A Pair Of Social Entrepreneurs Start To Win In The Daycare Disruption Space

For me, at least in this space, even from the beginning, I knew that parts of it were against the odds, and so, what I mean by that, is if you know the category that I’m working within is childcare, it’s already an inherently margin challenged kind of category. What I mean by that, what parents are willing and able to pay for this kind of work, and... See more

Parenthood likewise forces an encounter with the illogic of the market: good fortune means getting to pay someone less than you make to do a job that’s harder and probably more important than your own. 

What we did with Poppy, the mission was to build the modern village. How I envisioned that was to find and vet really amazing childcare providers, and then connect them to families when they had gaps in childcare. We started that in my neighborhood in Seattle about three and a half years ago, grew it, and continued to build it out as kind of the te... See more

maybe we could do Poppy Pool, which is pair parents, or pair kids together and get a little bit of leverage out there, and make it cheaper. I thought we could use stay at home parents as another tier, because they’re people that live within the community, and so maybe you won’t see the same amount of turn. While I still had these experiments and hy... See more

The tech industry is built on the venture capital model where hockey stick growth and selling to a larger company or going public are markers of success. But the traditional VC model does not leave much room for startups that might not be the next unicorn but still generate revenue — just not the type of returns investors are looking for.