Did you know the average family spends 15 years living on juggle street?
It’s not just a matter of getting through the toddler years, where day care centres can provide care across the full work day. The juggle can get even more difficult during the school years for working parents, with schools inconveniently ending a couple of hours short of the standard work day.
David James knows this first hand. The founder of five startups — who survived the dotcom bubble from Silicon Valley — has children at both ends of the spectrum: two toddlers, and two teenagers.
So when he saw how difficult it was for his teenage girls to find local babysitting jobs, and how difficult it was to find local babysitters for his ‘second set’ of toddlers, he had a bright idea for his sixth startup.
Why not provide the technology to connect the two?
So he launched Juggle Street, a community network that aims to solve multiple “parenting pain points” associated with juggling kids, especially in the after school hours, where families can exchange recommendations and connect with carers.
First launched at his children’s school, the user base has grown to more than 6000, split between carers and users, and is expanding rapidly.
We spoke to James to find out more about how the idea came about, and how he manages his own busy work schedule.
Where did the idea for Juggle St come from? Do you remember a particular lightbulb moment?
I am a father of four and over the past 10 years I was amazed how difficult it was for my teenage girls to find local babysitting jobs. After the arrival of my “second set” of toddlers I was equally amazed how difficult it was to find local babysitters. Over the past 3 decades there has been a fundamental shift in the structure of our workforce in Australia. Families where both mum & dad work has become the norm. In 1991 55% of women returned to work after their first child, by 2011 this had increased to 65% according to ABS stats, and this trend is continuing unabated. With this shift the demand for local babysitters just keeps increasing as working mums are being forced to outsource more and more of their childcare needs. Busy parents and babysitters DO live on the same streets, we just don’t meet each other anymore. This is where Juggle Street comes in!
Why did you launch at a school?
You might think the daycare years result in the most juggling, but at least daycare centres are open from 8am to 6pm and both parents can maintain their busy work commitments. The biggest Parent Pain Points are encountered at Primary School, the 9am to 3pm timetable is a logistical nightmare for families where both parents have a full time job. Primary Schools have always operated from 9am to 3pm, but the structure of our economy has changed placing huge demands on after school care. Despite the best efforts of school principals and P&C Committees, it has been impossible for many Primary Schools to keep up with the demand for after school care. There are stories of mum’s sleeping over-night on camp-beds outside school to be first in the queue when after-school care spots are allocated.
We launched Juggle Street at Clovelly Public School, where my youngest daughter Charlie is attending Kindy. Since then our user base has grown to nearly 6,000, split approx. 60% helpers and 40% families. Growth on the helper side of the market has proven very viral, and we have focussed our marketing activities on working mums. We have experimented with lots of on-the-ground marketing events, the most successful have been around Primary Schools. Events have ranged from organizing sausage sizzles, trivia nights, and sponsoring the annual fete’s, using George & Erica Gregan (Juggle Street brand ambassadors) to run family sporting clinics.
How do you and your wife juggle big working schedules with raising kids?
Like many families where both parents work, Fiona and I have become expert jugglers. We have used a mixture of in-home care, such a long-day nannies and babysitters for out-of-normal-hours situations. But we have never had a live-in au pair. We have combined this with centre-based care (private companies and community based) 2 to 4 days a week from about the age of 9 months. In addition, Juggle Street has really helped us meet our neighbours and access a whole new pool of helpers. After we launched the site last November Juggle Street connected us with an 18 year old girl living on our street, we had been living around the corner from each other for over 10 years and we had never met!
Juggle Street has also made the occasional “date night” far more affordable. For example, if Fiona and I are going out on a Wednesday night to the restaurant at the top of the road, leaving at 7.30 and returning at 10, Fiona will post this job to half a dozen local 16 year olds at $15 an hour, if we are going out at the weekend and coming home after midnight she will post the job to a different set of older babysitters, who have their own cars, and set the price at $22 an hour.
How old are your kids?
Ashley is 20 and has just finished her second year at Melbourne University. Madison is 17 and has recently completed her HSC. Charlie is 6 and she is about to “graduate” from Kindy at primary school. Riley is 4 and goes to daycare 3 days a week.
This is your sixth startup, what else have you founded?
Juggle Street is my 6th Startup, and I have also “finished-up” most of them! I started an online food company called SandwichDirect.com in 1999, a world-first concept whereby users could build a virtual sandwich online and have it delivered to their desk within an hour. The Channel 10 news headline was “from modem to mouth in less than 60 minutes”! I relocated the company to Silicon Valley in 2000, and over the next 5 years I survived the dot.com bubble, the dot.com crash, and the financial fall-out from 9/11. I returned home to Sydney in 2005 but remained on the board of the sandwich company until the end of 2013 when we had a successful exit by which time the company was selling a US$100 million of sandwiches every year.