Parenting Pointers: Finding Reputable Care

It can be challenging to find reputable, competent help for childcare and babysitting. Aladom.com is a free service anyone can use to connect those who search for a childcare service with childcare service providers. Unlike Craigslist, all service providers can be reviewed and rated.

Aladom was originally founded in 2007 in France by Guillaume Thomas, a father of 5 who found that searching for babysitters was unreliable and time consuming. After tremendous success in Europe, Guillaume and his 5 children moved to Florida in August 2012 to found Aladom in U.S. 

I was able to interview Guillaume for more information about the site.

1) What was the inspiration behind starting this site?I'm the father of 5 kids and I spent hours looking for nannies and babysitters. Also one summer we went on vacation with my wife's grand mother who needed special care. It also took us hours to find someone who could provide senior care. 

In 2006 Home services were promoted in France and I got the idea to launch a site dedicated to them. We launched aladom, the genie of home services, to find easily all type of services at home, provided by both individuals and companies. We first focused on France, then we opened aladom in other European countries and in 2012 we launched aladom in the USA and Canada. I moved in the USA with my family in July 2012.

2) How does the site stay free?

We touch a large audience: in Europe we have over a million visitors per month. 

We want the site to stay free because a lot of people can't pay to find a job and many people don't want to pay to find a service providers. You wouldn't pay to use the yellow pages. 

So we looked for other source of revenue: ads that are shown on the website and PREMIUM services sold to companies who want more visibility and more customers.

3) Why is it important for parents to use this site - what advantages does it have?

The biggest problem when you look for home service providers is to find people in your neighborhood. The word of mouths is still the best way to find a solution, but unfortunately people talk less and less to their neighbors. 

When you hire a babysitter, you don't want to drive 30 minutes to take her back home. Also if it takes your house cleaner one hour to come to your house to do two hours of cleaning there is a chance she will look for a job closer to her house. So the biggest advantage is that we allow to locate people nearby.

The second advantage is that every time there is a connection through our site, we ask for a review. This helps to promote the best service providers.

Also we encourage the service providers to give as much information as possible : picture, background, experience, diploma, prices...

4) How long does it take to use the site to look for a care provider?Aladom is really easy to use and our search engine allows to find the service providers quickly. If you don't find what you are looking for, you can post a job offer and receive contacts.

Since we just launched aladom in the USA, there are some areas where we don't have much answers, but we list several thousands of new service providers every month and we hope to cover all states soon. 

5) Is this site for occasional nights out, regular daycare, or both?

Aladom list service providers for all type of tasks at home : childcare, senior care, cleaning, handyman, tutoring, gardening...  Regarding child care we have baby sitters available for night and week-ends, we have full time nannies who can take care of the kids in their house or at the parents home, we have students who can take care of children after school... Some childcare providers also have some specialization, for child with disabilities for example.

Our goal is to propose solutions to all needs, whether people look for a baby sitter for a night out or for a full time solution to watch a kid when they work.