My wife and I had a co-working space in Austin called Poppy. It was a community-focused space for families. Parents had the freedom to work or hang out, and children could participate in early education opportunities led by teachers. Unfortunately, Covid hit and we had to close down. Feel free to reach out if I can be a resource in anyway.

Just saw this and thought this thread might find it interesting, Alexis Ohanian’s foundation just launched an initiative with financial support from Robin Hood for high-quality childcare access in NYC: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/776foundation_with-support-from-robin-hood-and-the-city-activity-6929887873185808384-FMCy

I am so excited to share that we have a possible concept in our Stage 1 company ideas to help us start chipping away at this monumental need! More coming soon. In the meantime, if you're someone in this space, plz reach out on here or send a DM. Let's get this ball rolling! 💪

Not just childcare, but quality early childhood education. Perhaps that’s implied in the “quality” aspect of the childcare, but our education system is the foundation of many lifelong inequities.

As a parent, I'd be thrilled to see childcare costs reduced (and I'm in Ohio, where the cost is low enough that I can't post it w/o angering my SV friends.)

Some random thoughts:

• When I was young, my mother did a 3/2 split with a friend (Mom would watch us for 3 days, friend for 2, next week mom for 2, friend for 3). Could there be a "timeshare" model - especially w/ far more people able to work remote?
• What about an AirBnB model of sorts? Many stay-at-home moms (I've only seen moms, though dads could easily as well) have created daycares at their home to supplement income while they watch their own child. Regulations are a major challenge here.

Problems:

• Scale is very difficult. Regulations limit the max kids per teacher. Even with high costs a typical daycare is a terrible business and - I'm told - most young kids are a loss-leader for the daycare to get you in for when the kid generates profit (3-5 ish years old)
• There are few things requiring higher trust than daycare... "will they teach my child?" "will they treat them well?", "what's happening right now?", etc.

I almost wonder if the key would be in major operational improvements/cost savings to the daycares and a "daycare in a box" service to help people get started quickly while being sure to pass all regulatory hurdles?