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Daycare Center and Family Home Forum>Considering a Move
kelsey's kids 09:34 AM 01-16-2014
I love doing home daycre so much I am expecting it to be a life long career, but my husband and I are considering moving. Do you have any advice on opening a home daycare in a new town? We are moving from a small rual town of less than 10000 to a large city of around 100000. We dont know anybody and have only visited the area but really like it. I am concerned that because I dont know anybody I won't get much or any business
BrooklynM 10:04 AM 01-16-2014
Do you have small kids of your own? A great place to meet other parents are the schools, if your kids are in school. If your kids are toddlers, check out places on Yelp for Mommy groups and meet ups. If you don't have kids at all, then maybe a church, a yoga class, maybe take some sort of night class that other Moms might take?
Are you going to be in the same state that you are in now?
Are you going to be in the same state that you are in now?
jenboo 10:39 AM 01-16-2014
I lived in san diego and when i made the decision that a home daycare was my career choice I started looking into it more. I knew a few people who ran them and the market was saturated! In my area, there was one on every street, if not more!
My husband and I made the decision to move to Las Vegas (my sister and her kids live here, along with my dad and grandma). My sister was looking for a daycare for her kids and couldnt find anything good. I followed craigslist and saw that there was really a need for quality licensed home daycares.
A yearish later we packed up and moved. We purchased a house and it was so nice getting to look for one that would work great with a home daycare.
I opened my daycare after i nannied for a little while. Those families come to me now, along with my sister. I also found families on the local facebook childcare pages.
So here are my tips:
-start researching the market (check craigslist, and search for facebook pages)
-maybe call around to see what daycares are offering
-When we were looking for a place to live we took the freeways and schools into consideration to make sure it was a good location
-search care.com to see if there are a lot of people looking for childcare/nannies just to see if there is a need.
-i hung fliers around the college campus..i couldn't find many places that allow fliers.
My husband and I made the decision to move to Las Vegas (my sister and her kids live here, along with my dad and grandma). My sister was looking for a daycare for her kids and couldnt find anything good. I followed craigslist and saw that there was really a need for quality licensed home daycares.
A yearish later we packed up and moved. We purchased a house and it was so nice getting to look for one that would work great with a home daycare.
I opened my daycare after i nannied for a little while. Those families come to me now, along with my sister. I also found families on the local facebook childcare pages.
So here are my tips:
-start researching the market (check craigslist, and search for facebook pages)
-maybe call around to see what daycares are offering
-When we were looking for a place to live we took the freeways and schools into consideration to make sure it was a good location
-search care.com to see if there are a lot of people looking for childcare/nannies just to see if there is a need.
-i hung fliers around the college campus..i couldn't find many places that allow fliers.
kelsey's kids 11:12 AM 01-16-2014
Ye it is in the same state it is the capital city. I dont have any kids of my own. The area has about 25 posts a day of dacre opeongs in Craigslist so that makes me nervous
melilley 11:12 AM 01-16-2014
I moved from a small town to a city and opened my fcc. There are a lot of fcc's in the city that I live in and I didn't know anyone who needed care, but I filled up within 1 1/2 - 2 months! That's without referrals from anyone! I have only been open a year and have gotten many referrals from my current clients as well as from people who have interviewed with me and referred someone to me! (almost all for babies, but I can only take so many).
All I did was advertise on CL and all of my clients came from seeing my ad. I still have the same clients from when I opened!
I don't know if I just got lucky or what, but I didn't have a problem finding people.
All I did was advertise on CL and all of my clients came from seeing my ad. I still have the same clients from when I opened!
I don't know if I just got lucky or what, but I didn't have a problem finding people.
Evansmom 11:27 AM 01-16-2014
Can you contact licensing in that area and find out where the other home daycares are located? Also start looking at CL in that area too to get a feel for the daycare business and openings.
I come from a long line of self employed people and my dad who's been successfully self employed for over 30 years says to always keep the eye on your competition and what they are charging/doing/offering. Then you can decide from there what you will offer to be competitive.
I come from a long line of self employed people and my dad who's been successfully self employed for over 30 years says to always keep the eye on your competition and what they are charging/doing/offering. Then you can decide from there what you will offer to be competitive.
jenboo 11:31 AM 01-16-2014
Also, keep an eye on craigslist posts. I noticed that in my area, its the same 4-5 providers that post like 10 postings in a row multiple times a day. Obviously, i wouldnt consider those people competition. There probably is a reason why they have openings 
kelsey's kids 11:41 AM 01-16-2014
I just looked up the city and there is over 100 licensed daycares in the area.
kelsey's kids 11:45 AM 01-16-2014
Here it took about 3 months to get full and most of my first clients were people I knew or were friends with. So I am just nervous that with so many daycares that it will take a long time to fill up.
