If there’s a classic entrepreneurial story, it starts with taking who you are and what you know, and spinning those threads into gold. Lisa Skillman’s story is precisely one of these—and perhaps it’s for that reason that she radiates knowing what she’s about.
She started babysitting at the age of 15, and nannied on the side throughout high school and college. Her interest in business and marketing led her to earn a Bachelor’s degree in those subjects in 2005, and after working a few years, she realized she loved working with children and returned to school for a Master’s in Teaching.
Nannying full-time for a Keswick family, she often accompanied them to big social functions with many children present, and found herself thinking, “Who watches these kids at events?”
It was then that an idea that would combine all her interests and skill set came to her: why didn’t she start a nannying business specifically for these events?
To bring that idea to fruition, she participated in Charlottesville’s 17-week Community Investment Collaborative, and six months later, the Local Nanny Network was up and running.
“It really just kickstarted me,” she said of the CIC program. “They taught you everything.”
The Local Nanny Network will celebrate its second birthday in January. Now with a team of twenty nannies and weddings most weekends in the summer, it’s certainly grown a lot but is also looking to expand. And it seems, in a town with 6,300 weddings a year and 180 different venues, she’s picked the right place to start a wedding-related business.
“Getting on the bridal checklist … that’s my goal,” she said. People think about flowers, cakes, photographers, and so on when planning a wedding, but not usually childcare. She aims to change that, and have her service in its own right become a part of the wedding planning process.
As she explained, offering onsite childcare really opens up possibilities for out-of-town guests with kids to attend or even be in their friends’ weddings.
“What are you going to do with the baby while you’re in the wedding?” she asked, referring to a scenario she’s actually seen before where both parents were in their friends’ wedding. “Or what happens to the ring bearer and the flower girl after they’ve done their job?” she asked. “The parents can’t enjoy the wedding at all—they’re stressed out. … I’ve seen it a million times at my friends’ weddings.”
The purpose of onsite childcare is to take away that stress so that parents can relax and enjoy themselves at the party—and she wants guests to know about the service by getting the bride to know about it and even print something about it on the invitations.
“We’re creating a whole other category in the wedding industry,” she said.
In the coming months, she hopes to expand the service to hotels and other large events, and perhaps even to other cities, as the wedding season generally only runs from April to November in Charlottesville.
She said doing the i.Lab has been useful in “helping me figure out ‘the plan,’” especially when it comes to mentorship and connections. “All three of my mentors are amazing,” she said.
“It goes in a different direction than you originally planned on,” she said of the process of developing her venture. But that’s okay—even good. It seems to be generally how this enterprise thing works.
