Great choice. Childcare availability is one of those problems that everyone knows exists, but very few people have systematic data on. That creates buyers well beyond parents.
I’ll break this into four parts:
- The non-consumer buyer universe (who actually pays)
- What decision each buyer is trying to make
- How you would package + price for them
- How to market and reach each buyer without sounding like a startup scraping daycare websites
This is the biggest, cleanest buyer class.
- Mid-to-large employers
- Employers with hourly workforces
- Employers competing for parents (healthcare, retail, tech, logistics)
- Benefits brokers advising employers
- Recruitment friction
- Retention risk
- Return-to-office feasibility
- Absenteeism tied to childcare gaps
“Do we need a childcare benefit, backup care, stipend, or partnership — and where?”
They don’t need lists of centers. They need coverage gaps by geography.
- Metro-level childcare availability index
- Waitlist severity by ZIP code
- Age-band availability (infant vs toddler vs preschool)
- Time-to-placement estimates
- $5k–$25k/year per employer
- Often purchased via HR consultants or brokers
These companies desperately need this data.
- Childcare search platforms
- Backup care providers
- Employer childcare benefit vendors
They already scrape, but poorly and inconsistently.
“Where should we recruit supply or launch next?”
- Supply-demand imbalance maps
- Waitlist heatmaps
- Provider churn signals
- Capacity expansion indicators
- $10k–$50k/year depending on coverage
- Custom feeds > dashboards
This one surprises people.
- Mixed-use developers
- Residential developers
- Commercial real estate planners
- Economic development groups
“Does this neighborhood support family growth?”
Childcare availability directly affects:
- Residential demand
- Lease velocity
- Tenant mix
- Childcare scarcity index by census tract
- Infant vs preschool availability
- Correlation with rent growth or churn
- Per-market reports
- $2k–$10k per study
- Often repeat buyers
Not fast, but credible and sticky.
- Departments of early childhood
- Workforce development agencies
- Economic development offices
“Where should we allocate subsidies, grants, or licenses?”
They often have licensing data, but not availability or waitlists.
- Gap analysis by ZIP or county
- Infant care shortages
- Impact modeling for new centers
- Pilot contracts
- Grants
- $25k–$100k projects (slow, but legitimizing)
These are indirect but powerful buyers.
- Workforce analytics vendors
- Staffing agencies
- Labor economists
- Employer advisory firms
“Why is hiring broken in this market?”
Childcare scarcity strongly correlates with:
- Female labor participation
- Shift availability
- Attrition
- Childcare constraint overlays
- Labor force participation correlation data
- Regional comparisons
You are not selling: ❌ “Here are daycare centers.”
You are selling: ✅ Childcare Availability Intelligence
Core metrics:
- Slots available by age band
- Waitlist length estimates
- Time-to-placement
- Seasonal pressure
- Supply growth vs demand growth
Output formats:
- CSV feeds
- ZIP-level heatmaps
- Monthly index updates
- Custom reports
This makes it decision-grade, not informational.
Childcare Availability Index
- City or metro
- Quarterly updates
- Public methodology
Target buyers:
- Employers
- Marketplaces
- Consultants
Price:
- $1k–$3k per metro
- Or $10k–$25k annual subscription
- Infant-only availability
- Employer commute-weighted availability
- Shift-worker availability (non-standard hours)
- New-center permitting velocity
“We measure childcare availability the way people measure housing or labor markets.”
Not:
- “We scraped daycare websites”
- “AI-powered childcare insights”
- HR benefits consultants
- Total rewards newsletters
- Return-to-office discussions
- DEI and caregiver-support forums
Content themes:
- “Why childcare is a hidden hiring constraint”
- “The ZIP codes where parents can’t return to work”
- “Infant care is the real bottleneck, not preschool”
Target:
- HR leaders
- Workforce strategists
- Benefits brokers
- Economic development professionals
Post formats:
- One metro per post
- One shocking stat
- One implication
Example:
“In Boston, fewer than 1 in 5 infants can be placed within 6 months of searching. That’s not a parenting issue — it’s a labor market issue.”
This is huge.
Potential partners:
- Employer benefits platforms
- Childcare marketplaces
- Workforce analytics firms
You become:
“The data layer they don’t want to build.”
- Policy briefs
- Whitepapers
- Quoted by local press
- Referenced in RFPs
This is boring but powerful.
-
Not crowded
-
Non-cyclical demand
-
Buyers already spend money adjacent to this
-
Clear expansion paths
-
Works as:
- Data business
- Lead gen for services
- Platform wedge
And critically:
It does not require changing behavior. It plugs into decisions people already make.
We can:
- Define the exact MVP schema
- Identify public + semi-public data sources
- Design the Boston-area pilot
- Draft a 1-page product brief for HR buyers
If you had to pick one initial buyer to optimize for:
- Employers
- Marketplaces
- Government
- Workforce analytics firms
Which one do you want to anchor on first?