A group of teenagers from Sacramento have built an app called NannyMe with the goal of helping parents find teen babysitters for their children.
St. Francis High School senior Annie Randle, who created NannyMe with her brother, Jake, and friend Christian Burnham, said the app benefits both parents who need someone to look after their kids and babysitters looking for a job they can do around studying, playing sports and volunteer work, according to The Sacramento Bee.
Jake, 16, said the original name for the app was BabysitMe, but the team believed "nanny" did a better job at representing the service they wanted to provide.
"We strive for our sitters to be more like nannies," Annie, 18, said. "They're not sitting on a couch, texting on their cellphone while the kids are doing who knows what. They're interacting with the kids, and they're playing outside with them. They're constantly on their game."
The teens didn't have any experience in app building, so they decided to hire an app developer to make their business a reality, The Sacramento Bee reported. They found out that this would require tens of thousands of dollars. Annie said the team presented their business plan to different investors in Sacramento. She said they heard "No" from everyone they met, but they kept going until they managed to raise $20,000, some of which was their own money, and hire Rocklin-based Microsan Consultancy Services.
Parents who use NannyMe pay $12 per hour for one child, $15 for two to three and higher for more kids. The app accepts credit card and PayPal, and it pays for arranging the service and covers credit card fees and taxes with a percentage of the fee. Sitters won't have to pay a fee to do a job.
NannyMe has so far obtained 50 families as customers and 30 approved babysitters, The Sacramento Bee reported. Burnham and the Randle siblings plan on expanding the service across Sacramento and eventually to other parts of the U.S.
"When Christian and I go off to college, we'll be looking to take the business with us and expand it in new cities," Annie said. "We're looking to franchise the business, and we hope our nannies who are also seniors will take it with them so we can expand the NannyMe app in cities where they go to college. We'll expand it that way, city by city."
