“It’s a rare person who can take care of hearts while also taking care of business.”- Do you feel you can take care of innocent hearts? If you think you can, then there is a great scope of opportunity for you.
In today’s fast-paced life working parents don’t get quality time to spend with their kids. In the US around 4.8 million children are attended by daycare centers. This situation arises when it becomes challenging to get an eligible nanny or a babysitter with proper childcare knowledge. Working moms depend a lot on this organization that helps them to carry on with their careers. In the US, starting up a daycare business is a profitable one as 51% of people live in childcare deserts. Above all, this offers you a fulfilling journey by spending a lot of time with kids with a financial reward. In this article, we will guide you to learn how to start a daycare business to acquire success in this venture.
Why start a Daycare Center?
Pacing up with the tantrums of the toddlers may seem daunting at first, but it is incredibly rewarding. There are no definite guidelines or blueprint for achieving success in this business other than love. Your love for kids or desire to serve the working moms of your community can only push you forward onto this venture. Not just working parents but several single mothers are extremely benefited by these daycare centers. Even though you come across numerous hurdles in this business, at the end of the day the smile on a mother’s face is all that you expect. They rely on you with their little ones and you love spending time with them, this is enough to get you a reason to start a Daycare center.
Benefits of a Daycare Business
If you love spending time with kids then a daycare business is perfect for you, despite the struggles involved. But there is more to it! The list of business advantages is on multiple levels. You get to learn a lot when you set up this business from scratch.
Check out what are the most likely advantages before you learn how to start a daycare business!
- Financial support: If you are a stay-at-home mom and have a toddler, you can set up this business for some additional money-making. This maximizes your earning potential without relying on other paychecks.
- Personal child-care: If you want to get into something productive while you are taking care of your child, then this business is perfect for you. You can focus on your child while you run your daycare. At the same time, your munchkins get to socialize with other kids as well. Isn’t that amazing!
- Tax deduction: This business can help you cut down a lot of your expenses on taxes. As a business owner, you can include money invested on house rent (for in-home daycare), vehicles, and other child care supplies. This saves a lot of money on tax deductions.
- Emotionally Rewarding: It is hard to ignore the fact that this business gives you immense emotional pleasure. Spending time with kids teaches you to gain patience and hold your temper at hard times. Moreover, you get flexible working hours rather than traditional jobs.
How to open a daycare center?
Starting a business from scratch is always a learning experience. You gain on some part while you lose on something else. To guide you better to learn how to start a daycare business. we have listed a few steps.
1. Daycare Licensing Requirements:
Taking care of children isn’t an easy task, especially when they belong to others. You may run into legal issues if you don’t have a legitimate license for this business. To give a safe start to your business contact your state’s Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), local child care licensing agency, or go through the regulation online. Additionally, you need to have a CPR certification, driving record, and various other documents to ensure your eligibility for this business.
2. Childhood Education Classes:
Though you need not be professional in this sector, additional knowledge would be a big plus for you. It is difficult to understand or decode a child’s psychology. So to deal with them efficiently and provide the right kind of support, you need to train yourself. You can either go for offline or online courses to provide better child care services. These would help you stand out from the crowd and satisfy parents so that they keep coming back.
3. Proper Business Planning:
Whether small or big business plans are essential that help you set up effective business strategies. Set up tangible goals to structure your business. Outline your services, formulate business operations, create a budget, and hire staff, and all these require proper planning. Bring about services that would help your daycare center be noticeable and special among other competitors.
4. Suitable Location for your Daycare
Getting a perfect location for a daycare center is most important. You can get multitudes of options online, where schools, churches, and other recreational centers rent spaces for such purposes on a monthly fee. Moreover, your location should be feasible and easily accessible, it should be children-friendly and should not breach any legal guidelines.
5. Insurance
Insurance is a must for running a daycare center to protect the children you have accepted to take care of. Proper insurance would keep your business safe from legal issues that may include child safety, property coverage, workers’ compensation, and others.
6. Gathering Funds and grants
Setting up a daycare center involves various requirements that involve a good amount of money. To cover up the initial cost you can take up loans or go for community funding. Expenses in setting up this business involve expenditure in renting a space, licensing, childcare and cleaning supplies, play equipment, art supplies, food, transportation, etc. If you can build up an impressive daycare setup you can easily attract fundraisers.
7. Prepare your Daycare Center
Once you have fixed the location of your daycare center, prepare it up for supporting child care. Cleanse and sanitize the place to ensure hygiene. Layout plays equipment properly and keeps things arranged to avoid any kind of accidents.
8. Draft your business contract
Having a solid contract can save you from unnecessary legal hassles. Draft your contract according to your business requirements that should include all the terms and conditions, such as:
- Payment policies
- Child pick-up policies
- Services
- Child health care policies, etc.
9. Research on Tax
Well, research on tax credits is essential. If you look up an in-house daycare center you can easily waive off certain tax deductions. So research more on this before you decide to open up a daycare center.
10. Business Recruitments
Initially, you may not need help, but later on, you would feel the need of hiring helping hands. Look for eligible and qualified staff who can manage your business starting from taking care of children, teaching (in some cases), accounting, etc.
11. Marketing and business promotion
A strong marketing strategy and business promotion are essential to highlight your services. You can use flyers or posters as an offline mode, and implement google ads or Facebook posts for online promotion. This way you can draw more clients. You can even go for creating a strong website and official Facebook page through which one can reach out to you at their convenience.
12. Top-quality Services
To make your daycare an obvious choice for working parents or single moms, enhance your service quality. Make it attractive, hire excellent and enthusiastic staff, ensure utmost child safety and implement engaging activities. This way you get more positive reviews on social media platforms and parents keep coming back.
13. Skilfully managing Business finances
Efficient management of business finance can lead you to the top. Track your revenues and expenses smartly to avoid unnecessary expenditures and losses. With Billbooks you can ease up your accounting much faster. Send your invoices just by a click and keep all your transactions at your fingertips.
Common FAQs:
If you cannot afford rented space or feel comfortable setting up an in-house daycare center, you can go for it. There are various options at multiple levels that allow grants for in-house daycare. Moreover, you can utilize the left-out space of your home to indulge in something productive.
The average cost for a budding childcare center is around $10,000 to $50,000. The amount may vary for in-house centers or rented spaces. If you cannot afford this amount you can go for funds or community grants that offer financial assistance to such daycare centers.
The prime requirements to start a daycare center are:
1. A solid business plan
2. A well-framed contract
3. A proper open space
4. Business registration and licensing
5. Art supplies and toys from an attractive interior
6. Outdoor and indoor play equipment
7. Cleansing supplies for maintaining hygiene
8. Food, bottle, cup, plates, etc
9. Business laptop and reliable transportation
There are three main options to start a daycare business:
1. Franchise: Though you miss out on the option of creativity, you receive instant credibility.
2. Buying an existing daycare center: It is really great to invest in an established center, but it comes with several clean-up works.
3. Start your daycare brand: If you are looking for creativity, then you must opt for your daycare brand. Though it is doable it is time-consuming.
Bottom line!
Starting your own business is always rewarding and if you love spending time with little angels, then nothing like it! Here in this article, we have laid down some basic guidelines to make your process easy. What are you waiting for? Get started with your dream project!
