To ask for opinions on this business idea

[CountryMummy1]

I am now a stay at home mum. My husband works in FE and his job is not secure so we are looking at trying to start our own business. As we both have a background in education then we would like to venture into this area.

I have come up with the idea of emergency childcare. I know that there is a large national website that does just this but none of my friends have had an success with it in our area.
My idea is to start an emergency childcare business that really steps in when you need them. Using current part-time/ex teachers, nannies, nurses etc. Vet them myself and only take the very good ones. I am highly qualified in the area of Early Years and Education so I think I know what to look for.

We would offer emergency care in your own home or ours at very short notice so if your child wakes up unwell and you simply cannot take the day off work (it happens!) then someone could come round to look after them. Other situations could be if the childminder is ill, nursery is shut, family emergency etc.

I'm only just starting to think about it but any advice/opinions would be welcomed. We would hopefully start local and then branch out.

Sounds a good idea, but think it through very carefully. You'd need to employ(or engage on a s/e basis), someone:

with own transport at hand, in good, reliable nick of which they have sole use.
who is willing to be available at short/ immediate notice.
who has expetience of children and willing to undergo or be in possession of an enhanced dbs check.
who is prepared to work for (with the greatest of respect) a fairly low wage.

That's just for starters. It looks great on paper and is the sort of service that many parents would bite your hand off for, but I think the reality of running this service as a profit-making business is unrealistic.

Could you perhaps do something similar on a non-emergency basis, using yourselves as labour?

As a working parent, with no family for 200 miles I would pay hood money for this type of situation:

6am -,realise child is unwell, but would be huge inconvenience with big cost/contractual impacts to reschedule meeting at say 9.30 am.

To get to meting I'd need to leave at 8.15.
If you could get me someone by 7.45-8, I'd pay.
And I'm a bit rural, so I guess that person would need to be mobilised by about 7am.

Is this really practical?

BikeRunSki - how much would you pay? Is there a limit? £15 an hour, £20? What about any membership fee, £100 a year?

Would parents really pay what it might cost to provide this service?

You would have to have quite a large pool of people, with no guarantee of income, prepared to work at the drop of a hat, qualified and fit to look after children...

You wouldn't have any stable income, yet you would be relying on it for both of your incomes?!

Sounds like a nightmare to me.

Why not just operate as Childminders & offer the service yourselves to either take on ad-hoc children (you'd need to watch ratios obviously) or for one of you to go to someone else's home to mind their children and have a couple of people who are 'assistants' in your business to work as and when needed?

Agree with vestandknickers. Can't imagine that a vomiting child or parent would be happy with a random stranger turning up? Also - who would want a job that exposed you to illnesses so frequently without the nursing training?

Some City firms have a pool of emergency nannies so staff do not have to be off. You could market to companies too not just individual employees.

We have had all kinds of useful people care for your children in our house just as good as any qualified nanny or child minder and that has included older women who are widowed or live alone, have car, mostly don't work; students or sixth formers in holidays or times when they are off. Obviously we only used people with experience and then regularly used them so it always worked out well. You could also introduce two parents with their own nanny each to each other in a sort of pool with an arrangement that if one nanny is off sick the other covers and you get a commission.

You will need to look at the new nanny tax break rules which are not in force yet which require the nanny to be registered if the parents want the tax relief.

Can I ask what you would pay per hour if we were able to get a well qualified person to you in about 1-2 hours??

OP: Start backwards.
How much money do you need to live on per month, including all bills.

Divide that by the amount of per hour profit you would get from the people working for you.

If you need 2,000 per month and you are planning to make 8.00 per hour profit after paying your staff, then you need to provide 250 hours per month of care.

It may well eventually work, but you need another income to start with.

Also you may need several people manning the phones between 6.00am - 8.00am.

My husband will carry on with work, hopefully for the foreseeable future and we can manage on his wage. I am up with the children from about 6am so could man the phones. I also intend to eventually employ someone in another timeline e.g. The US who would be available to take the overnight emails/skypes and start contacting potential nannies so the info is there when they wake up.

Timeline=timezone

The first google link on an emergency childcare search charges £10 an hour plus tax, so about £15, plus monthly fee of £10, so you would be unlikely to be able to charge more
I don't know how they manage to make any money on that basis though.

No, you are right. It's a non starter. Decent staff would be at least £10 an hour so to make anything we would have to change at least £16-18 an hour.

I'll have to think of something else.

Thanks anyway everyone, much appreciated x

Just seen that you've dismissed this idea, but I guess I'd pay £15-20/HR. Not sure about membership fee.

Maybe combine this with evening babysitting/ week end childcare ie: childcare outside the conventional 7.30am - 6pm.

In my experience people who run this kind of bussiness are trained and ready to step in and do the supply themselves, they also have few family members or friends who are trained and ready to step in.
Otherwise you run the risk of having a client but not someone who can do the job in such short notice.

what if all your emergency childcare providers were not available? I mean if lots of people needed emergency childcare and you couldn't meet demand?

I think most people already have emergency childcare in the form of friends and family and therefore sorry I don't see it working.

Looking more into that company, they started with a nursery supply agency, so they probably have the size to provide full time / minimum hours wages to staff, so can pay less. They also have minimum 4 hour terms and full day for an emergency nursey placement

I think Sitters has got this pretty much sewn up, OP.

I have on occasion used the type of service you are suggesting, but I suspect I am a rarity as I am self employed and can turnover £1500 in a day. So it is worth my while to pay an emergency nanny £200 for 8 hours. I am the only person I know who uses this kind of service.
I now have someone DD and I both like she is fab and will also cook me a meal in among childcare as she recognises that when I call her I have no spare capacity left.

I have used an emergency nanny I was injured and couldn't move to look after kids. Was a one off for three days, through an agency she was available as bet

BEtween jobs, problem for you is that you will presumably not be able to guarantee anybody work so are likely to have problems getting staff and therefore customers. As an add on to a normal childcare agency it could work

And I don't think you could man phones while looking after kids. You may be taking bookings from 5 people thmen need to call 15 nannies to find 5 available then call the 5 families back. That is 20 calls at same time as getting kids ready. Not going to work you would need someone to do that fir you or one if the nannies to get kids ready and take them to school

I agree with Heels that it wouldn't work, particularly when you factor in families refusing to have certain babysitters and babysitters refusing to go to certain families.

Sitters seems to have a computer program which contacts a number of sitters who live nearest the family and sends out a request - whoever replies first will get the job. Obviously you wouldn't be sent a request if you were unsuitable or had refused to work for that family.

It's a big operation if you want to make any money. If you keep it small, you won't make money.