Hello Everyone -
Thank you again to the Serial Marketers community for recommending Leslie to come on the show!
It’s always fun and exhilarating to speak with a startup founder whose purpose in starting her business was borne out of a personal need. Leslie, a mom, was looking for childcare in her local community. And she wasn’t necessarily looking for childcare that looked or seemed transactional. She wanted to connect with parents in her local, Brooklyn community. Perhaps creating a care circle where they can build relationships and watch each other’s children.
“At the same time, I was a mom. I was a single mom living in New York. I was busy and also stressed out trying to balance life and work. And so when I was between jobs, at one point I was taking care of my son. He was three at the time. I was trying to figure out how to entertain him, while getting a break and that’s sort of how Carefully it came to be. And I decided to kind of put my skills to use and solve my own progblems and kind of dig into it.” - Leslie Borrell, CEO & Founder, Carefully
Carefully is a mobile app that you can download to either your Android or Apple phone. It helps you find collaborative childcare wherever you live.
The COVID-19 pandemic forced Leslie and her team to quickly pivot to allow virtual connection to thrive.
“But during that time, I used Carefully also to survive. We started doing virtual events, we started thinking about how we could use Carefully to support ourselves and to connect with others. And so, it was a way to stay connected during that time. Ultimately, my vision for Carefully has always been to connect people in real life and not be a totally digital experience.”
The cooperative or collaborative nature of Carefully with it’s mission to make childcare equitable for all walks of life makes it stand out.
“Community-based care is really nothing new. It’s not about paid for care, to be honest. It’s about people coming together and exchanging childcare. So you think about, you’ve might’ve heard of a care circle, a babysitting co-op, swaps, those are some of the terms people use to talk about comunity-based care. It’s this spirit of mutualism where people give and receive and help each other out.”
With childcare becoming a $600B+ industry and bringing in more businesses and people working on solutions, innovation is bound to happen but Leslie cautions that any innovation should be rooted in what is right for a child.
“Now you see a lot more people coming into the space and creating which is great because you, know, more ideas breeds innovation. But I think also you have to be careful because you’re trying to create solutions that take care of our kids.”
Leslie and the team have recently launched a content arm — fixchildcare.com — of their business to educate and inform parents and caregivers. And in part, giving a platform for parents and caregivers to tell their stories and share!
Share this post