2007 May « Talking tech on Family 2.0 (a niche of Web 2.0)

Care.com – launches matching service for parents

Posted in Family 2.0 (full list), Family 2.0 Organize by family2point0 on the May 9, 2007

Care.com has just launched their Family 2.0 site, aiming to match families with ‘Care and Service Providers’ in areas or industries such as Childcare, Tutoring, Pet Care and Senior Care. Care.com has received a big sum of $3.5m in VC funding, from Matrix Partners. With the success and size of companies like, Sittercity and Babysitters.com, I am wondering how Care.com will differentiate itself?

Families can recruit care workers to look after their children, elderly, pets and tutors through one aggregated center on Care.com.

I wonder if there a special screening process and a way to find people you can trust, since this is such a ‘high touch’ and ‘emotional’ process of finding not only the most qualified but the most trusting, to look after your loved ones?

Personally, I have been duped pretty badly recently and also in the past. I do love it when I use a service where the due diligence of a care worker is done for me and often in a more rigorous and professional way. I often give up and wait for a referral from a friend I can trust.

I may be just a minority, as demonstrated with the success of sites like Sittercity and Babysitters.com and I have tried to find caregivers on these sites but never went through with it.

Personally, I really like using Caresquare.com (who launched last year and have blogged previously). Caresquare.com focuses on social networking amongst families, finding care providers that are referred by families in your network helping to surpass the first barrier of trust.

Having an eye for user interfaces, I was a little confused by Care.com as it did appear to have a similar color scheme and content placement as Caresquare.com, it maybe just a co-incidence and don’t want to put any noses out of joint. However, it was a very initial observation and one I couldn’t ignore.

It does appear that Care.com’s business model is working with the site already having,

‘…listings for thousands of caregivers. Marcelo said that for months her company has quietly posted advertisements on college campuses, and sent e-mails to prospective caregivers, urging them to sign up…’ The Boston Globe

It seems these days that you need a lot of money to advertise to grow your user and contributor base. I do wonder what neat technology features will be built into Care.com to drive more value to its member base to increase the life-time usage of caregivers and members coming back, once they have found someone. I do wonder where Care’s model fits in the scheme of Family 2.0 things – is it more towards a Seek.com, rather than a social network, like Caresquare.com, I ponder? The former is were the hirer has to do a lot of work to screen for the best candidate and the later, you rely on trust networks to validate your choice of a caregiver.

It is very interesting to explore, see which model needs to burn more cash and which model drives more targeted value to the end-user?

Okay, I’ll re-phrase…in response a comment just posted…

think you are missing the point. These four sites show that there is a problem in the states, and they should all succeed. There is no better model over the other. The market and need are so big – there won’t be a “single” model winning.

The state of care is in serious disarray in America. There’s no such things as a social safety net as in European and Commonwealth nations so please don’t talk about petty color schemes and nits about funding and distribution.

I was analyzing these sites within Family 2.0 as a model and technology. Okay, from a real market place, sure totally agree with you, for the greater good, I can’t say enough that I totally understand, and maybe I should have address the bigger issues. Thanks for highlighting your points. I just like a site to stand out, and stand up for what the site is really trying to achieve. Now I ‘get’ why, from your comment, don’t get me wrong, I wish all the best success for all sites I talk about. I find a passion in talking about new tech for families, not the bigger issues which I believe is very much covered in the blogospere, but will consider in the future

So, I did put a nose out of joint, fair enough, feel free to tell me more about this real issue, because in Australia we have major issues with our health care system, major issues and we are still having a major problem with our Medicare system (social safety net). People are dying on hospital beds in the hallways, back in Perth, on waitlist for emergency surgery, it is crazy. So I sympathize and understand.

Tags: family2.0, care.com

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Care.com – launches matching service for parents