From pandemic pandemonium, local mom launches child care startup that has grown nationwide

It’s no secret that accessible and affordable child care is a constant struggle for Bay Area families. The pandemic only exacerbated the situation, leaving parents with fewer child care options while costs have escalated.

But for one Los Altos mom, the pandemic gave her an opportunity to rethink child care and develop a new approach that has since expanded to dozens of cities with thousands of moms participating in a home-grown startup called June Care.

“It’s a new platform that is a community approach to child care. So, you can think of it like an Airbnb or Uber for child care. We’re connecting parents who are looking for child care with stay-at-home parents who can care for their kid,” said Gretchen Salyer, June Care founder and CEO.

The idea of June Care began with a concept familiar to many families, the arrangement of neighbors and friends helping out with child care when needed. The idea to formalize this arrangement crystallized during the pandemic, after Salyer had just left a job in the tech industry and was a stay-at-home mom with three kids when the pandemic hit. As child care options disappeared overnight, Salyer offered to set up a local swap with friends.

The model worked, with everyone taking turns and having access to reliable child care a few hours a week, despite the mayhem of the pandemic. “We were just thriving because we were really living in community for the first time,” Salyer said, adding that the socialization was particularly beneficial for the kids, who viewed the arrangement as a series of playdates.

Looking to scale the model, Salyer posted the idea of the “care share” to some Facebook groups. The response was overwhelming, she said. Whereas before moms dropped off kids at homes with the expectation of a reciprocal exchange, they now started to set rates. That’s when things really took off, Salyer said.

June Care officially launched in 2021. It takes its name from Salyer’s oldest daughter, and also is an acronym for “Joining Up Neighbors Everywhere.” The model builds on what moms already are doing in their homes and leverages technology to match families needing child care with other families in their neighborhood, Salyer said.

As of now, June Care has about 25,000 hosts, all of whom are moms, although dads also are welcome to apply, Salyer said. Part of the success of the model is its flexibility and affordability. Hosts typically are hired by parents with hybrid or part-time work schedules who need a hand during the week but do not want to commit to full time contracts, Salyer said.

“It’s just a really incredible resource of moms helping moms. Also, their rates tend to be about half of what you would typically see from a nanny or babysitter in the area, just because they’re already doing this work,” Salyer said.

The flexibility of June Care is what initially attracted Sunnyvale resident Jessa Welsh to apply as a host. Welsh is a single mother to an elementary school-aged daughter and was looking to supplement her income. She also cares for her elderly father and needed a schedule that wasn’t tied to a 9-to-5 job. The opportunity for her daughter to play with other kids also attracted her to June Care, Welsh said

“On top of all of that, I have gotten to meet some really cool people and broaden my base of community,” she said.

The sense of community has expanded to other parts of the country too. Since the inception of June Care, many families using the service have moved out-of-state. But rather than abandon June Care, moms have introduced it in their new neighborhoods. Child care bookings have popped up in Las Vegas, Phoenix and Austin, Salyer said, adding that these became new markets for the company.

Since then, June Care has grown rapidly, with about 40,000 families using it nationwide. Expanding access to affordable child care communities is what drives the company, but its success is really based on moms helping out other moms. In the process, it also has broken down some of the barriers between working moms and stay-at-home moms, Salyer said.

“This model highlights and promotes the value of the work that moms do every day, which so often is unseen and unpaid. But now, because we are helping these stay-at-home moms get connected to other families who then actually use these moms to care for and help raise their children, it’s really shining a light on wow, these moms are incredible,” Salyer said, adding that they now are getting paid for it too.