Episode 3: Putting Your Story Front and Center with Time Out Sitters Owners Katie and Tiffany

Danny: Hey, Katie and Tiffany, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast. I, thanks so much for being here. I appreciate it. Of course,

Tiffany: Danny. Thank you for having us.

Danny: Oh my god, you were so right. Before we started, you were like, what happens if we talk all over each other? But here we are doing it.

Really though, like when we came up with the idea of this podcast, like you guys are like the first ones that I really thought of. I’d probably say that to like everybody, but I really thought of you guys. You really mean it. Yeah, I really mean it because when I met you it’s such an interesting, just like.

I don’t know. You have such a great perspective of this industry and of helping people for real. And you don’t think of it just as helping the families, but you also think of all the caregivers. And I remember talking And you telling me that, I was like, it’s scary. It must be scary doing like the shift job type, babysitting stuff.

And you were like, it’s an ecosystem. And I just [00:01:00] appreciated that so much. So could you actually tell me a little bit about the background of timeout sitters?

Katie: Sure. I’ll try to make it short. Cause I’m long winded, but I met a lady who actually started the company at a birthday party. And the first thing she said to me was, do you know anybody who wants to buy a business?

And it was one of those moments where I looked behind me are you talking to me or somebody else? Because I of course wanted to buy a business, like that’s who I am. And and so I called Tiffany immediately. I’m like, Hey. Listen, I found we’re going to get a business. Okay. And so fast forward at the time, my, my now 13 year old was one.

And so I wanted something to stay home with him. And and so it was just like, perfect, right? Like perfect timing for everything. And and Tiffany wasn’t as on board at first because she had two little ones. So it took a little convincing for her. And then she was like, okay, I’m in, let’s do this.

And but we should go back to Tiffany. I met when we were in sixth grade. And so we had been [00:02:00] trying to come up with a business for years of what we could do together. And we joked that we’re glad none of them worked out because it was like a cookbook and like a pet boutique and a baby boutique.

And just, Anyway, it all worked out the way that it was supposed to, right? So anyway so fast forward to, to, Tiffany comes in and we’re running this business together and it just, it was just the secret sauce was Tiffany and I together doing it. As our best friends running the business that we wish that we had when our kids were little, which we created what we needed, right?

We needed a break from our kids. We needed trusted caregivers vetted sitters and all of that, all of those things. So we basically just created what we wanted after we purchased the name and the website and the phone number and all of those little, Those little parts that came with it, but we say that we turn Time Out Sitters into what it is today by doing it together.

Danny: I love that. It’s like a Lucy and Ethel type of moment where you need each other to make it work. Tiffany, [00:03:00] is that how you remember it?

Tiffany: Yeah, yes. Yes. For sure. Katie had the guts to, to say, let’s go. And I was a little bit hesitant, but I’m glad that I, like she says, I came around and we are very much yin and yang.

We compliment each other for sure. Our personalities, while we’re, best of friends and get along on the personal level. And I think also on the business level, we really her strengths, pick up where I’m weak and vice versa. It’s

Danny: good. That’s great. And I’m thinking how Katie, you had just mentioned that someone was like, the woman that started this was like, would you like, who wants to buy a business?

And I feel like that’s probably a unique way to get into this business. When you say that other options were like a cookbook and baby and pet boutiques what is it that like, this agency spoke out to you that you were like, you know what, we’re going to pause on the recipes? Like, how did you go to [00:04:00] this one?

Katie: I think that It was just presented to me and I have a, my background is in hospitality management. I, my, my prior life to owning time out sitters was in event planning and working in hotels. I did wedding planning as well. So for me, I’m, I love to take care of people. I’m very service oriented.

Like if I could get paid to volunteer, I probably would really do that too, just because I love serving. And so this was a way for me to serve. Other moms other moms like me who still wanted to be able to do. To be more than just a mom. We wanted to, we love our kids and we want to be a mom, but we also wanted to be able to do other things.

