A recent sitter social (speed dating for parents and sitters) in Hoboken
South Orange and Maplewood parents in need of sitters — and sitters in need of employers — will experience a whole new way of finding each other this March 10 in South Orange.
That’s when Sitterfied — an online service that has been matching recommended sitters with parents in Hoboken, Jersey City and Manhattan — will host its inaugural SOMA sitter social beginning at 7:30 p.m. at Work and Play on Prospect Street.
But first: Just what is Sitterfied and what brought it to Maplewood and South Orange?
Former Hoboken residents and friends James Nanscawen and Andy Lewisohn started Sitterfied when their young families were new and they and their wives were overwhelmed with trying to find the right babysitter.
“Other than digitizing the classifieds or selling access to online profiles, the babysitting space hadn’t evolved much” said Nanscawen, Sitterfied’s CEO. “As new parents, my wife and I relied on our friends. We’d text friends for the names and numbers of babysitters then call each sitter to introduce ourselves and see if they were available. If they weren’t, we’d go back to the well and ask other friends about their sitters. And on it would go until we either found someone or gave up in frustration.”
Nanscawen and Lewisohn soon recognized an opportunity. Lewisohn, who is Sitterfied’s Chief Technology Officer, explained it this way: “The babysitting marketplace has been incredibly inefficient. There’s this huge demand for trustworthy babysitters and a large supply of great babysitters but no mechanism to quickly match one with the other. Finding a sitter through a friend is the most common way to find a reliable match but it was all happening offline. So, we brought it online.”
“The highest recommendation we can think of is one that comes not just from a fellow parent, but from a friend,” said Lewisohn. “On Sitterfied, when one of your friends has hired a sitter and recommends that person to others, that connection and recommendation will show up in your searches.”
Recognizing the difficulty of attracting parents without sitters and sitters without parent, Nanscawen and Lewisohn answered the problem by establishing monthly ‘sitter socials’ at every newly launched market. A sitter social is like speed dating for parents and babysitters — rapid-fire interviews lasting two minutes, rotating to the next person in line.
“Within 40 minutes, each parent will build an entire team of trusted sitters and they’ll have fun doing it. Parents find sitters, sitters find work and we sow the seeds for a thriving new market. Everybody wins,” said Nanscawen.
(front, left to right — James, Elana, Dana, Quinn and Andy — back, left to right — Ethan, Alex and Chloe)
Recently, both Nanscawen and Lewisohn and their families have relocated to South Orange and Maplewood where they have been eager to launch Sitterfied. Nanscawen is father of 7-year-old Chloe and 6-year-old Ethan and lives in Maplewood with his wife Elana. Lewisohn is dad of 3-year-old Alex and 9-month-old Quinn and lives in Maplewood with his wife Dana. Partnering with Work and Play, Vanessa Pollock’s KW realty team and Diapers.com, they’re starting with the sitter social on March 10.
While the parent portion of the March 10 sitter social is fully subscribed, Sitterfied is looking for more sitters. Interested professionals can RSVP to Sitterfied’s sitter social events at www.sitterfied.
Bummed that you can’t join in the sitter social this month? Never fear: Sitterfied will be holding the free sitter socials monthly at Work and Play.
In addition, you don’t have to wait for a sitter social to get started: Anyone (parent or sitter) can join the website (www.sitterfied.com) for free at any time. Once you’re on, Sitterfied has a website app to deliver the sitter booking experience on the go. A new feature of the app enables parents to text their job request to a dedicated Sitterfied number. In turn, Sitterfied will blast that job request to the parent’s sitter team and text back a confirmation when the job has been filled.
“This turned out to be a better solution than building a native mobile app,” said Nanscawen. “There’s no app to download, nothing to log into and text is already the number one communication tool for moms. It has been a well-received feature among our beta group and we’re sure to see this grow in popularity among our other users.”
Currently, all of Sitterfied’s services are free — the sitter socials, the website, the app. Eventually, Nanscawen and Lewisohn will implement a business model that entails online payments for jobs performed, i.e., parents supply a credit card and the job is automatically paid at the end of the job, with Sitterfied taking a cut of the transaction.
Meanwhile, the two dads are self-financing — with a little help from a Parentpreneur Grant that they received through The First Years (a manufacturer of kids products).
The two are confident that their model will be successful, judging from the response in Hoboken, Jersey City, Manhattan and now South Orange and Maplewood. “Although the role of parent and entrepreneur have conflicting priorities,” said Lewisohn, “we’re confident that we can be successful in both without sacrificing one over the other.”
Have questions about Sitterfied? Contact hello@sitterfied.com.
