How to Find Daycare Business Opportunities

You’ve had a great idea—to open a daycare business of your very own. You’re familiar with childcare, you love kids and all that comes with them, and you may even be educated in something surrounding child development or education. But, how do you find daycare business opportunities once you’re ready to get started?

It’s not as hard as you may think—you just need to know how to find daycare business opportunities in the easiest manner. There may actually be more ways to find those opportunities than you realize. Here’s what you can do: 

• Check out websites which post existing daycares for sale.
• Research daycare franchise opportunities.
• Conduct community research for starting from scratch with a daycare center.
• Look for a need in your neighborhood to start an in-home daycare.

In this article, we’re just going to go over some brief information about each of these so you know how you can figure out where the daycare business opportunities are in your area.

In the Beginning

You may not have any idea of what kind of daycare business you would be interested in starting. And the truth is, that doesn’t matter at this point. You’ve had an idea, now you need to give shape to that idea. You’ll do that with research.

You need to look into what kind of childcare options there already are in your area. From there, you can look into what the regulations and licensing requirements are in your city and state. These can vary across different regions, so check yours specifically.

Once you’ve discovered what businesses are already available for parents and their children who need caring for, you can identify any gaps in what is being offered. Then, you can start looking for daycare business opportunities in that area that will help you develop your own plan which will fill the gap you found in the market.

Keep reading to find out how to do that.

Existing Daycares for Sale—Check Out Websites

One opportunity that may exist in your area is there might be existing daycares that have been put up for sale. You could just be driving by one and see something indicating it’s up for sale. You may also just hear about it from someone in the neighborhood. However, there are websites that you can check out which will tell you what businesses are available for purchase in your city.

There are actually several websites specifically designed to help people who are looking to buy a business, as well as help the person trying to sell it. A few that you may want to check out include BizBuySell.com, LoopNet.com, and BizQuest.com. All three of these sites, along with some others, were created to help bring buyers and sellers together for the purpose of facilitating the purchase of a business. You can simply enter the type of business you’re looking for—daycare center—into the search and the website will pull all of the ones available in your area.

Daycare Franchise Opportunities

Most of us know what a franchise is. When you buy into a franchise, you are essentially buying an existing business plan that has been developed by someone else and has been proven to work. It takes some of the up front work out of it for you. Depending on which franchise you go with, you’ll be given guidance in varying levels for how to set up, operate, and account for your daycare business.

Below is a list of popular and successful daycare franchises from the United States.

• Goddard School
• Primrose Schools
• Kiddie Academy
• The Learning Experience Academy of Early Education
• Genius Kids
• Discovery Point

This is by no means a complete list, but these six are listed within the top 15 childcare franchises in the country, currently. After you look up what franchises are available in your region, you can simply go to the websites of those you are interested in and you’ll find a section about owning a franchise that will give you information about what steps you need to take, and how to contact the company with questions.

Starting a franchise is a great way to go in terms of things being easy to get off the ground. You get to benefit from a plan that already works. That being said, you need to go into it knowing that the benefits you get are going to cost you. Most franchises can’t be bought into for less than $60,000.

Community Research—Start a Daycare Center from Scratch

In the beginning, we said you needed to do some research before you decide on what type of daycare business you wanted to start. If you found that there is a need for more freestanding daycare centers that have larger capacities for children, then you need to do some intense research into the communities that you may want to locate your business in.

These are some things you want to know about the community before deciding if there is a daycare business opportunity in that area.

• Number of daycares in the area and their capacities
• Population statistics for child age groups
• Pricing for available childcare options
• Hours of operation of available daycares
• Demographics in the neighborhoods
• Average household incomes
• Largest employers in the surrounding area
• Licensing requirements and regulations for daycare centers

You’re looking for an opportunity here by trying to find a place for your business. If the community is already saturated with other childcare options and daycare centers, then it’s going to be tough for you to establish a new center that will be successful. You also won’t do very well in a community where most of the children are already of age to go to school. You need an area where there are a lot of younger families that have children under 5 years old.

Look for a Need to Start an In-Home Daycare

Similarly to researching your community for gaps and the need for a new daycare center, you can do the same to look for an opening for an in-home daycare. Many parents like to put their children in these kinds of childcare situations because they feel it’s more comfortable for the child and it’s usually closer to their own home. That means that the parents get convenience from this option.

You’ll be looking into the same things we mentioned above when you’re conducting your initial research. What’s different here is you also need to check with your HOA to see if there are any additional restrictions and regulations you should know about. The number of in-home daycares available in your neighborhood may not matter as much, either.

In-home daycares can’t take on as many children to care for. That means less availability. Even if there are already a few around your community, there is almost certainly going to be a need for another one if you live in a neighborhood with many young families. Finding out if there is interest for another in-home daycare in your neighborhood is as simple as just asking on neighborhood sites, such as NextDoor.com. You can also use other social media sites to find out what people around you think.

It’s Not as Difficult as You May Think

Finding daycare business opportunities in your hometown isn’t hard. The biggest piece of this is finding out what your community is in need of. Once you’ve done that, you can start looking for the answers for those needs. You can look into several websites to find existing daycare centers for sale, see what franchises are available in your area that you might like to buy into, research where there is a lack in childcare with many working parents of small children, and ask your neighborhood if there is interest for an in-home daycare where your HOA will allow it. You’ll find you can identify gaps in the market quickly so you can get on your way to filling those gaps with the daycare business of your dreams.

Some Related Questions

• How much does a daycare business make?

The average payrolls of daycare businesses varies based on what type of daycare you have opened. Small daycare businesses report an average payroll of around $50,000 for their owners in the United States.

• How do I market my daycare business?

You can do this in several ways. One, that doesn’t cost anything, is by using your social media accounts to your advantage. You can get the word out to thousands of people instantly by having a heavy presence online. That includes developing a strong website for your daycare business. You want somewhere online to direct interested potential customers to visit.

Other things you can do include hosting a community event, encouraging clients to refer people your way by offering them an incentive, keep yourself up to date on what’s happening in the community, and network as much as possible.

• How much money do you need to open a daycare center?

If you’re going to buy into a franchise, you’re going to be looking at anywhere between $60,000 up to $3 million. Starting an in-home daycare will be much cheaper. You may need to purchase some furniture or equipment and make some changes to your home, but usually you can start one for around $10,000. Starting a freestanding daycare center has a wide range of startup costs. You will have to research the specifics of that for your particular region.

Please note: This blog post is for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Please consult a legal expert to address your specific needs.

To find out more about your next step, checkout our startup course and documents here.