And so this was a way for me to serve people in my community of, whether it was a date night or just lunch with friends any, that kind of thing that’s really, I think where it came from. And it was also at the time, a vehicle for me to be able to stay home because the thought of putting my child in daycare like I couldn’t sleep at night because of that.

And and so now I have three [00:05:00] children, 12 years into this, three children, and not one of them has ever been to daycare. And and that, that was, that’s been a lot of my motivation was to be home with my babies. That’s

Danny: awesome. That’s why, yeah, I love that none of your children have ever had to go to daycare.

This, what you wanted it to be is like serving that purpose, like purpose

Katie: for you. And then I think when, I’m sorry, let me interrupt you really fast. No, go for it. When I was starting and wrote the original business plan, my business plan was to have other moms be able to do this. with me. That was then my next goal was like, if I can stay home with these kids, Tiffany comes alongside me and our kids are still like our 13 and her almost 14 year old are best friends.

To give that gift to somebody else. And so what’s really fun is that just in the last couple of months, we have done that. And now we have Timeout sitters, Lubbock and timeout sitters, Austin. And we’re talking with two other ladies about other cities in Texas. So [00:06:00] it’s all coming full circle a little bit later than I wanted it to, but I think the timing is still perfect.

Tiffany: And these ladies they’re moms like Katie was saying, but they’re also ex sitters. They used to be sitters for timeout sitters years ago. So it’s really coming full circle.

Danny: Oh my goodness. We should bring one of them on the podcast too and ask them about this type of journey.

That’s. Really crazy. And it’s funny because like I knew that, but I didn’t know any of that backstory either. Like that these are moms, like I didn’t know how your expansion was happening. I suppose on that note, what do you think, if that was like part of your goal, like what took you so long to get there?

And I know that’s a crazy question because building an agency and running a business is giant. But what are like the roadblocks then in having a business that’s just like hard, like for you guys what is that?

Tiffany: I think one of our biggest roadblocks that took us so long to do it was technology.

We had custom software that was great but it was [00:07:00] just only for our market and it was hard to, expand that and to grow it. And now that we’re worth engine hire, it’s it’s not a click of a button, but it’s almost a click of a button, to get them in there and get their own portal and everything set up for them.

So technology has been a big reason why we were ready to do it.

Danny: That’s awesome. Kate, do you feel, is there other roadblocks that may be for you?

Katie: No, I think that technology really was the biggest because through the years we have had multiple people. Email us multiple clients email us saying, Hey, I used to live in San Antonio and I use timeout sitters.

You guys were lifesavers. I’m in X, Y, Z city now. And there’s nothing like this. Can I please open up timeout sitters? X, Y, Z, and we would always say weren’t ready because of the technology, the cost to get them where they need to be would have been a huge barrier of entry for them just because of the custom software that we had.

And and like Tiffany said, moving over to engine hire. I [00:08:00] just said to Tiffany the other day, should we reach out to some of these other people that contacted us over the years? Cause we, we’ve had like quite, I won’t not even just one hand, like two hands worth of people wanting to, open their own time out sitters because of the experience that they’ve had and the ease of the service and the quality of sitters, the dependability just everything about Time Outsiders.

They just love so much that they wanted to open their own, which, at the time it was like a stressful, Oh my gosh can we do this? No, we can’t. And looking back on it, it was such a compliment. Like that somebody would think so highly of what we have that they want to have their own, and it really is like a dream come true. 

Danny: Yeah. That’s insane. Actually. I think that so many people like Because you’ve cultivated them this like community, it’s so much deeper and running a business is really hard and you have people that were like, I would like to do this really hard thing under your umbrella.

How do we do that? So like from there, like, how do you [00:09:00] think that like you guys are able to create that sort of community? Why do people love you so much?

Katie: We’ve always said that we have two sets of clients. And it’s hard for, it’s hard for people to understand that because as a family, they think they’re the client, but really our sitters are also a client to us.

So we have, the sitters are our clients and the families are our clients. And we’ve always said it takes a very fine line of walking to keep them, everybody happy, right? Like it’s, you got to keep the sitters happy, you got to keep the families happy. And we’ve always just run timeout sitters with how we would want to be treated as a sitter and how we’d want to be treated as a family.

