Winnie has a new plan to help childcare centers scale care

Winnie was founded in 2016 by Anne Halsall and Sara Mauskopf and focused on solutions for parents.

The other solutions in the space have gone after the providers first and it has been difficult to get traction.

The startup wants to leverage its trust and comprehension in family needs to make the provider side better after years of aggregation demand from parents. Winnie Pro is a product that will help daycares scale their care. The service hopes to help the centers grow and manage their businesses.

It is simple to help smaller operations launch profiles, landing pages and aggregate information in one spot. Winnie says that over half of the 250,000 daycares and preschools on the Winnie platform don't have their own website, which is the only way that parents can find them. Winnie thinks it's possible to help customers who already have their own websites by giving them a landing page full of reviews, program details, education types, licensing information and verification.

Winnie Pro also includes help with marketing, enrolls, and even staffing.

The new plan means that the company, which has investment money from a number of companies, has an expanded business model. The company is currently working on a model in which it charges a monthly fee based on the capacity of the center.

Winnie raises $4 million to make parents’ lives easier

Winnie used to make money based on how many parents it sent to a center. The strategy worked well because Winnie experienced a surge in traffic, which led to 8x growth in revenue.

Pay-per-lead varies every month based on how many parents you are trying to care for.

The company is currently working on a model in which it charges a monthly fee based on the center's capacity to help businesses with marketing, enrolls and even staffing. Guidepost Montessori and Izzi are some of the earliest customers.

Winnie is the image credit.

She said it was not just about building back-end tools to help providers run their businesses more efficiently.

The company can now give advice to centers based on the demand it sees from parents, which is a natural evolution of the business model. Winnie could tell a business that parents in their geography are hungry for drop-in care and advise them to hire accordingly to increase revenue.

The new product was already validation from the fact that a simple marketplace connecting people to care isn't enough.

I think there was a part of us that wondered what if every employer just had a place to stay for their employees? There isn't one size that fits all. Employers are not helping solve the challenge for families in a real way.

It’s time for the VC community to stop overlooking the childcare industry