in 2024.
Weekly unemployment claims are widely considered as representative of layoffs.
The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark borrowing rate 11 times beginning in March of 2022 in an attempt to extinguish the four-decade high inflation that shook the economy after it rebounded from the COVID-19 recession of 2020. The Fed’s intention was to cool off a red-hot labor market and slow wage growth, which it says can fuel inflation.
AP AUDIO: More Americans apply for jobless benefits as layoffs settle at higher levels in recent weeks
AP correspondent Shelley Adler reports filings for unemployment benefits have risen.
“The Fed asked to see more evidence of a cooling economy, and for the most part, they’ve gotten it,” said Chris Larkin, managing director of trading and investing at E-Trade. “Add today’s weekly jobless claims to the list of rate-cut-friendly data points.”
Few analysts expect the Fed to cut rates at its meeting later this month, however most are betting on a cut in September.
The total number of Americans collecting unemployment benefits rose after declining last week for the first time in 10 weeks. About 1.87 million Americans were collecting jobless benefits for the week of July 6, around 20,000 more than the previous week. That’s the most since November of 2021.
Continuing claims have been on the rise in recent months, suggesting that some Americans receiving unemployment benefits are finding it more challenging to land jobs.
And there have been job cuts in a range of sectors in recent months, from the agricultural manufacturer Deere, to media outlets like CNN, and elsewhere.
The four-week average of claims, which evens out some of the week-to-week volatility, rose by 1,000 to 234,750.
Strong consumer demand and a resilient labor market has helped to avert a recession that many economists forecast during the extended flurry of rate hikes. As inflation continues to ease, the Fed’s goal of a soft-landing — bringing down inflation without causing a recession and mass layoffs — appears within reach.
While the labor market remains historically healthy, recent government data suggest some weakening.
The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.1% in June, despite the fact that America’s employers added 206,000 jobs.
Job postings in May rose slightly to 8.1 million, however, April’s figure was revised lower to 7.9 million, the first reading below 8 million since February 2021.
Darden Restaurants is adding Tex-Mex to the menu.
The parent company of Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse, Yard House and other chains, said Wednesday it’s buying Chuy’s for approximately $605 million.
Darden said it will acquire all outstanding shares of Chuy’s for $37.50 per share. Those shares closed at $25.27 apiece on Wednesday, then soared past $37 in after-hours trading once the deal was announced. Darden shares fell 1% in after-hours trading.
Darden said the boards of Darden and Chuy’s have unanimously approved the acquisition. The deal is expected to close later this year, if it’s approved by Chuy’s shareholders.
Chuy’s Holdings Inc. was founded in Austin, Texas, in 1982. It now operates 101 restaurants in 15 states and has 7,400 employees. It’s known for its eclectic decor and fresh food, including handmade tortillas and sauces.
Like Darden, Chuy’s owns and operates all of its restaurants. Darden President and CEO Rick Cardenas said Chuy’s is a differentiated brand with strong growth potential that will expand Darden’s dining options.
Darden, based in Orlando, Florida, operates more than 1,900 restaurants and has 190,000 employees. It also owns Ruth’s Chris Steak House, Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen, The Capital Grille, Seasons 52, Eddie V’s and Bahama Breeze.
“Based on our criteria for adding a brand to the Darden portfolio, we believe Chuy’s is an excellent fit that supports our winning strategy,” Cardenas said in a statement.
Chuy’s Chairman, CEO and President Steven Hislop said the acquisition will accelerate Chuy’s business goals and expand the brand to more communities.
The deal comes as both restaurant companies have been struggling with a downturn in customer traffic due to consumer concerns about inflation.
In Darden’s fiscal fourth quarter, which ended May 26, same-store sales — or sales at restaurants open at least a year — were flat compared to the prior year. Chuy’s same-store sales were down 5% in its first quarter, which ended March 31.
Investment bank Jefferies downgraded shares for both restaurant chains earlier this month, saying they’re being squeezed by price promotions at fast-food chains like McDonald’s as well as at casual dining peers like Chili’s and Applebee’s.