And if somebody had an experience that wasn’t what we wanted them to have, then it was how we handled it. The sincere apology of I’m sorry that you didn’t experience what you wanted, what you expected and how can we make that better and being open and talking to them is we’re moms.

We get it. We get that. You’re scared to leave your babies with somebody that you’ve never met. We get that. If your experience isn’t [00:10:00] what you expected to be that we want to make that better for you. Whenever somebody calls, our service, they will always talk to one of us. We own and operate it.

So we take care of our sitters. We send them birthday cards with the Starbucks gift card. We, and it’s a handwritten birthday card. We get together with them and meet with them and ask them what do you guys want to see on the technology? What do you want to see?

What do you wish a family would do? Or, we talk to them and we include them in in some of our decision making processes. But I think it’s really just how Tiffany and I have always stayed true to take care of the sitters, take care of the clients. And then everything should be a pretty okay.

You know what I mean? Like it’s not perfect. We’re not perfect, but we definitely, we make decisions based on how we would want to be treated. And I think that has been a huge part a huge part of it.

Danny: When it comes to things that you’re doing in that way, like what is it that you feel like you think about the most [00:11:00] as a business owner?

Tiffany: Good question.

Danny: I know.

Katie: For me, it’s probably, is everybody happy? Because that’s I’m people pleasing Katie. That’s just who I am. And if somebody’s not happy, then I can’t sleep at night. And I want to make sure that our sitters have as many jobs as they need to be able to pay their bills, because when we think about the number of sitters that we have, and how it sitters come back to us and say thank you so much For allowing me to go to college and work around my schedule and still be in a sorority and still get the grades I wanted, like they, they do, they’ll come back and say that to us.

And it’s wow, like that just makes my heart sing. That just makes me so happy to hear, because that is what I want. I want to make sure everybody’s happy. And when a client, submits a review that says that my child was sad when they woke up and there’s the sitter was gone. We want to have her back, like those are the things for me is.

Making sure that everybody’s happy. [00:12:00] That’s probably what I think about the most. That’s a great

Tiffany: answer. That’s a great answer. I don’t really know how to top that. That, that is like the perfect answer. I would also say making sure that, bills are being paid just like the logistics.

Like I always also think about how do I say this? Cause I want you to edit that out. I don’t want to talk about bills. Now I’m getting a hot flash. No, just like just the strategizing, where to come up with reaching new clients and strategizing, like, how do we, maybe connect with more churches and more events, like just growing the business.

I think that Katie and I both think about a lot just different strategies for doing that kind of stuff.

Danny: Yeah. I think you actually, I know we’ve, I don’t know how you want this now to go, but like with like bills and stuff, that’s something that everybody actually really, I think thinks about all the time.

And I think that you had enough courage to be like, we, I think about those, which is a totally legit thing to think about as a business owner. Cause I think that’s. There’s all these stresses. You s I guess is there a [00:13:00] way that you I guess there’s no other way for me to put this, but Tiffany, are you stressed out all the time?

Or are you do you have a zen way to deal with the stresses of having the business?

Tiffany: Oh, yeah. I think we compartmentalize things all, in our life all the time. That’s the healthy way of doing it. But the reality, you just keep your head down and work hard and take care of, like Katie’s saying, the balance of taking care of the sitters and the clients.

And you, I think you get what you give. I think if we put in hard work and and we’re giving out, kindness and fairness, then that should come back to us. I hope that’s the way it’s worked for over 10 years now. Yes, that’s

Danny: amazing. I wish I could compartmentalize things. Bad thing happened to me.

It like ruins my whole day or a good thing happens to me. It like makes everything else like crazy, like good Oh, I don’t care. Everything’s happy. I suppose where do you think? I suppose like you just actually just made a giant thing with expanding into these other markets.

So I was gonna ask you like, where do you [00:14:00] think like your business is headed? But maybe actually I should ask you rather What do you think the challenges are like with this new direction?

Tiffany: I think that growth can be slow, which I understand, like the nature of our service is built on trust and trust the family’s trusting a new service coming into town.

