What Shutting Down Your Startup Feels Like - Avni Patel Thompson of Poppy with Kat Manalac

TL;DR

Avni Patel Thompson shut down her childcare marketplace Poppy after three and a half years because the unit economics did not improve with scale, despite proving demand and building a successful local service.

Key insights

• Childcare is an inherently margin-challenged category; the gap between what parents can pay and what skilled caregivers need to earn leaves little room for a marketplace margin.
• At small scale (10 bookings/week), the founder knew every caregiver personally, which created a high-touch value proposition that eroded as the business scaled to hundreds of caregivers.
• The business unearthed supply (e.g., dancers, students, stay-at-home parents) that was not on existing platforms like Care.com, proving that desirable caregivers existed in communities, but the transi