Amy Tarkington’s son was 2 months old when she and her husband moved from Houston to Austin last year.
The family wasn’t sure what they were going to do about childcare. Everywhere they looked had a waitlist. Then Tarkington heard about nanny sharing in a Facebook group and made an inquiry to Drew Giovannoli of Village Childcare, an Austin startup that matches nannies with families interested in sharing a child care provider.
“We met one family, and we really hit it off,” Tarkington said.
Their child was the same age, and the parents had similar approaches to raising children. They shared a nanny for several months — until the nanny moved away.
Tarkington and her family found nanny-sharing to be a perfect solution. Their son enjoyed the benefit of socialization, and the cost of child care was split with the other family. Tarkington said her family remains close to the nanny and the other family.
“She was so special to us,” Tarkington said of the nanny. “She still is. She’s always going to be a part of this family. The same thing with the other family. We became very close and tight-knit. The other mom was a first-time mom too, and both of us were a little bit older. She was anxious when I was calm and vice versa. We kind of leaned on each other because neither of us knew what we were doing.”
Village Childcare formally launched May 25. Giovannoli, the co-founder and CEO, said the company began as a passion project.
Like Tarkington, Giovannoli and his wife ran into trouble finding child care. They started searching when she was four months pregnant. Daycare centers were full, and the cost of a nanny was out of reach.
His family found another set of parents willing to share a nanny.
“We had a same-age child come to our house every day,” Giovannoli said.
Village Childcare customers start with logistics — when they need child care to begin and their location.
“We match families first based on a start date, hours and locations,” Giovannoli said. “Then we make introductions and find out if they have the same parenting style.”
Participating families talk about expectations such as what happens when a child is ill, days off and food preferences.
Right now, parents are especially interested in how people are responding to the coronavirus pandemic, Giovannoli said, asking questions about workplaces, social distancing and mask-wearing.
“Everybody has a different level of comfort,” he said. “We provide materials around CDC guidelines and want to make sure families feel comfortable with each other.”
Village Childcare vets nannies, running background checks and checking references, Giovannoli said. Nannies are employees of the families, not Village Childcare.
Giovannoli is most interested in nannies’ experience, their communication styles and their passion for children.
“You can tell when you talk to a nanny if they have a real passion for kids,” he said.
Village Childcare charges $250 for its services. Families pay a $50 deposit, and then when an agreement is signed, the final $200.
Nannies in Austin range from $15 to $21 an hour, Giovannoli said. A nanny share is about $8 to $11 an hour. A month of daycare in Austin is about $1,400 to $1600, and nanny-sharing works out to just slightly more than that, he said.
Village Childcare has matched more than 15 families so far, he said. Hundreds of families have signed up for information in the past month as people return to workplaces, he said.
The startup is self-funded at this point. Giovannoli said he and his co-founder went through Techstars' accelerator in 2015.
