Day 1 conclusions

After completing 10 interviews with fathers and mothers of children under 5 years old, our hypothesis on the problem of childcare access and cost in D.C. was confirmed: Finding a childcare solution is a real, stressful, and costly challenge in the city.

We found several similarities and differences across our interviewees:

Similarities

• Everyone agreed that it is extremely difficult and expensive to find a childcare solution in D.C. and parents are concerned about this since the start contemplating having babies in the city.
• Everyone pointed out waitlists as a particularly painful, stressful, and frustrating process.
• While this is a challenge, everyone we spoke with had figured out a solution, many of them had gone through more than one childcare arrangement.
• Most interviewees were satisfied with their current childcare arrangement and wouldn't like to switch
• Almost none of the interviewees had completely dismissed any of the three main alternatives (daycare center, nanny, staying at home) although they all expressed a clear preference, which was consistently the current arrangement. The only parents who had been set on one alternative from the beginning were those who already had a considerably cheaper, convenient solution at hand (e.g. employer provided daycare at good cost and gave them priority, they had a relative at home who could take care of the child). Only a couple seriously considered relying on peers and take care of each other kids.
• Almost everyone we talked to said that they "were lucky" to find their current arrangement: a happy coincidence/encounter with a nanny, clicked with the daycare center admissions officer and skipped the waitlist, had a job that offered the option. 
• Most agreed that they might have the flexibility to arrange their work week schedule differently but would prefer not to do that.
• Everyone agreed that it would  be easier to take care of 3 children with another adult, than to take care of two children on their own.
• They mentioned some parenting/childcare online resource they used often but it was rarely the same resource.

Differences

• Current childcare arrangements and work schedules/conditions varied widely. 
• The path that each parent took to find their preferred arrangement varied widely.
• While the basic criteria for an acceptable childcare solution were standard (cost, safety, convenience), the specifics varied a lot: some would required certification for nannies, for others certification wasn't important as long as they had experience

Based on these findings, we reached the following conclusions:

• We are facing a real problem with great opportunities for improvement
• The solution that we had originally proposed would narrow our market too much and would require too many resources per customer
• Partners can figure it out, but the process of finding a solution is too stressful and chaotic.
• Our value proposition can be providing more control to parents on their search for a childcare solution
• Our solution has pivoted to a better system to manage childcare centers waitlists