What if dads could arrange a date night soup to nuts? Not just the dinner or movie, but the crucial part that allows it all to happen: the babysitter.
The ah-ha moment for Drew Chambers, our Lead Dad of the Week who last year moved from Dallas to Lincoln, Neb., was a football game. Nebraska vs. Michigan. His best friend flew in, and the two couples had big plans. Instead, he watched his wife scramble to find a babysitter after the one they had secured flaked at the last moment.
“It left me with a helpless feeling,” Drew said. “I wanted to share the burden of lining up childcare. Why should it fall on the mom?”
What came out of this was a side project to collect all the babysitters the couple had used into one place, and then publish their requests to all of them. If no one accepted, they offered more money. Or if they saw a babysitter available on another night, he moved their date to then. And so was born Sitter Sync.
Chambers is clear that he is not creating the Uber of babysitting; it’s more like Calendly. He is not opening it up so other couples can poach their most reliable babysitters so much as trying to create something where couples can upload all their sitters. Then either parent can book a sitter.
Why not just create a text chain? Drew hit on a sad, but true point: it can still be seen as weird, if not creepy, when a dad – i.e. a child’s parent – reaches out to a high school student to look after his kids.
“Asking the nursing student you meet at the club for her cellphone can be difficult for a dad,” Drew said. “Now she can scan a QR code.”
And he can own the task from start to finish. “Before I’d say, ‘Hey Betsy, I want to have a date night with you, and then my wife says, ‘Okay let me get a babysitter.’ The burden is on her to find the sitter. Now I can post a job and plan a date night and not be part of adding that burden to her.”
We love the idea, Drew. Welcome to The Company of Dads!
