Tl;dr- I want to open a home daycare in San Diego (HCOL) but it is VERY expensive to do. Is it worth it?
After much research of how much the rent would cost for a decent and qualified house/condo etc. in a decent area, plus the cost of hiring workers, even at minimum wage, plus the initial costs of buying all the necessary furniture, supplies, toys, etc…it’s veryyyy expensive. Between rent and paying other workers alone, I would need to make around at LEAST $12,250 a month. And since this would be my only source of income and you can have up to 8 children (depending on ages) that would mean each family would need to pay about $1500. Possibly, and most likely, more, because the rent that I factored in is the cheapest that I found. That’s if I could even get 8 kids. Would it even be worth it to try to pursue this? Thoughts/tips/advice?
I’ve found a version of this model that works stupidly well is to offer a daycare PLUS a gimmick to go along with it. A former client was making a killing at a gymnastics park and then added in a daycare program to the park. The same is true for a lot of martial arts studios, summer camps, and art studios.
If you can add an attractive value add to the daycare model you can not only charge more but you’ll scale faster, being able to hire more people.
Just a thought. Regular daycare programs are stupidly competitive and your minimum earnings is quite high. Once you get started, get the insurance and find the gimmick, the business builds itself and you can hire as you grow.