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

Mackey and Szymanski initially focused on building a platform to support providers on the business side of in-home care, such as marketing and billing. But they also wanted to ensure high-quality care, which led them to a franchise model, Szymanski said. They took inspiration, in part, from the example of Great Harvest Bread Co., a bakery chain tha... See more

But disrupting the daycare system has turned out to be harder than it looked, with several of the startups hitting a basic problem: the platform model that is one of Silicon Valley’s go-to solutions may not work as well in daycare. “This is not your typical tech company where you can kind of fake it and make it,” Selke said. “You’re talking about c... See more

Millions of families struggle to find high-quality daycare, even though they’re willing to pay high prices: on average, more than $9,500 a year, according to a 2016 report. It’s an opportunity entrepreneurs and venture capitalists have lately picked up on, with the media paying plenty of attention.