‘Our Kerry Packer moment’: How an Australian couple bought back their business for a profit

Legend has it that just three years after media baron Kerry Packer sold Channel Nine for a record $1 billion to colourful business tycoon Alan Bond in 1987, Packer bought back the entire business for a quarter of the price.

Delia Timms and Jeff Bonnes had a “let’s start and see” approach to starting their babysitting website.Their tale began in 2005 when the couple, who had two young children, were struggling to find a babysitter. Timms was a speech pathologist and Bonnes worked in IT consulting. “Jeff is a thinker. And he reads a lot,” said Bonnes. “He is quite visionary - without sounding like a complete w--ker.”Timms and Bonnes opted for a subscription model to generate revenue and relied on Google advertising to appear in relevant searches, bypassing traditionalTimms said in 2006 that within the first 11 months, more than 1800 parents subscribed, complete with a database of more than 2000 babysitters. Today, the site has 9000 nannies and babysitters in major cities around Australia.

“Findababysitter.com.au wasn’t a core part of the company’s business strategy,” a spokesperson from Nine said. It didn’t come without challenges. In 2021, after a cyberattack hit Nine Entertainment, Bonnes and his team of freelancers had to piece their website back together from memory and the digital internet archive WayBack Machine.Within five weeks they relaunched with a simple goal: to return as market leader.

“As much as all the technology has changed, people with young kids still need help. That’s not going to change, right?” Bonnes said.

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