Today we’d like to introduce you to Amisha Sinha.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I spent 20 years in the corporate world working in various functions. I enjoyed it, did well and was not disgruntled, but a few years ago, felt like I needed to do something different to continue to challenge myself. My husband had been talking for some time about starting a business and we decided in early 2015 that it was a great time to take the plunge. We began exploring franchise opportunities and really fell in love with College Nannies, Sitters and Tutors. Unlike some of the other franchises we evaluated, this was one we could relate to on a deeply personal level. We ourselves had experienced the challenges and frustrations of finding reliable, quality child care when we both worked busy corporate jobs and our girls were little. I would have loved to have a service like College Nannies back then! And now that our daughters are teenagers and our older one is a year away from going to College, the tutoring side of our business is a service we utilize for our own family by having our tutors work with our daughters in subjects in which they need that extra boost and especially in preparing for the SAT! So I felt that we could build this business from a place of personal understanding and experience. As we did our due diligence and met with the Minneapolis based franchisor, I knew Dallas was a great fit for this concept and we chose to purchase the rights for pretty much all of Collin County (Frisco, Plano, Allen and McKinney) since that is the fastest growing area of the metroplex . . . and our home. We officially began operating late summer in 2015 and have never looked back!
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
I knew that the demand for the services we provide would be high in our area, but I did not anticipate how difficult it would be to find the supply to meet that demand. It’s a good problem to have for sure, but striking the right balance between demand and supply was quite difficult in the beginning. The challenge still exists, but we have come a long way and we are better about anticipating fluctuations. At the end of the day, we are in the people business and there is no perfect model or formula to predict human behavior so we have also learned not to take certain things personally which really helps us manage through those fluctuations.
Another struggle we have faced and continue to face is having the right office team in place to meet the ever changing needs of a growing business. Finding people who can deliver what is needed today and can also grow with the business to deliver what will be needed 6 months or a year from now is not always easy. People’s limitations come through when the business crosses certain milestones and we need those people to think and work differently. In the beginning I focused on hiring people with certain skills so they could hit the ground running and get things done. Now, I look for people with the right attitude knowing I can train them on the skills they will need to be successful.
Finally, being in business with your spouse can be challenging from the standpoint of consciously knowing when to turn off work and focus on home life otherwise work can and will consume you 24/7. That was our experience in our first year and we realized it when one day our younger daughter became very frustrated with us and told us that all we cared about was our “stupid business”. Talk about a wakeup call! Now, we have a general rule about not discussing work after a certain time on weeknights and only as needed on weekends. Being business owners, we can’t completely shut off during nights and weekends, but being disciplined about it helps us focus on the right things at the right time. I also try to be home when the kids come home from school so I can be attentive to them during that time and we eat dinner together as a family much more often than we did when I was in a corporate job.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
College Nannies, Sitters and Tutors offers two key services:
1. In home, customized child care. We help families find everything from full-time and after school nannies to occasional babysitters for date nights. We are very flexible and work with each family’s unique needs. We take care of all the recruiting, hiring, background screens, reference checks and training on the front end and on the back end, we handle payroll, insurance, workman’s comp, taxes, etc. That is the main thing that sets us apart from other services out there. We don’t just find you a nanny or sitter and disappear, our team works with our families for as long as they continue to use our services. This includes finding a replacement nanny (for no additional fees) if a family’s nanny leaves. You won’t find that anywhere else. Plus, we have a really cool app called MySitters that all of our families can use to book ad hoc babysitting, with the peace of mind knowing that every Sitter who appears on that app is employed by us and we have personally met, interviewed and trained every single one of them.
2. We also provide personalized one on one tutoring geared primarily towards middle and high school students as their subjects become harder (although we do help some older elementary students). We tutor in two areas – 1) subject specific school work which includes everything from Math and Science to English and History and 2) college test prep which is SAT and ACT tutoring. Because we only tutor students one on one, our tutors spend time going deep in the areas in which the student is struggling and work at the student’s pace until s/he understands the concept(s). We believe this model to be most effective and we have seen results in class grades going up 1 to 2 letter grades and/or students achieving their desired college test score for admissions or scholarship eligibility. We have two Learning Centers in the area, one in Frisco and one in Allen where the students come for tutoring.
Through these services, we help Build Stronger Families and I am most proud of the fact that we provide tangible benefits to families, whether it means that parents can go to work, run important errands, and go out for a much needed date or seeing their student achieve their full potential.
What were you like growing up?
I was quite nerdy growing up, very academically focused, not too many extracurricular activities. I was also quite shy. I had friends, but was definitely not the life of the party! I was fortunate to spend some of my formative years living in Europe and developed an interest in travel, languages and learning about people and different cultures. I went to an international school and had friends from all around the world. This helped me become more confident in my own skin.
I still lean on the introverted side of the scale, but these days I am closer to the middle and shy is probably not a word people would use to describe me.
Contact Info:
- Address: Frisco 4350 Main Street, Suite 145, Frisco, TX 75033
Allen 950 W Stacy Road, Suite 170, Allen, TX 75013 - Website: www.collegenanniesandtutors.com/friscotx or www.collegenanniesandtutors.com/allentx
- Phone: 469 312 5225
- Email: friscotx@collegenannies.com; allentx@collegenannies.com
- Instagram: cntcollincountytx
- Facebook: College Nannies, Sitters and Tutors, Collin County TX
- Twitter: @CNSTCollinCty
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