A little over a year ago on a quiet Saturday morning in November, a post in a local mom group went crazy with comments. See, this mom was frustrated that there was no where for her active but not yet walking infant to play safely. My daughter is almost a year older than her son but had just learned to walk and didn’t think much of shoes at the time so we were also in the same situation of not being quite ready to go full out at the park. There were so many opinions about why Tallahassee doesn’t have this and what alternatives you could go to were. After reading this post, I just could not get out of my head that this was something I could do. I knew I was looking to transition out of teaching and had become a Certified Lactation Counselor a few months before but it is hard to make a living in just private practice doing that in Tallahassee. My passion had becoming helping moms and I could envision this place space that also offered classes that could be a resource to new moms and also provide fun things for young kids to do.
During the last year we fleshed out our concept, sought out industry specific business coaching, visited many spaces in two states, and really thought about who we were and what our concept was. When the last school year ended, I started working on our business full time looking at spaces, meeting with our local SBDC for help with financial projections, and getting funding. In August I made a complete leap of faith that we would pull everything together and turned down multiple teaching jobs. We negotiated our lease later that month and have been moving full steam ahead. Our biggest slow down has come from waiting for permits but we are finally on the last phase and should have them within a couple of days and begin our construction. I am confident in our contractor and the team he has assembled to build out our project as fast as possible.
During our year of planning, some key details have been very clear to us about what kind of space we want to build. Community is a clear focus for our space, with seating for groups during play dates and group meet ups (if your kids let you sit down) and events in our calendar specifically for bringing together families to meet and play. Unique classes are another huge feature. Some of our classes are things not offered in town, some are coming to a single location and the east side of town for the first time, and all of them will hopefully fill the needs of parents all the way from the prenatal stage through the preschool years. Our classes can be taken individually or bundled together at a huge discount with our all inclusive monthly membership. Another main focus for us was of course our play space. Our space will feature an indoor playground set from Cedarworks, sensory walls, a sensory room, Montessori inspired and imaginative play centers, and a Wonder Weeks inspired set of newborn/early infant toys. You can read more about why a sensory room is important to us here. We also plan to offer the best place in town for a 1-4 year old’s birthday party and host many fun events in our space.
From the very beginning we planned to do a Kickstarter. We think it is a great way to give our early customers a chance at exclusive discounts and offers and also to build community excitement over our project. We did not do one earlier in the process because we wanted to guarantee our space would happen before we asked for anyone’s money. We have the budget to complete everything, however as with all new business openings our budget is tight. The goal of our Kickstarter is to help us comfortably be able to build our sensory room and furnish it will great things. Additional funds will go toward upgrading community seating, technology for the check in process, and building a baby carrier try out/lending library. Everything we do is being offered at 20-40% off and bundled with a exclusive offers like our Kickstarter shirt that gets you a free snack every time you wear it in forever.
Why are we doing a Kickstarter and why should you be excited?