In 2001, Sittercity created the first national platform for finding child care online. While this was major progress, technology has come a long way since our founding. Today, we all rely on on-demand services like Lyft and GrubHub or marketplaces like Airbnb to make our everyday lives easier. Yet when it comes to helping families manage their daily needs, modern technology is seriously under-leveraged.
This is changing, fast: as over 1 million millennials become parents every year, and on-demand use continues to grow, a new ecosystem has begun to support the “connected family.” Young companies like Pearachute, Sparkl, Wiseappleand Cozi are making it easier to do everything from finding activities to managing busy schedules. And when it comes to child care, Sittercity is busy reinventing the category we created. Already, 68% of our families use their mobile phone or tablet to find care, and prefer to pay their sitters by credit card, Paypal or Venmo (Sittercity July 2017 survey).
So we’re building a service that seamlessly connects families with their favorite sitters, at every step and on any device — from the initial sitter search to ongoing booking, payment and communications.
The impact on our customer’s lives is significant. By helping parents match with the right sitters more quickly and making it easier to organize care when they need it, we’re helping them do more of what makes them happy — socially, personally or professionally. According to a recent Google study, 75% of millennial parents say they have continued to pursue their personal passions since having children, which is significantly higher than Gen X. Research also shows that spending money on time-saving services like Sittercity contributes more to individual happiness than spending on consumer goods.
And parents aren’t the only ones who win when it comes to better online child care.
For sitters, our platform will make it easier to find as much work as they want — when they want it. That means more funds and greater flexibility to pursue the things that make them happy, whether career, education or simply fun.
For children, great child care can mean exposure to people with a wider range of interests and backgrounds, who love spending quality time with kids. Not to mention, having parents with more fulfilling, well-rounded lives can make for a happier household all around.
And for society as a whole, we believe that applying modern technology to child care can unlock greater economic potential. At home, women do 2.6 times the amount of unpaid care and domestic work than their male counterparts. That’s often on top of a long work day, where women continue to face disparities in advancement and compensation. By providing women with sustainable child care, our team is making it possible for busy moms to say “yes” to more career opportunity. More women in the workforce means more economic value all around, and more jobs for child care workers across the country.
When it comes to making technology work for the connected family and all the positive impact that will have, Sittercity is proud to be one of the companies leading the charge.
