About My Business
The Village Co is New Zealand's on-demand childcare platform - a two-sided marketplace that connects families with trusted, vetted sitters across seven cities. What makes us genuinely different is our approach to trust. We don't just rely on an algorithm. Our AI matching technology identifies the right sitters for each family, but every recommendation is reviewed by a human concierge before it ever reaches a parent. It's a combination we believe is unique in the childcare category globally - and it's why families choose us. We built The Village Co because modern parents are overwhelmed. Working out who to trust with your child - especially someone you've never met - is one of the hardest things a parent faces. We exist to take that weight off their shoulders, and to build something that actually earns the trust of New Zealand families. Beyond the platform, we operate B2B services for employers and hotels, and co-host the podcast Hot Messes, Big Visions - a weekly show for ambitious parents navigating the chaos of building a business and a family at the same time.
Why We Should Win The Peoples Choice Award
There's a moment every parent knows. You've got a work deadline, a meeting that can't move, a night out you desperately need - and you have no one to call. Not because you haven't tried, but because finding someone you actually trust with your child is genuinely hard. The options are either people you already know (and have already asked too many times), or strangers on the internet with a profile and a star rating and absolutely no guarantee. That feeling is what The Village Co was built to solve. We're a small New Zealand team - parents ourselves - and we've built a childcare platform that does something we believe no one else in the world does: our AI finds the right sitters, and then a real human reviews every recommendation before it reaches a family. Not an algorithm making a call. A person. Someone who has read the profiles, considered the fit, and said: yes, this is the right match for this family. We think that matters. Because when it comes to your kids, 'pretty good' isn't good enough. The Village Co isn't just about parents. It's equally about the sitters. The people who do childcare work in this country are skilled, caring, and almost entirely invisible. Most of them are women. Many are students, or parents themselves, or people returning to work. They're doing one of the most important jobs there is - and they deserve to be treated like professionals, paid fairly, and matched with families who are a genuine fit for them too. On our platform, sitters aren't gig workers. They're vetted community members with real profiles, direct payments, and a two-way matching process that considers their needs as much as the family's. We believe that when care workers are properly valued, everyone gets better care. We're still young. We're growing across seven New Zealand cities. We're building toward a future where finding trusted childcare is as simple as booking a doctor's appointment - where no parent ever has that desperate, sinking feeling of having no one to call. Voting for The Village Co means backing a small Kiwi business that is genuinely trying to change something hard and important. It means backing the parents who are exhausted and need support. It means backing the sitters who show up every day for other people's families and rarely get recognised for it. We'd be honoured to have your vote. And if you know a parent, a sitter, or anyone who believes New Zealand families deserve better - please share this with them. It really does take a village.
