Leaving a child with someone else asks for an extraordinary amount of trust. Families often spend far longer deciding who than when, searching for the kind of confidence that rarely comes from scrolling through profiles alone. PaigeKares grew from that reality, bringing together personal referrals, thoughtful vetting, and technology that helps families and caregivers build lasting relationships. But for founder and CEO Paige Kaye, this was never just a business idea. It was a calling she had been living for over a decade before she ever wrote a line of code.
“I lived on both sides of childcare,” she says. “As a sitter, I knew what it felt like to show up with your whole heart and be treated like a commodity. As someone who grew up watching families search for care they could truly trust, I knew there had to be a better way.”
Learning to Lead Early
As the youngest in her family, Paige spent her childhood wanting to be one of the big kids. That longing found its outlet in caring for younger children, and by nine years old, she was already babysitting for family friends. She laughs that earning money had never been the point.
“I started babysitting because I genuinely loved being around younger kids,” she says. “I wanted to nurture them, play with them, help them learn. Later I realized I should probably be charging for this.”
When she did begin earning income, Paige did something most teenagers don’t: she invested it. Those early investments in the stock market would eventually become the capital that helped her bootstrap PaigeKares. Her father was an entrepreneur, and the instinct to build something of her own was always there. She just hadn’t expected it to arrive so soon.
“I always thought I’d work in venture capital first,” she says. “Instead, I found myself solving a problem I’d lived for more than a decade. Everything I learned as a caregiver shaped everything we built.”
Thirteen years of caring for children gave Paige a front-row seat to the moments that often go unnoticed, from how children communicate when they feel safe to the difference one consistent and trusted adult can make, and how devastating it is when that trust is built on luck rather than intention.
Paige Kaye, Founder/CEO
Turning Trust into Technology
The pattern Paige kept seeing was always the same. Parents turned to neighborhood groups, text threads, and personal recommendations because existing childcare platforms rarely inspired the confidence they needed. Word-of-mouth referrals worked, but finding them remained frustratingly inconsistent. “We didn’t invent trust,” she says. “We digitized it.”
PaigeKares is an exclusive, admission-based childcare marketplace. Families and sitters don’t simply sign up and browse. Both are personally reviewed and approved before they ever enter the platform. Artificial intelligence supports intentional matching behind the scenes, guided by proprietary childcare best practices built from Paige’s years of lived experience. Every match considers personality, developmental stage, family dynamics, and individual needs, not just availability.
“Our job was to preserve what already worked while making it scalable,” she says. “Technology should strengthen relationships, not replace them.”
What sets PaigeKares apart is who it was built for. Every other childcare platform builds for families. PaigeKares builds for both sides because Paige knows what it means to be the sitter. College students joining the platform find far more than babysitting opportunities. They receive training, mentorship, professional development, and financial literacy, with skills that can serve them long after graduation.
“When caregivers feel valued, children benefit,” she says. “We built for both sides because lasting relationships only happen when everyone involved feels genuinely supported.”
Knowing When to Scale
For years, PaigeKares ran on little more than Google Voice and a spreadsheet. Families kept returning. Sitters stayed loyal. Referrals spread without a single marketing campaign. The waitlist kept growing, not because of advertising, but because of trust. “The thing holding PaigeKares back wasn’t demand,” she says. “It wasn’t supply. The constraint was me.”
Every match, every vetting call, every late-night message flowed through one person. The process validated the concept while revealing exactly what needed to change. Scaling meant encoding 13 years of childcare judgment, care, and proprietary knowledge into a platform that could grow without losing what made it special. “The tipping point wasn’t a moment of inspiration,” she says. “It was a waitlist that wouldn’t stop growing.”
Building the Future of CareTech
PaigeKares is creating a new category called CareTech, a trust infrastructure for childcare that has never existed before. As the platform expands across the DMV and beyond, Paige envisions a community ecosystem where college students gain meaningful professional experience, neighborhood businesses become local partners, and families build lasting bonds with caregivers who are invested in their children’s growth and development.
“We’re building infrastructure for trust,” she says. “When families know the person walking through their front door has been intentionally matched and genuinely prepared, everyone benefits. Children receive better care, caregivers develop real skills, and communities grow stronger.”
Ask Paige what success looks like, and she doesn’t mention downloads, user numbers, or growth targets. She talks about children who found a trusted adult, sitters who discovered their professional confidence, and families who stopped searching because they finally found someone they could truly trust.
“We’re not simply connecting families with sitters,” she says. “We’re building trust, strengthening communities, and shaping future generations, one #karing relationship at a time. We put #kare before profit. Always.”
