When Noa was just 12 years old, she found that she had a knack for seeking out the best babysitters and nannies in her surrounding NYC neighborhoods. She also realized how crucial a nanny can be to a person’s childhood, and how important having a well-matched, skilled nanny really is.
Noa decided to create a service to help match nannies and babysitters with families in her surrounding NYC neighborhoods. The business quickly became impressively successful, especially considering Noa’s age. Families could now easily be matched with a babysitter or a nanny that would relate to their children and help to provide a good quality upbringing.
However, as in all businesses, there was a lesson here for Noa to learn. She was putting in 40-hour weeks in addition to being a full-time middle school student. Obviously, this was quite a struggle for Noa and she was finding herself struggling to find the time to keep both commitments afloat. As a result, she decided to bring in an expert entrepreneur with several decades of experience so that Noa could focus on school for the time being. She is still involved in the company, but is now not leading it, instead spending the time necessary on her schoolwork.
This is an excellent lesson: sometimes people bite off more than they can chew given their commitment levels and time. When this happens, it is important to find ways to balance work life with everything else going on. Noa could have continued to run her business, but it clearly would have been at the detriment of her schoolwork. She decided to prioritize her classroom education, and so found a way to be able to do that while still maintaining ties to her business. It would not have made sense for Noa to just decide to stop her business; after all, she had worked very hard on it. Instead, it made more sense for her to innovate and bring in an outsider to run the business and relieve stress from her. This arrangement allowed Noa to focus more on her schooling. In the future, she can go back to running the business if her priorities change, or when she graduates school and finds herself with more time on her hands. Noa’s story offers a fabulous lesson in priorities and decision-making.
This is a great post about a very interesting business idea. I also really enjoyed the part of the post about the need for balance between work and the rest of your life.
This sounds like a great business. I know it can be very hard for parents to trust a babysitter and find a great one for their kids. Especially in such a big city like NYC, this seems like an important business for parents in the area. I like how you included that Noa got help from an experienced entrepreneur so she could keep her business afloat while making time for her schooling.
I’m really glad this is a business. you always hear at least one horror story about a babysitter through out your life so having a business that takes care of the stuff parents are intimidated by saves a child from being traumatized.
This business is perfect for our world today. As for any company like this, i am sure that at the beginning this company it was difficult because they had no “street cred” with being a reliable source. A company like this, to be started by a middle schooler, really shows how mature and knowing of her surroundings this young girl really is.