Evansmom 11:52 AM 01-16-2014
Originally Posted by kelsey's kids:
Here it took about 3 months to get full and most of my first clients were people I knew or were friends with. So I am just nervous that with so many daycares that it will take a long time to fill up.
But the population is higher so there are more people looking for care. Here it took about 3 months to get full and most of my first clients were people I knew or were friends with. So I am just nervous that with so many daycares that it will take a long time to fill up.
You could find a niche market that's not developed in that area and make a killing! Uh, figuratively speaking of course!
melilley 11:54 AM 01-16-2014
Originally Posted by Evansmom:
But the population is higher so there are more people looking for care.
You could find a niche market that's not developed in that area and make a killing! Uh, figuratively speaking of course!
But the population is higher so there are more people looking for care.
You could find a niche market that's not developed in that area and make a killing! Uh, figuratively speaking of course!
There are over 100 here as well and I didn't have a problem. But I have to say, it's hard to fill 2.5 and over spots here!
kelsey's kids 12:30 PM 01-16-2014
Originally Posted by Evansmom:425767:
You could find a niche market that's not developed in that area and make a killing! Uh, figuratively speaking of course!
Yea that isnkinda what is was doing my my current town. I was offering 24 hours but just switched last month to only over night and days so I have evenings off. I dont want to go back to that.Originally Posted by kelsey's kids:
Here it took about 3 months to get full and most of my first clients were people I knew or were friends with. So I am just nervous that with so many daycares that it will take a long time to fill up.
But the population is higher so there are more people looking for care. Here it took about 3 months to get full and most of my first clients were people I knew or were friends with. So I am just nervous that with so many daycares that it will take a long time to fill up.
You could find a niche market that's not developed in that area and make a killing! Uh, figuratively speaking of course!
_Dana_ 12:42 PM 01-16-2014
Other posters have given some great information! Network, network, network before your move and as soon as you get there.
Contact licensing and look into city ordinances that may affect getting the child care off the ground and running.
Also, check out the city government website. Somewhere they probably have a list of top employers in the city. If possible, try to get a house near one of the biggest employers to make it convenient for the employees to drop their children off to care. You can look at your State's licensing website to get the addresses of child cares in the area. Is it over saturated? Once you get set up, ask to speak to HR of those companies and see if you can leave some business cards and a flyer in case anyone needs child care in the company. HR in various companies might also be able to tell you about some of the unique needs their employees may have. I did this with the local hospital and have had calls from it.
Join all of the local mom's FB groups and get permission to post your flyer on their page. If you have kids, attend the meetings and get-togethers to network and spread the word on your business. Tell everyone. They may not need care tomorrow, but might need it next week, next month or next year. And you never know who they might refer. :-)
I wish you the best of luck!! Let us know how the transition goes!
Contact licensing and look into city ordinances that may affect getting the child care off the ground and running.
Also, check out the city government website. Somewhere they probably have a list of top employers in the city. If possible, try to get a house near one of the biggest employers to make it convenient for the employees to drop their children off to care. You can look at your State's licensing website to get the addresses of child cares in the area. Is it over saturated? Once you get set up, ask to speak to HR of those companies and see if you can leave some business cards and a flyer in case anyone needs child care in the company. HR in various companies might also be able to tell you about some of the unique needs their employees may have. I did this with the local hospital and have had calls from it.
Join all of the local mom's FB groups and get permission to post your flyer on their page. If you have kids, attend the meetings and get-togethers to network and spread the word on your business. Tell everyone. They may not need care tomorrow, but might need it next week, next month or next year. And you never know who they might refer. :-)
I wish you the best of luck!! Let us know how the transition goes!
Evansmom 12:46 PM 01-16-2014
Originally Posted by kelsey's kids:
Yea that isnkinda what is was doing my my current town. I was offering 24 hours but just switched last month to only over night and days so I have evenings off. I dont want to go back to that.
Yeah I don't blame you. Those kind of hours would be so hard!Yea that isnkinda what is was doing my my current town. I was offering 24 hours but just switched last month to only over night and days so I have evenings off. I dont want to go back to that.
Well, if I were you I'd call around or email to some of the daycares and get ideas on what they offer and then come up with something original to the area that doesn't involve so many hours of operation. Maybe all organic? Or art based preschool? Or something that plays on your personal likes and strengths. Like say for instance you love theater and music so your niche market could be offering a preschool that involves a lot of music and plays
just an example.STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) or STEaM (all those others but adding arts) is really really big now. If I were to do daycare again is surely do one that advertises STEM activities.