The search
Our first was born at the end of 2022. We'd joined three or four Charlotte daycare waitlists when my wife was two months pregnant. Five months after the baby arrived, more than a year after signing up, we still hadn't heard back.
A solo nanny ran about $25 an hour then. A nanny share made more sense: two families, one nanny, kids together. In our first share each family paid $15 an hour and our nanny made $30, more than she'd earn with one family.
Finding one was the hard part. We live in Plaza Midwood, so we needed a family close by (Plaza Midwood, NoDa, Elizabeth or Chantilly) with a child within a couple of months of ours. Under six months, even two months apart is a big gap.
What I tried
I made a profile on the big childcare sites. On one, I listed our child and was flooded with messages I couldn't answer, or even check were nearby, until I paid a fee up front. It felt like posting my kid as a job ad. On another, profiles looked stale, and nobody I messaged wrote back.
The local nanny Facebook groups had real, active people, so I'd Ctrl+F through months of posts for "Plaza Midwood", baby ages and rates. I messaged a dozen or more people. None of it worked.
What did work was word of mouth. My wife posted in a small neighborhood group, a family nearby reached out, and we shared a nanny for over a year. We're still close friends. For our second, we shared with college friends who had a baby around the same time. I think that's how most shares happen: through neighbors and friends of friends, after a lot of asking around. If you don't have that network, you're stuck.
Why references matter
During our second search, we found a nanny who looked perfect on paper. One call to a reference revealed something serious that nothing on her profile would have shown us. We were shaken. It's why I care so much about recommendations from real families.
What I built
About 18 months ago, on paternity leave with our second, I started building what I'd wished we had: a way to find the family down the street who needs a share too, and the nanny for both of you.
I work in tech, and I know a product has to be easy and intuitive or nobody comes back. Most of my time went into two things. The first was the share itself, which is harder than it looks. Some families are starting from scratch. Some already have a nanny and need a second family. Some are two friends who need a nanny. Each one needs its own path, and making every path feel simple was the hardest part of the build.
The second was the design: something like Airbnb meets Zillow, because finding care is about who's close by, and shares only work long-term when families live near each other.
It works the way I wanted as a parent: families make the first move, so your child is never a job posting; addresses are never shown; and nannies earn more in a share, with families coming to them.
I'll be on it too
Our third arrived this summer. My wife goes back to work in February, and we'll be looking for a share in Plaza Midwood, on NannyFinder.
Questions? Email me at hello@nannyfinder.io. — Dallas
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P.S. Why a squid?
A funny name like "squid" (it rhymes with kid) stuck with me long before NannyFinder existed. The more I thought about it, the more it fit: eight arms (and two tentacles for emergencies), all the extra hands a family needs to juggle parenthood. That's what a great nanny is.