Like that takes a little bit of time to grow and And for families to be ready to sign up and go for it. We’ve opened markets before on our own and we understand that. And I think that’s not a bad thing. I think it’s, means you can really take, take your time to grit, to hire the right sitters and to really ease the family’s, minds and things like that.

And then build that community. So I think that, that can be a good thing.

Danny: How are you like finding the right sitters?

Katie: We interview them personally. So that’s part of our process. Our vetting process is that they are interviewed by [00:15:00] somebody. So they’re in San Antonio, they’re interviewed by me.

Lubbock, the Lubbock owner interviews them, Austin, the Austin owner will interview them. So it’s not just a sign up. I hate to say care. com on this podcast, but it’s not like a, it’s not like that where you can, anybody can just do it. Like you have to be, vetted, you have to be interviewed, and I think when a mom is interviewing somebody, and that’s part of it, is that we’re moms that own this, and the other owners are moms as well, that you’re thinking, would I allow this person into my home?

Do they, when they answer that question, do that seem sincere? Do they seem trustworthy? Would I leave my kids with them? All of those kinds of things. Those questions that on a personal level, it just now applies to all of our clients who, on a, you know, a bigger personal level, because I’m responsible for sending those people, those sitters into their homes.

So a lot of our sitters are referred to us by each other which is in San Antonio, in these new markets they’re going to the colleges. College students are [00:16:00] obviously the best people that we Confined for this sort of a job where we can work around your schedule. You most likely that’s probably one of the only jobs you’ve had when you get to college has been a babysitter, most of the time, unless you’ve worked in retail, that kind of thing.

So really it’s just a mom. Interviewing on behalf of a bunch of other moms is how we find the good ones. And we don’t hire every single person that we interview.

Danny: Which is hard

Katie: too, because you have to tell them, sorry, but we don’t want you,

Danny: That is so amazing that, just like that thought, like that’s so mind blowing to me, where you’re like, it’s moms interviewing on behalf of other moms.

And that’s like the wrap it up in a bow thing of wow, I can’t believe that. Because actually, I always think about what is, is it really that hard to find? And I think it actually is, but I’m thinking like, as a parent, is it really that hard to find someone to watch your kid?

Like what, how do you like explain when someone asks you like, is this like right for me? Who, I guess who are the parents that are reaching out? Who is that market? [00:17:00]

Katie: New parents moving into town that don’t have family, that don’t have friends, that don’t know anybody that are like, I need a babysitter.

So they find us, other moms that use us on Facebook groups, they’ll post about us. Hopefully in a Google search we pop up pretty high, so that way they can find us. But yeah, I think it’s moms that are, that are either at their wits end because I need a break. I really need timeout, which is where timeout sitters came from was for when parents need timeout.

That, they’re, they know, then they read about us, they see our name enough to know that. Okay. A lot of people have used them around the city that they’ve got to be trustworthy. We can also trust. But then I think also how our onboarding process with the family works is, they get a welcome note from us.

They get they get emails from us that the way with engine hire to sign up is super easy and they can sign up and book a sitter and get confirmation within the same hour. And that, yeah. Hello. The option, the other option is like babysitters club style, where you have a list in your phone of all these babysitters and you have to go through and text all of them, are you [00:18:00] available on this day available, wait for them to respond and hope that one of them is really going to show up and, the alternative to finding a sitter.

It’s like when online grocery shopping first started, right? Like nobody, no, I’m not, nobody’s going to pick up my produce for me. I’m doing it myself. And now I’m like click. And I go pick up my order. It’s I think once you see how easy it is and realize that it is owned by local moms that are involved, that eases a lot of people’s minds.

Tiffany: Yeah. And there’s so many benefits, like not having to negotiate rates with the sitters policies, like if the family cancels or the sitter cancels, or, who’s being, how are they being taken care of if you’re, if your sitter calls in sick or no shows or whatever, like we have a pool of other sitters that can step in and take over for a sick sitter.

I think that some people see the value of that and in a service like timeout sitters.